I know you have all ridden the Monarch Crest Trail. 30 some miles, and 6,000 some feet downhill. Its a legend in Colorado and is famous across the United States. The Monarch Crest trail leads to many sweet single tracks that descend from above treeline to the Gunnison and Salida valleys. The "Children of the Crest" include Agate Creek, South Foose Creek, Greens Creek, Silver Creek, and the Rainbow Trail. The Monarch Crest includes both the Colorado and Continental Divide Trail. These are the trails you tell your friends about!

The Monarch Crest trail is in jeopardy of being closed to mountain bikes dependng on a forest service ruling on the "nature and purpose" of the Continental Divide National Scenic trail. Public comment on what the nature and purpose of the Continental Divide trial is open until October 12. This is your chance to voice your opinion. Do note that it can take five years before the wording on the directive is finalized and that decisions for use are made at the local planning level.

The Monarch Crest trail has been part of mountain biking lore for over 20 years. I understand the arguments against building new trails, and not having mountain bikes in the wilderness areas... frankly I agree with these arguements... but the Monarch Crest trail is not in Wilderness and has been an established mountain bike trail for a long time. The mountain biking economy of Salida depends on the existence of this trail

More information can be found in this Mountain Flyer article:
http://www.mountainflyer.com/news.cfm?newsid=95

The Continental Divide National Scenic Trail directive can be found here:
http://www.fs.fed.us/r2/projects/cdnst_directive/index.shtml/

Sarah and I went to Santa Fe last week for a little vacation. This was Sarah's first time to the area. I was last in Santa Fe in October 2005 on my "New Mexico mountain bike assault". On that trip I was able to ride in Taos, Gallup, Albuqurque, and Sanat Fe.

This trip did not have the aggresive tone of 2005. We decided to go to one place and stay put. Santa Fe has a good dose of single track near town. The Dale Ball trail network is right on the edge of the city and has 15 - 20 miles of tight, narrow, and winding singletrack. The Dale Ball trails are only a 10 - 15 minute ride from the city depending on where you start and roll through the juniper foothills.

The Winsor trail network is a little further away, but can still be ridden from town. The Winsor, Chamisa, and Borrego trails bring you into a big network (50 mile +) of trails that extend from 7,000 feet to 12,000 feet of elevation. This network, in combination with the Dale Ball and Atalya mountain trails constitutes the "Santa Fe Big Friggin' Loop" race in July. Lots of climing on that one.

We arrived on Monday evening and had diner in town. We then camped outside of town for the remaining nights. Camping is within 7 miles of the city.

On Tuesday we decided to ride the Dale Ball trails. I was barely able to keep wup with Sara using my granny gear, but my legs felt slightly better than they had earlier in the month. It was hot but the trails were fun.

With about 10 minutes to go we descended this trail that crossed a dry creek bed. As Sarah was about to reach the bottom she caught her handle bar on a Juniper tree. She was whipped around and slammed into the tree. It looked and sounded as if she had broken her leg. She was impaled on the tree by a broken branch that sliced through her bike shorts. Her feet were about a foot above the ground in the air. I was able to get her down and she had a big gash from the juniper tree on the inside of her thigh. I posted a picture of her shorts on my buzz site pictures.

Sarah is a tough one. It is fun to see her improve mountain biking. She is a great athelete and very strong. She will be good. We headed back to the car and spent awhile in the Albertsons parking lot with some hydrogen peroxide and gauze pads.

One day of biking was enough for me. My normal approach would have been to ride all the trails in Santa Fe, but the knees won't let it. We decided to visit Bandelier National Monument the next day, and did a brief hike the day after that. We also encountered some cockroaches at a local restaurant and a close encounter with some gang types in Raton, New Mexico on the way back.

The knees felt better... maybe 20% of normal capacity.

So here I am at ground zero. Well, almost ground zero. Ground zero was the second half of July 2007. My chronic pains in my left knee reached an all time high, and for some reason my right knee entered the same state of pain as my left knee. I could barely walk down the stairs in my house. Sitting with my knees bent hurt. Biking was out of the question. Even hiking was out of the question. I could not walk down hill.

How did this happen? The chronic pain in my left knee has been consistently present since 1999. It is just a matter of how bad. I have always enjoyed riding my mountain bike, particularly on long ride. Sometimes I will do some races. This year, however, I had racing "goals". I had several races picked out for the summer of 2007. In addition to the goals of finishing the races, I wanted to place in the top 10 of the races. That required me to work on both my power and endurance. Unfortunately I was unable to get out on a bike much in the spring. The spring is usually when I get out and do long aerobic rides. So this year I started in June and went hard. Too hard.

By early July my left knee hurt. I did the Crested Butte 100 in July, but had to take it easy. I still finished in 10 hours, but I know I could have probably broken 9 hours if my knee was ok. After the CB race my right knee entered a state of pain that it had never been in.

A visit to the orthopedic doctor resulted in yet another dead end with western medicine. Everything is structurally there in both legs. Man, you'd figure these doctors would love to cut you open and see what is wrong but none have that desire with my legs. 1.5 grams of gloucosomine for healing and some Aleve for pain management was the doctor's advice.

It is now the end of August and I am nearing the end of the first month of my assault on getting my knees back. Working with an acupuncturist has revealed low circulation in my knees. Lots of heat packs. I have been able to ride a few times but cannot apply pressure (i.e. can't crank it). I have actually (gasp!) gone road biking a few times as it is more stable than mountain biking, but the stoopid road bike hurts my neck.

The frustration I feel is hard to describe. Mountain biking has been a part of my life for nearly 17 years. That is over half of my life! I start graduate school in a few weeks, and in June I left my job to take a few months off to bike and hike before school started. Instead I have been sitting around having to say "no" to friends who ask if I want to ride. I have to live vicariously through their stories. The worst part is that I can't hike very well either.

It is getting better though, but I think this is a long term process. I feel it is at least an 8 to 12 month effort to get back to where I was. Being in school will help add to the resting.

Future blogs will be less depressing. They will hopefully be recording the improvement.