SSUSA ColoRADo: One Gear Takes Over Salida

Event

Single Speed USA ColoRADo 2024

Region

Colorado

Country

USA

I had heard about Single Speed USA for years. It always sounded less like an organized bicycle event and more like a traveling rumor involving one gear, several hundred people, and a town that had not been adequately warned.

When I saw that the 2024 edition, officially branded SSUSA ColoRADo, was coming to Salida, I was out of excuses. This was happening in my own state, in one of my favorite towns, on trails I already knew were good. Skipping it would have required a medical emergency or an unusually convincing lie.

This would be my first SSUSA.

My buddy John came with me. John did not own a single speed, but that was solved quickly with an old Trek he found on Facebook Marketplace and converted for the event. This is apparently all it takes to enter the lifestyle: remove enough parts from a bicycle, shorten the chain, and convince yourself the remaining gear is correct.

John had raced professionally in Europe. He also considered hundred-mile gravel rides a reasonable use of a weekend. John was, and remains, in significantly better shape than me.

This information would become relevant later.

The Poor Man's Land Cruiser

We left Golden early Friday afternoon in my Nissan Armada with the pop-up camper behind us.

The Armada is the poor man's Toyota Land Cruiser. It is large, thirsty, comfortable, and perfectly capable of carrying an unreasonable quantity of bicycles and camping equipment. What it lacks in international expedition credibility, it makes up for with cupholders and the ability to tow a camper over Kenosha Pass without making the transmission smell alarming.

The drive to Salida follows Highway 285 rather than Interstate 70, which automatically improves the mood. I-70 has become less of a highway and more of an ongoing regional disagreement. Highway 285 still feels like you are actually going somewhere.

Salida has long been my favorite Colorado mountain town. It sits along the Arkansas River, has excellent riding accessible from town, and remains compact enough that you can walk from one end of downtown to the other before your beer gets warm. There are enough bars and restaurants to get yourself into trouble, but not so many that the town has become an outdoor shopping mall with condos attached.

The Arkansas Hills system, also called S Mountain or Tenderfoot Mountain, rises directly across the river from downtown. Frontside zigzags visibly up the hill from the F Street bridge, making it possible to finish breakfast, cross the river, and begin regretting your gear ratio almost immediately.

The designated campground was at Independent Whitewater, a few miles outside town. We set up the camper, unloaded the bikes, and headed into Salida for Friday check-in.

Apparently Everyone in Colorado Donated Something

Registration was already busy when we arrived. Riders continued appearing from every direction until it became clear that SSUSA was not merely taking place in Salida. It was going to occupy Salida.

I have no idea how many riders actually showed up. Registration had a cap, but between the people who registered, the people who didn't bother, and the people who just heard there was a party and rolled in, it was clearly a few hundred, and in a town only a few blocks wide, that is enough people to make one specific kind of bicycle appear to be the dominant form of transportation.

The swag bag was ridiculous.

Most events give you a number plate, several advertisements, and a small packet of something you will discover in the bottom of your vehicle six months later. SSUSA ColoRADo appeared to have received contributions from every bicycle company, coffee roaster, brewery, frame builder, artist, and person with access to a screen-printing machine in the state.

There was actual good stuff in there. Enough of it that the entry fee began to feel less like payment for an event and more like a poorly supervised merchandise exchange.

Friday evening continued the way these things do. People talked about bikes, gear ratios, previous SSUSAs, places they had ridden, and places they intended to ride once they recovered from the weekend they had not yet started.

John, being John, looked ready to race.

I was ready to camp.

Chorizo Was a Choice

Someone woke up around three Saturday morning to make hundreds of breakfast burritos.

I do not remember who did this, but that person deserves recognition. Feeding a few hundred single speeders before sunrise is not breakfast service. It is disaster preparation.

I chose chorizo, as usual.

Immediately after receiving it, I remembered that we would soon be climbing technical trail at roughly 7,000 feet. Chorizo remains one of the finest breakfast meats ever created, but it does carry a degree of mid-ride uncertainty.

The morning was cold. This was October in Colorado, and everyone stood around in jackets, gloves, flannel, costumes, and various combinations of clothing that were probably warm but difficult to explain. The sun was already working on the problem, though, and layers started coming off before the ride had properly begun.

We gathered near S Mountain for a mass game of foot-down. Hundreds of adults rode slowly in circles, attempting to knock one another off balance without putting a foot on the ground.

This is the sort of highly developed bicycle skill rarely measured by a power meter.

After foot-down, the group rolled through town in a loose parade. Residents watched several hundred single speeds pass by, presumably wondering whether Salida had introduced a gear restriction without public notice.

Then we crossed the river and began climbing.

The Route, as Best as I Can Reconstruct It

I inspected the GPX after the fact and overlaid it on the Arkansas Hills trail map. It records 14.8 miles, beginning and ending near downtown Salida. The main route appears to be Frontside, then Spiral Drive and CR 176, then CR 175, then North Backbone, then the Dude Abides and Upper Sand Dunes area, then Lower Sand Dunes, then Dream On, then Chicken Dinner, then back along the river. The middle section uses a few roads and connectors that are difficult to name with complete confidence, but the major trail sequence is clear. The route also matches contemporary accounts of the shortest Saturday option being roughly 17 miles with around 1,700 feet of climbing.

Looking back at the GPX, our ride started near downtown and climbed Frontside, the obvious zigzag of singletrack rising above the river. Frontside is only about a mile long, but it gains elevation quickly enough to make breakfast decisions available for review. It is rocky, narrow in places, and exposed just enough to discourage staring too long at the town below.

