AspenRealLife.com – I once spent my summers climbing up and zooming down single track trails and although I never became too proficient on the technical aspect of mountain biking, I loved being out there exploring the wilderness with my friends. Yesterday Wade and I went to visit our friend Joel the owner of Basalt Bike and Ski. My twenty year old Hard Tail mountain bike was being replaced by a Tallboy Santa Cruz, 29er.

You see, in these past few years, as I nursed my body slamming injuries back into shape, I took the gentler path of road biking and hiking. But I’ll tell you what, I’m ready to pick up the pace and challenge my body once again to get into mountain biking shape.

Thankfully, or at times perhaps not so thankfully, I have many a friend to bring me to greater heights on my bike. And they are all gorgeous. To look at them one would never know that they are beasts on their bikes, riding deep into the forests all alone, carrying a hunting knife under their shorts, just in case.

Mountain Biking Trails Around Aspen:

They urge me on, making me try over and over again to make it around hairpin turns on the Snowmass Rim Trail, up and over big stumps and rocks and down steep hills on the Prince Creek Trail in Carbondale where I know I will endo and get a handlebar logged into my trachea, as has happened to them before. “You can do it Jilly,” they encourage me and all the while I’m thinking they want it for me more than I want it for myself as I’m quite happy just to be out there, even if my heart is in my stomach from fear.

So, here begins my new obsession. All I have to do is get my boys to join me and it will be a summer spent riding and road tripping to explore more trails. At least, that is my plan!

Do you ride? What are your favorite trails. BTW, I don’t do drop offs! Not yet anyway.

Below is a short video I took after taking my first ride on my new bike, Muki by my side. We went up Light Hill in Old Snowmass – a rocky, steep jeep road that took me about an hour to reach the plateau with beautiful views ofMt. Sopris. Today, I will be riding up Tiehack and down Government Trail with one of my beastly, long legged friends. It’s going to take me a while to feel brave on these trails and I’ll try to capture some of it for you as I progress, or get set back from falls….

~Jillian, AspenRealLife.com