Hi there
I’m a female mt bike rider, 36. Going to be in the US in august and thought i might check out some of the mt bike mecca of Utah or Colorado.

1. How is the temp at that time, too hot?
2. Recs of tour companies – going alone I don’t want to organise my own week
I’m an intermediate rider, pretty good fitness, looking to do a week or more.

cheers!

http://www.utahtravelcenter.com/weather.htm

youre planning to go to a desert. In the middle of summer. Moab will be 95F in August according to the above site.

My kid brother did 2 weeks out there in july/august, the company he did a tour with started the Moab rides at silly o’clock in the morning to avoid the worst of the heat, and I seem to remember you werent allowed to ride without 2 3L camelbak bladders (and possibly bottles too).

Colorado not so bad if you ride north (ie. not Fruita) and the higher you get the cooler it is. We did 2 weeks out there in july last year and when it was 90+ in Boulder it was more manageable in places like Crested Butte and Winter Park. Still brutally hot to someone not accustomed to it, but we managed all-day rides with no ill effects (and Ive been ill with dehydration riding in the UK).

I’ll check who he went with, I know they were one of the cheapest but I dont remember any complaints (we stayed with ex-pat friends so had the luxury of personal holiday guides).

I was in Moab during June 09 and it was baking then, it will be brutal mid summer.

There are stacks of tour companies in and about so you shouldn’t have any problems finding a few options. I just turned up and rented a bike and did my own rides, the famous ones have free map but with Slickrock you don’t even need a map as it’s fully marked out etc. Had some great views 8)

thanks for the replies…that was a bit dumb of me i suppose, but i am from NZ where the temperature difference from north to south is only a couple of degrees…so…Given I would definitely not cope with those temperatures, where would you recommend going in the US in August? And would Sept still be too hot, assuming I could change my timing?

If you have time to do some searching you could “earmark” a few places by googling the places you’d like to visit, somewhere you will find details about all weather situations etc. I would recommend Colorado esp Crested Butte and Breckenridge area’s, have been there in early July and it was very warm shall we say but we just got up early and beat the sun nearly every day. But even just walking around town could be uncomfortable in the late afternoon.

Boulder will be 90 + but Most of the riding is much higher than that. We went in September and found the riding temperatures ideal, although we stayed through till November so its hard to exactly match memory with dates. Certainly Moab was way hotter than Boulder. I think we did 2 and 1/2 weeks in the rockies all very pleasant and even cool up high. We the went to Moab which was like an oven. I think the reflected heat from the ground and lack of shade make it seam hotter than air temperature alone would sugest.

Every bike ride I did from Boulder started with a bus ride to Nederland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nederland,_Colorado

which is alot higher. Check the link not that hot

I’d say getting acclimatised to the altittude was more of an issue for a 1 week trip

I’ve toured on road through the Rockies in July and August from the Canadian border south to Colorado. I didn’t find heat to be a problem. Anything up to 90F is fine because it is a very dry heat and on a bike there is always enough breeze to cool through perpiration. It is so dry you never feel damp. Any sweat dries immediately. You will need to drink huge amounts of water to ride all day though. I was getting through more than 6L some days.

If it is particularly hot then starting early and finishing at mid day is the way to go but I very rarely needed to do this in the mountains.

Oh, and another reason to ride early is that high up there is often a pattern of dry sunny mornings followed by thunderstorms with associated lightning strikes any time from lunchtime to early afternoon onwards. I always tried to cross passes by mid day.

Just to be clear these comments apply to Colorado Wyoming, and Montana mountains. I understand Utah is dryer and hotter though as already stated local conditions will vary..

I’ve done Moab/Utah in September and it was pretty much perfect temperature wise. Having said that, I still ran out of water on Porcupine Rim in spite of having 5L in my Camelbak and it was only a 15 mile ride!

Get out EARLY and you’ll be OK, avoids the worst of the heat and the usual afternoon thunderstorms. You’ll probably find you need a couple of days to get used to the altitude more than the heat. Moab is about 8000 – 9000ft, we were in Breckenridge, Colorado which was about 10000ft and that was noticeable!

ward, as I said above Crested Butte is terrific, and high enough to be bearable. As its quite a remote town (5? hours from denver) it has a real frontier/hippy biker vibe and as a resort town hasnt been overdeveloped. We did 3 days there and rode some gorgeous trails which are easily navigated from local guide books.

We centred in Boulder as stayed with friends so rode Nederland as a local trail (along with marshall mesa). If you can get up onto the continental Divide the trails up there are fabulous, we rode a route the locals call “Monarch crest” but has a couple of other names, and the towns either side of the Divide have bus shuttles to the top.

We never got to Breckenridge but loved Winter Park. Some great XC trails and most of the lift-served stuff is closer to assisted XC than dedicated DH, with a gentle gradient making the most of the limited vertical drop for some long swoopy singletrack.

Random pics (not the best, just stuff I found easily on photobucket)

monarch crest Divide trail

map reading on 403 trail, Crested Butte

wall ride at Winter Park

Buffalo Creek also a great ride, much like I imagine Utah to be with lots of slickrock and red sandstone boulders, but mixed with wooded singletrack.

August will be pretty hot in Utah, better in Colorado thought I would have.

I’ve had dealings with these people: http://www.westernspirit.com/

My mate has done 3, 4 trips and raved about them. Not the cheapest but they are good people. They are based in Moab but cover UT and CO.

Have fun and definitely visit Crested Butte as its a real cool place, even just to hang out.

If you’re going alone, just make sure your multi-tool has a very sharp knife…