Riding Recommendations for Breck and Steamboat

[Roxtar]

These are two of the areas Mr & Mrs Roxtar plan to hit in our 2 week tour this summer.
Missus is a very fit, solid intermediate who is comfortable dropping single black trails. Likes tech, hates exposure.
Planning on 2-3 days at each destination.
What are some recs from those in the know?

[Jtlange]

I have really enjoyed the trails above Breck called "The Whole East Side". Pretty solid day of riding. Descending Sidedoor and Aspen Alley are a hoot, but be warned there are a ton of hikers on AA all the time so its best as a weekday ride I think. Otherwise when its clear, Georgia Pass decent is highly praised by a lot of my fit friends.

edit link

https://www.mtbproject.com/trail/703...hole-east-side

[skaredshtles]

If you can sort a shuttle the Rabbit Ears -> Mt Werner is a good long-ish ride. We added in Pete's Wicked at the end then rode one of the bike park trails to the bottom.

Emerald Mt (west side of downtown) has a bunch of options which are fun.

Breck/Summit has a metric shit ton of singletrack. Out and back to Searle Pass from Copper is a great ride. As is the CT from Georgia Pass -> Hwy 9. Peaks out and back from Frisco is also great - I'd counsel against riding it on a weekend, though.

[Name Redacted]

Boat-Backside of Emerald in the Boat has some fun but mellow long loops. Spring Roll is a fun DH trail to lap or shuttle with some fun jumps. Flash of Gold is a must do as well. Morning Gloria, NPR, Little Moab and whatever are fun on the front side of Emerald. Divide Trail from top of Rabbit Ears to the ski area is also awesome. Just don't do Fish Creek Falls if your lady doesn't like exposure. Haha.

Summit- Westridge loop from Keystone or Breck side. Red to CT from Keystone side is also awesome. Lenawee if you are coming late summer. Pretty much anything in the Soda Creek area is nice mellow loops that you can piece together for mileage. Hippo is a fun one to incorporate. as is the CT. There's a lot of newer trails up on Tenderfoot (Dillon) that you can make a nice loop on, beware that some are Moto access later in the season so they can get blasted but are fun still. They usually get less traffic. The lower trails are not Moto and fun too.

Breck is also full of a bunch of single track. It can be tough to a newcomer to put together loops over there because there are so many damn intersections that you end up stopping a lot to look at your app a lot. That said, you can park at the ice rink, and use the bus to shuttle up Boreas, then pedal up a little, then drop down quite a few fun trails like Aspen Tunnels. Then pedal up and lap Barney Flow a few times, then traverse north along a bunch of trails V3, ZL, etc. as long as you want then drop down and ride back to town on the bike path.

Another fun thing to do is just ride up the service road at Keystone and drop down any number of trails. 6 mile climb and you can milk a really long descent if you want. I do that a few times a season and it is actually one of my favorite rides around and there's never anyone else doing it.

[adrenalated]

Lenawee

Is awesome, but if your lady hates exposure, she might be walking the first 1/4-1/2mi of the descent. After that it's fine. Also, Lenawee really only makes sense as a shuttle unless you like pedaling up several miles of two lane asphalt for some reason.

Also in the needs a shuttle, won't be clear until late summer realm - drive up to the top of Peak 9 at Breck, pedal up the 4x4 road to Wheeler Trail, then do one of three rides from there 1) south on Wheeler then Burro Trail back to Breck (don't do on a weekend) 2) north on Wheeler over the divide and down into Copper or 3) north on Wheeler over the divide then hang a right on the CT, back up over the divide, down Miner's Creek into Frisco. All of these are solidly single black but don't have any major exposure that I can remember.

[EWG]

Steamboat:

Emerald is a nice ride area. Mostly good for short rides, though you can string together a long one there if you want. Ride right into downtown afterwards, have a beer/food.

Flash of Gold, Grouse Ridge Area is excellent. Ride this. Series of trails up there. The black is pretty expert but there are plenty of blue trails. And when you are done you could ride one way down Spring Creek back to downtown. But that only works if one of your party drives back down with the car.

Strawberry Hot Springs. Small overgrown trail that is fairly fun and can be technical at times. The top of it is at the Hot Springs. You can join this with:

Mad Creek / Red Dirt. Short. Pretty. Hits non-bike land at some point near the top. Not technical. A small road section away from the bottom of Hot Springs Trail.

