The Genesee Mountain Loop

Date

2026-08-30

Region

Colorado

Country

USA

Genesee Park sits right off I-70, which means it spends most of its life being background scenery for people driving to better-known trailheads. It has a bison herd, a picnic shelter built by the CCC in 1939, and a mountain that tops out at 8,284 feet without anyone particularly noticing. It is also, it turns out, a completely reasonable place to introduce someone to single speeding.

That someone was Brad. Brad is my neighbor, and by the unwritten rules of neighboring he is also my rival, in the sense that we are both dads who have decided our yards, kids, and now bikes are in quiet competition with each other. Brad found 404 Gears Not Found, read some of it, and decided he wanted to try riding one gear instead of complaining about the concept from a safe distance. I lent him the Karate Monkey. I took the Krampus, similarly reduced to one gear for the occasion. Two dads, ~20 gears fewer than usual, out before the rest of the neighborhood was awake.

The Route

The loop starts at the Chief Hosa Trailhead off I-70 exit 253, which is one exit past where everyone else parks to look at the bison, so expect company that has no interest in your bike. From the Chief Hosa lot, the trail is a blue-rated singletrack loop around the shoulder of the mountain, heads up into the trees almost immediately.

It climbs, with a short dip to catch your breath around the half-mile mark, then a steeper pitch that gets you up onto a rolling shoulder just under 8,100 feet. That high section undulates for close to a mile before committing to the descent, which runs essentially uninterrupted back down to the lot. GPX says 3.6 miles and 418 feet of climbing. It is a 2 percent average grade, which tracks: nothing here ever asks you to stand up out of self-preservation.

The whole loop is shaded, mostly ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir, and never strays far enough from the interstate that you forget where you parked.

The Climb Is Easy On Purpose

This is not a trail that makes you earn the view. The grade is gentle enough that Brad, on a borrowed single speed, on a trail he had never seen, never once looked like he regretted his choices. That is the entire pitch of the trail for a first single-speed ride: real enough to feel like you did something, mellow enough that a bad gear choice doesn't turn into a death march.

The climb also does something useful that a lot of steeper local options don't: it lets you actually think about your gear ratio instead of just surviving it. If you're testing a new bike, breaking in a drivetrain, or trying to figure out whether you went too tall or too short on a conversion, this is a good place to find out gradually instead of all at once on a wall.

The Descent Feels Longer Than It Is

Here's the part I keep coming back to: the climb and the descent cover almost identical mileage, but the descent feels like it goes on twice as long. I think it's because the climb is broken up (a dip, a push, a rolling plateau that never quite tells you it's done climbing), while the descent is just one clean, continuous run back to the lot. The trail is "downhill primary," which lines up with how it rides. You spend the climb negotiating with the trail in small increments, then you spend the descent just going.

It's not technical. There are rocks and a few loose corners, nothing that requires a plan. It's the kind of descent where you stop pedaling, let the Krampus's tires do what they're good at, and arrive back at the parking lot slightly surprised it's over.

Who This Trail Is Actually For

I'd put this loop near the top of the list for:

• A first single-speed ride, for someone who has heard you talk about it too many times and finally wants proof
• An after-work lap, since it's short, close to the highway, and doesn't demand a full evening
• Testing a bike or a new gear ratio without committing to something that will punish a wrong guess
• Family rides, assuming your family is old enough to handle a mile and a half of mellow climbing

It is blue-rated and "less popular" locally, which was true both times we passed other riders, mostly hikers and trail runners headed the same direction we were. Dogs and e-bikes are permitted too, for what that's worth.

Two Dads, One Borrowed Bike, Zero Injuries

Brad did fine. Better than fine, honestly, which was slightly annoying given the whole rival-dad framing. He walked exactly one short pitch on the climb, complained about it exactly once, and spent most of the descent smiling in a way that suggested he understood the appeal a lot faster than I expected. The Karate Monkey came back to me with no new scratches, which, borrowed bike or not, is really all you can ask for.

Whether Brad buys his own single speed now or goes back to a normal number of gears remains to be seen. Either way, Genesee Park did its job: it's an easy enough climb and a rewarding enough descent to make the case for one gear without anyone needing to suffer to hear it.

Practical Notes

• Parking: Chief Hosa Loop Trailhead, I-70 exit 253. It fills up with bison-watchers, not just riders.
• Direction: We rode it as described: climb first, descend back to the lot. It's popular in reverse too, so either direction works if you want to flip the ratio of climbing to descending.
• Water/shade: Mostly forested, so it's a reasonable option even when the more exposed foothills trails are baking.
• Wildlife: There is an actual bison herd in the park, managed by Denver Mountain Parks since 1914. They're fenced off from the trail, but it's still a genuinely strange thing to see on a lap that started in an I-70 trail head.

• colorado
• genesee-park
• mountain-bike
• single-speed
• beginner-friendly
• family-friendly
• after-work