Mountain Biking the Colorado Trail: Tips, Tricks, and What You Need to Know for a Great Bike-Packing Experience

This is the essential how-to book for bikepacking on the Colorado Trail, whether you want to ride a segment or two on the weekends, or all 535 miles in one go. It is a companion resource that includes bike-specific information missed by other Colorado Trail guidebooks. It also serves as an experiential resource for riders, written in a friendly, casual style from one mountain biker to another. Join Michael J. Henry as he shares the tips and tricks you need to know for each segment of the Trail while also answering the experiential questions through stories about his time completing the whole Trail over the course of three summers.

In addition to the cold, hard data about the Trail, you will benefit from Henry’s practical and honest advice on things like:

- Training - how to prepare your legs, your mind, and your gear

- Your bike - what you’ll want, what you’ll need, and how to prep the machine

- Gear - camping gear, clothing, supplies, technology

- Food and water - what you’ll need, and a little bit about calorie and hydration physiology

- A rough 17-day plan that can be expanded or shortened

- Short interviews with others who have ridden the Trail

- The good, the bad, and the okay about eating and sleeping on the Trail

- The Zen of riding and suffering - the mindset you’ll need, how to deal with pain and self-doubt, and how keep up morale

Michael Henry is co-founder and Executive Director of Lighthouse Writers Workshop, one of the largest literary centers in the country. His poetry and nonfiction have appeared in places such as Elevation Outdoors, 5280 Magazine, Georgetown Review, Threepenny Review, Pleiades, The Ekphrastic Review, Hippocampus Magazine, and TheWriter, and he’s published two books of poetry, No Stranger Than My Own and Active Gods, both with Conundrum Press. For several years, Michael authored a well-read blog that combined literature with the travails and wonders of mountain biking, and he’s had biking-related articles published in Fort Collins Magazine and Elevation Outdoors. He rides several times a week in the foothills and mountains of Colorado, and anywhere else he can find a trail. He currently lives in Thornton, Colorado with his wife Andrea, two daughters, and their dog, Gallivant. He owns four bikes, but is always eyeing additional rides.