Video: Riding the 2012 Trek Slash with Ross Schnell

Desert-style mountain bike riding on Colorado’s Western Slope

Published: January 9, 2012 at 9:00 am

It’s not hard to be talked into a trip to Colorado’s Western Slope for some techy, desert-style mountain bike riding, especially this time of year when there’s a blanket of ice and snow covering the trails on this side of the Continental Divide.

So when 'Rad' Ross Schnell offered to play tour guide to Grand Junction’s Lunch Loops trail system, bags were literally being packed before he'd even hung up the phone. The bonus for this trip out west was that we had a 2012 Trek Slash at our disposal for the rocky, technical trails in Schnell’s backyard – essentially the same bike he helped develop and rides most of the time.

It was a given that the former all-mountain and singlespeed world champion would drop us like a rock even if he showed up on a tricycle, but Schnell was gracious enough to keep his speed in check just long enough for us to get a little footage of him ripping some of Colorado’s best singletrack on his new Slash.

If you’ve never ridden the trails around Grand Junction, or at least not recently, give them a try. “The trails have exploded in the last couple of years,” Schnell said, adding: “There’s gotta be like a 100-miles of trails around here by now”. That mileage may be a bit exaggerated but after a long weekend of riding just the Lunch Loops trail system right out of town, it didn’t feel too far off.

Unable to load media