From the upper trailhead, the route moved onto Spiral Drive and CR 176, then followed CR 175 north. This was the long road portion visible on the GPX: not especially technical, but steadily uphill and long enough for everyone to spread out.

John gradually disappeared ahead of me.

This was expected.

There is no satisfying way to explain the fitness difference between someone who raced professionally in Europe and someone who owns a pop-up camper full of snacks. We were technically participating in the same event, but not always in the same immediate area.

At the north end of the system, the course left the road and entered North Backbone. The trail twisted through dry hills above Salida, alternating between quick descents, rocky climbs, and technical sections that were never quite long enough to develop a rhythm.

The course then folded back toward the center of Arkansas Hills through the area around The Dude Abides, Upper Sand Dunes, and Lower Sand Dunes. The exact connections are difficult to reconstruct from the recording because the event used old roads, intersections, and short connectors, but the general direction was unmistakable: ride uphill, turn onto something rockier, descend briefly, and then discover another climb.

The climbing itself was not terrible by Colorado standards. It was simply continuous enough that every time the terrain flattened, it felt like the organizers had made a clerical error.

At one point, we turned onto an absurdly steep four-wheel-drive road. It was loose, direct, and apparently built before switchbacks were accepted by the scientific community. The road climbed straight toward the next aid station with no interest in subtlety.

This was where the event clarified what it meant by "aid."

Horseradish Is Technically Nutrition

A normal aid station provides water, electrolyte drink, fruit, gels, and perhaps a reassuring volunteer wearing a vest.

The SSUSA aid station had beer, weed, and Oreos whose cream filling had been replaced with horseradish.

In fairness, there may also have been water.

The horseradish Oreos were presented with enough confidence that people continued accepting them. This is one of the dangers of group events. A decision that would seem obviously incorrect at home becomes completely reasonable when made on a mountain among several hundred strangers riding bicycles without derailleurs.

The first bite provided the familiar crunch and sweetness of an Oreo. The second half of the experience arrived through the sinuses.

It was terrible.

It was also exactly right.

We stayed long enough to drink something, recover, and watch other riders discover the Oreos. Then we continued through more technical but relatively level trail toward the southern end of the system.

The GPX appears to connect into Dream On, followed by the final descent on Chicken Dinner. Dream On traverses the lower hills above the river, while Chicken Dinner provides roughly two miles of fast, twisting trail back toward Salida. The name suggests something gentle. The trail itself contains enough rocks, corners, and optional excitement to remind you that mountain bikers should not be allowed to name things without supervision.

The last descent went quickly. After hours of climbing, technical traversing, and questionable aid-station cuisine, Chicken Dinner was the payout. It flowed downhill in the direction everyone had been waiting to travel all day.

At the bottom, Paul was cooking bacon in a camper.

Yes, that Paul, Paul from Paul Components.

Fresh bacon at the bottom of a mountain-bike descent is such an effective idea that it is surprising the bicycle industry has spent any time developing electronic shifting.

There was not much reason to remain at the trailhead after that. We ate bacon, talked for a while, and began heading back toward town.

The real party was already there.

Salida Disappeared Beneath Single Speeds

Downtown had been completely taken over.

Every restaurant, bar, patio, sidewalk, and available section of wall seemed to contain single-speed riders. Bikes were piled outside businesses in enormous mechanical shrines. Some were expensive custom builds. Others looked as though they had been assembled from three unrelated bicycles and a box found beneath a workbench.

All were now part of the same pile.

This is apparently a single-speed tradition. Instead of carefully leaning bikes against a wall, everyone throws them into a heap large enough that no individual can leave without the cooperation of several others.

It is both bicycle parking and community-building.

Surly had set up at "the Lumberyard." When someone told me this, I assumed the Lumberyard was a bar I had somehow missed despite considering myself familiar with downtown Salida.

It was not a bar.

Surly was literally at the town lumberyard.

Of course they were.

There were bikes, drinks, pickle-juice shots, small competitions, heckling, and the general atmosphere of a company event that had successfully avoided involvement from the legal department. The location made no sense until you considered the people involved, at which point no other location would have worked.

Dinner and the official after-party followed at Benson's Tavern. There was a large amount of food, live music, raffle prizes, and several hundred riders gradually revising the day's events into better stories.

John had ridden strongly because John always rides strongly.

I had finished, eaten bacon, and avoided discovering the long-term consequences of a horseradish Oreo.

We had both succeeded.

The First One

This was my first Single Speed USA, and people who had attended several were already talking about Salida as something unusually large.

It had the right town, the right trail system, and enough riders to make the whole weekend feel bigger than an organized ride. For a couple of days, Salida did not merely host a single-speed event. It became a single-speed town.

That is what I remember most.

Not a result, because there really was not one. Not how quickly I climbed or where I finished. I remember the cold morning, the mass of bikes, the burrito, the view above town, the ridiculous aid station, the bacon, the literal lumberyard, and walking through downtown past piles of single speeds stacked outside every bar.

I had wanted to attend SSUSA for years. When it finally came to Colorado, it was everything I had hoped it would be, plus horseradish.

It would not be my last.

Two years later, I would point the poor man's Land Cruiser toward Richfield, Utah, with Fixie Dave riding shotgun.

Apparently one gear was enough to become a habit.

• ssusa
• colorado
• mountain-bike
• single-speed
• race
• culture