WORDS • DAMIAN QUIGLEY
It’s just after 5 a.m. and I awake to the sound of tent zippers. I roll over and peek out of my sleeping bag, attempting to spot which one of our crew is the first to emerge. It’ll still be another 45 minutes before the sun comes over the horizon and there isn’t quite enough light to make out who it is, but, whoever it is, I hope they’re making coffee.
We’re camped about a dozen miles outside of Fruita, Colorado. Here, under the towering Book Cliffs that line the northern side of the Grand Valley, sprawls the North Fruita Desert. Also known as “18 Road”—named after the route from town—it’s a unique span of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) acreage that boasts a spacious campground with flowy mountain biking trails that snake their way down and around. Well-known trails like Joe’s Ridge, Kessel Run and PB&J offer fast and fun laps that you can ride straight from your campsite, railing turns until your legs are jelly.
Sitting just four hours from Denver and five from Salt Lake City, 18 Road, along with the greater Fruita and Grand Junction Area, are ideal locations for mountain bikers who want to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Mesa County was once known mainly as a fruit-producing region of Colorado, but the area started to come up in the mountain biking scene back in the early ‘90s thanks to the formation of the non-profit Colorado Plateau Mountain Bike Trail Association (COPMOBA), which has been building and maintaining trails, and advocating on behalf of riders since 1989. In 1995, local residents opened Over the Edge Sports—now a staple bike shop in Fruita—and started organizing mountain bike events that would nurture one small town’s mountain biking community into one that’s known across the country.
After a much-needed cup of joe and a light breakfast, we mount our two-wheeled steeds and pedal a few short minutes from our campsite to the top of the ridgeline overlooking campground. With the sun about to crest horizon, the air is still and we enjoy a serene moment on top before dropping into a lap on Joe’s Ridge. A fan favorite here, this trail flows beautifully through the desert landscape, with sweeping ridgeline corners that eventually drop you into a set of poppy little jumps toward the bottom. You can’t help but grin, ear-to-ear, the whole way down it. Well, at least I can’t.
We take a few laps on Joe’s before moving one ridge to the west, to a trail called Zippety Do Da, for a longer lap with less jumps and more undulation. By the end, the sun is high in the sky and temperatures start to soar. Spring and fall are ideal times to visit Fruita and the Grand Junction area thanks to milder temps, but even in those months it’s best to find some shade during the midday hours.
As mountain bike tourism has grown in the area, businesses have popped up to accommodate the influx of eager visitors. One local spot that stands out amongst the crowd is the now-famous Hot Tomato, where we’re on our way for lunch. Opened by mountain bikers Jen Zeuner and Anne Keller, it’s been described as the living room for Fruita’s mountain bike community—but it’s far more than a comfy place to catch your breath. The food (read: pizza) is second to none in the Rocky Mountain West. Specialty pies galore are complemented by an extensive selection of New Belgium beers that can be enjoyed under the shade of an umbrella on the back patio for a near-perfect lunch or dinner experience.
Venturing outside of Fruita you’ll find an extensive list of trails just a few miles East in Grand Junction, or west toward Loma. The Grand Junction Area is best known for its Tabegauche Trailhead, or “Lunch Loops,” as they’re affectionately known. Unlike the flowy trails of 18 Road, these trails boast technical, rocky descents along with drops and jumps to get your freeride fix. It’s a veritable playground that riders can spend days exploring and re-lapping. Up top you’ll find the Ribbon Trail and it’s unique, massive rock slab riding where you can go as fast as you trust yourself to before dropping into downhill-specific trails like Free Lunch and Pucker Up. The latter trails aren’t for the faint of heart, but they’re sure to get the blood flowing, if that’s your flavor.
One of COPMOBA’s first initiatives upon formation was an ambitious one: building a 138-mile trail that linked Loma, CO with the biking hotbed of Moab, Utah. While a 100+ mile ride is clearly not an afternoon mission, the Kokopelli Loops that were developed around the trail’s starting point in Loma are an great place to spend your waning hours of daylight. A relatively easy climb up doubletrack from the trailhead gets you looking down on loops like Steve’s and Horsethief Bench, the latter of which sports a hairy entrance known as the “Staircase.” While most opt to walk down some or all of this portion of the trail, it’s an impressive feat to watch, if you happen to stumble upon a brave rider willing to take it on. And it’s well-worth the effort, as you’re rewarded with a flowy, four-mile loop that takes you out to the rim of the canyon and offers unobscured views of the Colorado River as it flows westward alongside the Kokopelli Trail.
Thoroughly exhausted after riding three zones in one day, we bomb back down the singletrack to our trucks, and perhaps more importantly, to our coolers. We devour the food we have left: chips, fruit, granola bars; nothing stands a chance. We talk about our day’s riding and head back toward the campsite to settle in for some much needed rest. As we crack some beers a few feet away from the warmth of the campfire, we soak in a clear view of the Milky Way overhead. We’ll be heading back to Denver tomorrow but for now, we feel a million miles away.
