Snow To Sand: Falling From Winter Into The Fruita Fat Tire Festival

With no bike rack, no ski rack, and no pickup bed, Contributor Matt Hayes' "adventure clown car" led Matt to a weekend of pure seasonal confusion. Matt Hayes photo.

With about a week to go before the Fruita Fat Tire Festival, I assembled a crew for a weekend of skiing and mountain biking in the Colorado mountains. We were supposed to leave Friday morning to go skiing on Berthoud Pass, then drive to Fruita for two days of mountain biking. On Thursday morning everything seemed perfect. Two friends had taken off work, one of them had a great roadtrip-worthy van, and we were all set for a great time.

The night before departure, one of them bailed because the weather report was calling for rain with increasing confidence. The other lost her voice to laryngitis and had to abandon ship on doctor's orders.

Matt drops the frustration of bailing road trip partners by dropping cliffs at Berthoud Pass. Dane Cronin photo.

I was frustrated but unwilling to let the trip go, so I made a few desperate phone calls and was able to convince friends Dane and Stephanie to join me for some Friday morning Berthoud laps. Dane and I met early to start up the west side of the pass. The snow was firm, with the cool overnight temps keeping it stable and predictable beneath our feet. But the sun was climbing rapidly, threatening at a loosening snowpack as the day would go on. A few great turns and small rock drops later, and we were back at the base. We swung by the parking lot to chug some water and enjoy the sunshine while awaiting Steph's arrival.

Stephanie Wilson tails Matt up to the Berthoud Pass skintrack. Dane Cronin photo.

Steph showed up a few minutes later and we zipped back up to the ridgeline. We decided to head to a couple photo spots Dane had scouted on our previous run, but the sun had hammered the snow by this point and it was sluffing badly. As I worked my way down a face, the heavy snow coupled with sharky rocks hidden just beneath the surface nearly took me out – a mistake that almost certainly would have sent me over a cliff on my back. Though I cleaned it alright, my legs were shaking with nerves by the bottom. Dane had to get back to Boulder for work, so Steph and I took one more mellow lap, the snow getting heavy and soft as we grinded down to the parking lot.

Dane Cronin thinks spring is down there... somewhere. Dane Cronin photo.

It was a great morning at Berthoud, but it was time to move on to the Fruita Fat Tire Festival. Running nearly twenty years now, the festival, taking place in one of the country’s most legendary destinations for desert singletrack, has stood as the official beginning of riding season across the Mountain West.

I got into Fruita late in the afternoon and reevaluated the situation – I succeeded in convincing people to meet me for a few laps on Berthoud Pass, but getting someone to drop all their weekend plans and drive across the state on a few hours’ notice was proving a more challenging endeavor. The probability of rain had also increased dramatically since the last time I checked, leading me to wonder if I had driven five hours by myself to sit in a coffee shop while it poured outside. I sent some texts out and watched a band play in Fruita's main square, enjoying the good weather while it lasted.

Jam banding the rainy woes away at the Fruita Fat Tire Festival. Matt Hayes photo.

Amazingly, my friend Tomas replied saying he was in Moab and planning on riding the Lunch Loops in Grand Junction the next day! I found a camping spot near the 18 Road trailhead, checked the skies one last time, and passed out on the ground.

I awoke to what I thought was a sandblaster pointed at my face. The approaching storm front had brought serious wind whipping across the flat desert, and nowhere was safe. 

I awoke to what I thought was a sandblaster pointed at my face. The approaching storm front had brought serious wind whipping across the flat desert, and nowhere was safe. I quickly packed the car and pondered my next move. It seemed like the window for a ride was quickly disappearing, and even the reps from the bike companies were strongly discouraging going out. Looking to the incoming weather, they guarded their herds of glossy frames with a parental protectiveness.

I figured if I was going to be rained out, it’d be more fun with friends and beer, so when Tomas invited me to rendezvous with his crew at a coffee shop near the Lunch Loops, I headed that way. Though it was just a half hour away, the skies were much more encouraging, so we decided to get a little riding in. Not only did I now have people to ride with, but they even had a shuttle car! 

Matt drops Fruita's poor weather in favor of a Free Lunch. 

We did a couple quick laps including The Ribbon and Free Lunch – worrying when we felt sprinkles but never getting the real, soaking rain everyone feared. Each time we would evaluate the clouds when we got to the bottom of the trail, and each time we'd decide there was probably time to squeeze just one more lap in before the rain. This cycle repeated itself over and over again until fried quads signaled the end of the day instead of the rain. We could see black clouds over Fruita, but somehow the Lunch Loops stayed dry all day long.

Ripping the Lunch Loops in western Grand Junction. Matt Hayes photo.

Tomas Kaplan cleans a slickrock rollover on the Ribbon Trail. Matt Hayes photo.

Tomas and his friends were staying with his extended family, and I was stoked to get the invite back. With the impending rain I would have been thankful for just a roof, but were welcomed with that, hot burgers, and cold beer. At ten o'clock a torrential downpour swept across the desert, and I couldn't have been happier to be indoors. I watched the streaks of rain spank the ground outside as the warmth of home cooking and rehashed trail stories insulated me from the shit weather outside.

Watching the rain ruin someone else's day in Fruita. Matt Hayes photo.

I parted ways with Tomas and his crew on Sunday morning and headed to the Palisades Rim Trail. While I rarely turn down shuttle laps, I have to admit that I love pedaling and the meditation that comes with a long solo climb. With a steady grade that never got too steep and spectacular views, the Palisades Trail proved perfect for that. It's been a long time since I'd explored a completely new trail by myself, and doing this reminded me of the feelings that initially drew me to mountain biking—the first conquering of a rowdy steep, the new landscapes, and the constant mystery of what’s around the next corner. The cliché about preferring riding a bike thinking about God to being in church thinking about biking rang true this Sunday morning as the orbits of the pedals pushed the tires uphill.

The trailside remains of a horse remind Matt that when things go wrong out here, they can go very wrong. Matt Hayes photo.

Civilization backed away as I circumnavigated the upper loop of the trail. The ground, softened by the recent rain, captured the mark of large animal prints, and I remembered why riding alone in a new area can be a little unnerving. As the trail started to head downhill, the wheels spun by the skeleton of a horse, the bones bleached white, the decaying teeth still biting towards my tires. Back on the main trail, the descent home was amazing. Flowy corners gave way to wild vistas, and technical rock gardens were interspersed between high-speed passages all the way back to the parking lot.

Winter all the way to summer in the span of four hours. Matt Hayes photo.

Wanting to break up the drive home, I swung by the Team Geronimo headquarters in El Jebel, where the Banshee Bikes race team congregates for training. Geronimo’s Brian Buell has been building epic trails in this private playground for a few years, but unfortunately he crashed hard while skiing Mount Sopris a few days prior, and couldn't ride. Holly Turner, another Geronimo racer and Brian’s fiancée, took me on a tour of the property to see how the trails had held up through the winter and what was planned for summer construction. Well-built trails always make me feel like a better rider, and when they're coupled with superhero dirt it seems like anything is possible. Before I knew it I was hitting small kickers blind, sending drops I had never seen before, and rallying a 3-meter high wall ride. Their pièce de résistance was an intricate ladder ride over an irrigation canal that featured a mandatory gap jump. My feelings of invincibility came to a screeching halt when, on my second run through, I shot out beyond the landing and came in nose heavy on a thin wooden ladder nine feet off the ground. I dialed it back a bit, and we continued riding until an evening snowstorm ushered us indoors for dinner, closing the door on summer for another night.

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stash member Matt Hayes

I like free beer, freehubs, and free spirits.