Author Archives: OTE Fruita

Jul / 09 / 2015

Come visit our bathroom

It’s April and the season is in full swing.  People are waiting outside the door in the mornings with so much pent up stoke about riding Fruita single track, that they are just bursting with energy.  They’re full of coffee or fresh off of a long drive. Many are doing the “I gotta pee” dance right at the sales regsister.  But a quick look back towards the yellow sticker covered bathroom door and it becomes clear that the dance isn’t going to end soon. A line has formed…. Our bathroom services are top notch.  Plenty of reading material, on the walls and on the bench. We have world class mountain bike photography displayed and every Fruita magazine cover shot we’ve ever had.  There’s signed posters from the worlds most awe inspiring bike riders too.  It’s so hard to get into our bathroom in the spring time that we’ve considered taking down all this cool […]

Mar / 20 / 2015

Spring!

“A coil spring, also known as a helical spring, is a mechanical device, which is typically used to store energy due to resilience and subsequently release it, to absorb shock, or to maintain a force between contacting surfaces. They are made of an elastic material formed into the shape of a helixwhich returns to its natural length when unloaded. In most shock absorbers, energy is converted to heat inside the viscous fluid. In hydraulic cylinders, the hydraulic fluid heats up, while in air cylinders, the hot air is usually exhausted to the atmosphere.”   (Thanks Wikipedia!)   I was looking up some information on different shock springs the other day.  Most of us ride with “shocks” on our bikes these days.  For some reason the technical side of our sport struck a chord with me, in that it mirrored what is happening here in Fruita right now!  It’s SPRING!  The weather is amazing, the sun is warm, the […]

Feb / 25 / 2015

Come to the darkside

It’s that time of year again. (I’d like to make a joke about the Broncos not winning the Superbowl, but that would be phony of me, as I don’t follow baseball at all.) I’m talking about night riding season. The sun is going down early here in Fruita, days are shorter, and by the time we get off work at 6 pm, it looks like midnight. When we want to ride Joe’s Ridge or Kessle Run up at 18 rd after work, we have to ride at night. (It’s technically ALWAYS night riding season, but this time of year it’s gonna be happening a lot more often, because its gonna be dark a lot more than not). If you have never ridden at night, you should, at least once. Why? The cold and dark is no reason to stop riding your bike. The after work ride can and should still […]

Dec / 20 / 2014

Fighting the Cold War

Winter is here in Fruita, and while it's been a pretty dry winter so far, and our trails are rideable, it's time to deal with the cold.  Luckily for us, every year we close down for the month of January and migrate to Sedona, Arizona, to ride bikes in the sun and Shred the Red. Many people come to Fruita for a kickass mountain bike vacation, but we live here, so we have to go somewhere else for our mountain bike vacation.  When it's cold and miserable here, Arizona has the sun and the heat we love.   If you are not lucky enough to go somewhere warm, and you have to deal with cycling in the cold, just like we do when we get back in February, here are some tips for fighting the cold war…. 1 – Layer.  this isn't new, most people know this, but you should […]

Nov / 22 / 2014

The best books on two wheels

Winter is upon us, and no matter how much we want to be a BADASS, some days, when the wind is pushing like a schoolyard bully and the rain is horizontal, or when the temperature would make a penguin put on some wool and a puffy jacket, it's just not gonna happen.  So what can we do to slake our ride lust?   We can live vicariously through others and read about what we want to do.   Here are a few books about our lifestyle we have read and would highly recommend.  These books inspire, educate, and entertain.  If you can't be out riding, for whatever reason, these books are a suitable alternative.   1 – A DOG IN A HAT by Joe Parkin.  A cool look at what it's like to be a young racer in Europe, what Joe had to go through and what he saw.   2 […]

Nov / 04 / 2014

Come to the Darkside

It's that time of year again. (I'd like to make a joke about the Broncos not winning the Superbowl, but that would be phony of me, as I don't follow baseball at all.) I'm talking about night riding season. The sun is going down early here in Fruita, days are shorter, and by the time we get off work at 6 pm, it looks like midnight. When we want to ride Joe's Ridge or Kessle Run up at 18 rd after work, we have to ride at night. (It's technically ALWAYS night riding season, but this time of year it's gonna be happening a lot more often, because its gonna be dark a lot more than not). If you have never ridden at night, you should, at least once. Why? The cold and dark is no reason to stop riding your bike. The after work ride can and should still […]

Oct / 21 / 2014

LOCALS ONLY

A few weeks ago, I left the overabundance of sweet trails here in Fruita, Colorado to ride somewhere close but different. Variety keeps things interesting, and it's always nice to travel and see new stuff and ride new trails. I went into the local bike shop and asked if they had a map, and was almost laughed at. The shop guy asked where I was from, I told him, and he said “We don't want to become like Fruita.” It was the LOCALS ONLY mindset. We here at Over the Edge Fruita are members of the Colorado Plateau Mountain Bike Trail Association (COPMOBA), we are heavily involved in the building and maintenance of our local trails. We have the opposite view of the LOCALS ONLY mindset, we want EVERYONE to come and ride our trails and have a kick ass time. That said, we can sort of understand where the […]

Sep / 28 / 2014

The first time

When was the last time you did something for the first time? A few weeks ago a few of us took a trip to Evolution Bike Park in Crested Butte, CO. It was the first time I had ever ridden “park.” I have ridden all sorts of terrain, I have ridden in other countries, I have never ridden park. I confess I was a bit nervous, I didn't know what I was getting into. I have ridden sketchy downhill before, but all the videos of people riding park had me concerned, I didn't know what I was getting into. Was I ready for this? Did I have the right bike? What if I can't ride that feature? Do I have the right vocabulary and clothes to ride this type of terrain? I ended up having the best time ever, I only made one rookie mistake, which was putting my wristband […]

Jul / 31 / 2014

Mooov Cow Mooov!!!!

A customer recently told me of a mind blowing experience they had while riding bikes here in Fruita.  We get this a lot, as our trails are well…mind blowing!  However, I was a little surprised when they told me what their mind blowing experience was. These customers were from Manhatten NY.  They told me of rounding a corner and coming face to face with a gigantic bellowing beast.  Nearly frozen with fear they slowly crept backwards and then hiked as far as possible off trail and around the frothing, fly covered, crap stained animal. Now, if you have lived out West, Mid-West, or pretty much anywhere outside of a major urban area you are probably rolling your eyes about now.  But seriously think about this.  Who's the crazier person?  I would have ridden toward the beast, screaming at it,  fully expecting the animal to move.  "Get off the trail hoofed […]

Jul / 23 / 2014

Milk was a bad choice

It's July in Fruita, CO and it is hot. As I type this my body fat is turning to grease. We are riding early morning before the sun is on full blast or in the evening, when it's a bit cooler, before the sun goes down at 9:00 p.m.    So what can we do when it's too hot to go for a mid day ride?  Stay inside where the air is conditioned and the sun isn't beating us with it's burning fists of fury, and watch Le Tour De France! We are all mountain bikers, it's who we are, it's what we do, it's why we live here.  However, we are CYCLISTS first.  It doesn't matter what kind of bike you ride, it matters that you ride.  We all have and have ridden and many of us have raced road bikes as well, and we appreciate road riding.  We follow […]