Scott's Run / Hinman Creek. Hands down the coolest ride in Steamboat. NO ONE rides it. I want people to ride it cause it's overgrown and rutted and needs traffic. One of my favorite rides in northern Colorado. Maybe my favorite. It's alpine and gorgeous and barely there in places. Ride it. Take photos. Tell people. By the way, I almost had a head on collision with a moose here on a downhill. Woke me up.

https://www.singletracks.com/bike-trails/scotts-run/
https://www.mtbproject.com/trail/565...-creek-shuttle


Dumont Lake. Good rides up here from the first parking lot up to the Wyoming (I think?) Trail. You can join this all the way to the ski area if you have a shuttle. Out and back is still sweet and the part of the trail between the parking lot and the Wyoming trail is wildflower heaven if you hit the timing right. Lost Lake etc up here. Very cool.

There are plenty more but these are the greatest hits.

[Danno]

Breck: Park at the dredge boat trailhead, ride up tiger road to the CT, take a left, ride up to West Ridge, down, take a left when you get to the intersection 1/4 mile from the dredge, back to car. Awesome downhill, totally intermediate ride.

[fastfred]

breck sucks skip it
crowded trails
lame single track

[alpinevibes]

We just rode Spring Creek-Spring Roll in Steamboat this weekend. Fun, quick lap with a nice pedally uphill and fun downhill. Steady 1.5-2hr lap from town

[BFD]

I do not know anything about Breck or Steamboat or how much riding you have done in the San Luis Valley. I would not drive by Middle Frisco Ck.

[smmokan]

I do not know anything about Breck or Steamboat or how much riding you have done in the San Luis Valley. I would not drive by Middle Frisco Ck.

This man speaketh the truth, Middle Frisco Creek up to the lake is a great out and back ride.

Breck folks, quick question for you. I've done Kenosha to Breckenridge on the CT a few times, but... is there a worthwhile way to connect it back to town at the bottom of Horseshoe Gulch instead of continuing on to Hwy 9?

[rippling over canyons]

This man speaketh the truth, Middle Frisco Creek up to the lake is a great out and back ride.

Breck folks, quick question for you. I've done Kenosha to Breckenridge on the CT a few times, but... is there a worthwhile way to connect it back to town at the bottom of Horseshoe Gulch instead of continuing on to Hwy 9?

Peaks Trail. Also, the bike path parallel to the highway is nice, too.

[fastfred]

This man speaketh the truth, Middle Frisco Creek up to the lake is a great out and back ride.

Breck folks, quick question for you. I've done Kenosha to Breckenridge on the CT a few times, but... is there a worthwhile way to connect it back to town at the bottom of Horseshoe Gulch instead of continuing on to Hwy 9?

not without some climbing
at the dredge boat trail head cross over tiger rd climb up summit/galena rd get on the galena ditch trail head east you can connect with lots of other trails
quickest way to town is to link up with the flumes
you can make your way up to the top of side door for a real nice happy ending but getting up there is confusing and will hurt

[Jax]

Steamboat:...

Scott's Run / Hinman Creek. Hands down the coolest ride in Steamboat. NO ONE rides it. I want people to ride it cause it's overgrown and rutted and needs traffic. One of my favorite rides in northern Colorado. Maybe my favorite. It's alpine and gorgeous and barely there in places. Ride it. Take photos. Tell people. By the way, I almost had a head on collision with a moose here on a downhill. Woke me up.

I can't emphasize this enough. The secret is getting out amongst the hikers and horse people though, esp on weekends as the campground is just down and across from the Wyoming Tr TH and they access rest of trail from there. Get to the tiny parking lot early. If that tiny lot is full, park at Hinman TH (an open field, no day-fees there), and ride E from there.

CCW is the way regardless IMO, Diamond Park>Scott's Run, exit Hinman. One nice sized dip and slog through a mud pit that can take you by surprise, likely to be there through July if not longer, it appears shallow but it will suck you in. The grass is growing so tall and thick the rocks will be hard to see on the Hinman side coming down the singletrack past the lake turnoff, use caution on that dh portion wrt your derailleur. Not much signage where you need it most, carry a paper map as GPS is spotty out there. Good backcountry riding.






BTR is a also good one to come down on Buff.

Trail clearing is happening today on FOG, looks like next Saturday for Spring Roll aka Sprangus. Shit got delayed due to heavy rains.

A reminder that Beall Trail on the backside of Emerald is closed (mandatory) until July 1 but Rotary and Ridge are gtg. There are so many options on Emerald to make it longer. For a good long ride I like Larry's>Morning Gloria>Root Canal>Lain O Pain>Ridge>Rotary>Ridge>Wild Rose>Blair Witch>MGM>Molly's. It's kind of a half Stinger. Or park a car at Rotary lot and end it after riding down Ridge for still a very solid ride.

Mountain Tap brewery FTW.

[Jax]

I'm a big fan of this map, despite it needing updates for Buff it's still my main go-to for tossing in the pack: