Welcome! I just moved here from the east coast in December, so I've spent most of this season exploring the various terrain. One thing that was a huge help for me was hooking up with some local cyclists through work that have been here for decades and know the terrain. Also, expect to feel the effects of the elevation changes if you've come from sea level for a lot longer than you would have hoped. It felt like it took me several months to really feel 100%.

In Denver proper and in Aurora there are the Highline canal trail and Cherry Creek trail. Both are paved, MUPs. The CC trail goes from confluence park in LoDo to the CC reservoir south and east of the city, which is a good loop. They also hold TTs there on Wed evenings earlier in the season, though I did not make it to one of those yet.

Heading west, a great ride I've done several times is from Denver to Lookout mtn and back, which works out to almost 3k ft in elevation gain over the course of 60 miles or so.

The more challenging terrain all lies west, though. I've done multiple rides out of Littleton, particularly in Deer Creek Canyon, doing the classic High Grade -> Broken Arrow -> City View loop. From there can also ride to Evergreen and back. Another personal favorite of mine is Evergreen to idaho springs and back; it's the first climb of the Triple Bypass going out, and coming back it's the first half of the Mt Evans Hill Climb, two events I did this year which were a blast.

If you'd like to browse some maps, lmk, I'll send you my strava link. Let me know how else I can help, and welcome!

Posting to follow this as well. I moved here two years ago but only really started cycling in the area this year.



This is my "go to" ride. It's mostly well paved trail to get out there and then once you're there the traffic isn't bad and there are tons of other cyclists as well. Lots of fun, a good 20-30 minutes of straight granny gear climbing.

If you head into the foothills and mountains, pretty much anywhere you think to ride, it's a good ride. But definitely hook up with a local ride to learn the local areas. If you're in Aurora, check out Adventure Cycling on Parker/Quincy. They have a Saturday morning ride thorough Cherry Creek.

If you're looking for some place you can get aero for an extended period of time, head east and ride Quincy from the Aurora Reservoir to the east, or for a flatter ride check out the highway between Watkins and Bennet (or out to Strasburg). There isn't a tom of traffic and from my experiences riding out there, the locals give plenty of room.

Oh yeah, and welcome to the neighborhood!

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

Would you mind sharing a map of the eastbound rides you do? My poor shiv has been collecting dust since I got here while my roadie has gotten all the work. Would love to start incorporating a little more aero action.

What kind of riding are you looking for and how open are you to driving to get a ride in?

I live on the west side of town very close to the foothills and my preference is for climbing so I do virtually all of my riding in the foothills. When I used to live in Centennial I would so some riding on the trail system but really only as an avenue to get to the foothills/mountains.

My only perception of Aurora is from driving through on the way to the airport so I could be totally wrong, but I have never got the impression that it's a particularly great place to ride, but some people like just chewing up miles on the flats so you never know.

Tell me about it. This is my second summer here and I still haven't even unboxed my P4 from when I moved here. Doing 106 west tri in a month or so and I'm debating if I'm going to even bother riding a TT bike given how long it's been since I've ridden it... well that, and my complete lack of training for the race beyond mountain biking and doing triple bypass / mt evans hill climb.

Thanks everyone for the replies so far. I'm coming from the Northeast, where we definitely have a few climbs, so hills are good for me. I'm definitely willing to drive if needed, and kind of expected to, especially for a longer weekend ride. Sounds like the west is the place to be for that. Can you get a decent workout on Cherry creek and Highline, just wondering since they're shared trails does the foot traffic give you a lot of problems? Otherwise they seem close enough to get in weekday rides after work. I'll also look into the clubs you guys have mentioned. I've heard that some of the people at my new work are cyclists so hopefully I'll get some good info from them as well.
Thanks again for all the help, signed up for the Boulder Sunset, hopefully I'll be used to the O2 by then!

How did you enjoy TBP and the Bob Cook? That and E-rock are the only events I've done this year. Granted, I haven't touched a pool since April, but I've been itching to sign up for a tri before the season is out now that I've got a bit of form in me.

I'm going to take a wild leap here and assume, based our your username, that you are at Anschutz. 2-3 times per week, I catch the highline and ride it south to Cherry creek on the way home from work. I hop off most days around the Cherry creek mall (I live a bit north of there in Congress Park).

That takes about an hour, and I've found that for the vast majority of the trail, i can let fly as much or as little as I want. Plenty of room to maneuver around the sparse other bikers and runners. I can't speak on farther west of the mall, approaching Confluence, where you'll likely need to dodge more runners, cyclists, and heroin addicts.

I'm also going to explore continuing south on Highline one of these days to see if I can extend the ride to 1.5 or 2 hours.

It's all flat, but I spend the weekends on the steeps so it works out.

I lived in a rental house in centennial for a year right off the highline. I was much further south on it than you guys, but down here it's unpaved and while quite nice for running but not so great for riding, at least not fast. I rode it a few times for gravel grinding all the way down to where it ends/starts south of Roxborough, really rural out that way but way, way, way further south than you guys.

Now I live right at the entrance to chatfield state park, I do most of my weekday rides either on gravel (chatfield <-> waterton canyon), or some light duty mtb'ing in the hogbacks or I might do a partial ascent of deer creek / high grade on my road bike if time allows. Weekends I usually do 1 day on the road and 1 day on the mtb with the road day almost exclusively being some deer creek / high grade variation. On my mtb I ride the CO trail & indian creek loop above waterton canyon a lot, occasionally drive out to little scraggy / buff creek which is definitely better riding but I've gotten spoiled on not driving anywhere so I don't do it as often. I have done the ride up the 470 path to lookout a few times and while I really enjoy the climb, I'm too spoiled from just having deer creek right out the back door to be motivated to spend that much time on the bike path if I don't have to.


I enjoyed them both though I had zero high mileage rides before TBP so both were more about the experience rather than performance. If you don't mind driving a few hours you should check out 106 West tri up in Dillon in September. There's a thread about it on the boards, I think there's a 20% off coupon in there and it seems like it will be a really cool inaugural event. Plus you get bragging rights for the 'highest elevation triathlon in the world'.

The 106 race looks great! Unfortunately, I'll be working that day...Too bad, the views look incredible.

I'm on the west side (near Bowles and C470) but I hang out on the c470 trail for the most part. On that side there aren't many people on foot to dodge. I head north to Green Mountain for good climbs or south towards Chatfield Res and further east for more of the rolling hills. Little more foot traffic that way but not bad.

If you are willing to drive, head over to Morrison or Evergreen. I trained in Evergreen for the last two summers and it was some of the best riding that I've done (minus this past winter in Colombia).

Riding Upper Bear Creek to Witter Gulch is always a good leg and mind check if you want it.

just keep you head up or risk smacking into an elk or deer!

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

frankis wrote:

Would you mind sharing a map of the eastbound rides you do? My poor shiv has been collecting dust since I got here while my roadie has gotten all the work. Would love to start incorporating a little more aero action.

Here's my primary workout when I want a good aero ride. Minimal traffic in the mornings, can get really windy out of the blue out there too. If you want to go further, push out Strasburg, a little more up hill for the return trip.

http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/1188044098

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

I live in SE Denver near Cherry Creek state park. the roads in the park aren't great, but I'll occasional do the 9-mile loop. Most of my rides are going south to Castle Pines/Castle Rock via Hess Rd and Motsenbacher/Crawfoot Valley Rds. I'll hit Daniels pkwy which is a nice little climb. Roads are great...more typical of colorado than the state parks. they suck.