A few years ago, after believing I had completed every notable climb in the Boulder area — admittedly climbing them slowly because, well, I’m slow — I discovered a poster made by local artist Zach Lee for Simple Cycling Maps, featuring 25 Boulder-area climbs and elevation and gradient details for each. The poster listed a bunch of climbs I knew well, including Ward and Flagstaff and Magnolia — and a few hidden gems I was stunned to learn about, including Logan Mill, Deer Trail and Raymond.
Lee created the poster, which is for sale online as well as at a few local stores such as Boulder Cycle Sport and Rapha, in 2018. He told me recently, “As local designers and cyclists, we were curious: How do all these iconic Boulder climbs actually stack up against each other? That curiosity turned into a project built on data visualization, clean design, and a bit of masochistic reverence for elevation gain.”
I hung the poster in my garage, got a gold Sharpie, and created a grid so that I could track my progress with a “X” marks.
Adam Perry
A friend of mine, Bob Sargent of Savory Catering in Boulder, challenged me to complete all 25 rides in one year, in no particular order, saying we’d drink champagne as we rode up the final climb together at the end of the year.
I bought the poster at the Rapha location in Boulder, and Zach says, “While the piece wasn’t commissioned by Rapha, it definitely lives in the spirit of their love for riding and the beauty of suffering on two wheels.” The beauty of suffering was not lost on me as I completed all 25 rides in six months after hanging the poster, dubbed “The Profile Series: Boulder, CO” by Lee.
I could write a novella on the experience of completing all 25 diverse climbs, but here are some highlights.
NCAR, the easiest climb on the poster, is an approximately 2.5-mile ascent from Broadway Street and Table Mesa Road, leading up to the National Center for Atmospheric Research and, if you like, beautiful hiking trails. The heart of the climb is just a 417-foot doozy from Vassar Drive to the top, and this ride can be done by most Boulder riders on a lunch break, although avid local cyclists who are retired, unemployed or maybe Bitcoin millionaires are often seen doing NCAR repeats as training.
The aforementioned Poor Man’s Pass climb takes a little more time, as the steep 1.5-mile dirt road between Fourmile Canyon and Sunshine Canyon is accessible from Boulder only by climbing one of those two canyons. Most of the year, Poorman Road is pretty smooth and can be climbed on a skinny-tire road bike, but after a big rain or during the winter months, you’ll at least want to use a gravel bike. This is my favorite Boulder ride (Strava says I’ve done it 105 times) because it made me fall in love with climbing; it includes gravel, road and dirt if you begin at Boulder Canyon; and if you’re in good shape, you can do it on a lunch break.
Lickskillet Road, notoriously the steepest dirt road in the state of Colorado, is, in my opinion, the hardest climb in the area and the most daunting on the poster. At #21 on the poster, deceiving at only one mile, because it reaches an approximately 20 percent gradient and the rough texture makes it feel even steeper. I’ve climbed this shortcut between Ward and Gold Hill on a road bike, a touring bike and a fat bike. I’ve even got my car towed after trying to climb it with that. This is a bike ride you might swear off for the rest of your life after you’ve conquered it.
For #18, 68J, you will need a mountain bike or be an elite gravel rider. With all the rocks on this hidden trail between Gross Reservoir and Magnolia Road, you’d be best suited to use a motorcycle, but of course, you’d be disqualified. Best of luck getting all the way from downtown Boulder, up over Flagstaff Road and past Gross Reservoir, through a remote mountain neighborhood just to begin this treacherous, rocky climb that lets you out all the way on Magnolia Road, which you can take to Nederland or down to Boulder Canyon. The treacherous Switzerland Trail ride (#14) also begs for knobby tires.
The classic mining town of Gold Hill — with its historic Bluebird Lodge, Gold Hill Inn and Gold Hill Store — is featured on Lee’s poster three times, in three diverse and challenging rides. Get yourself and your bike to Gold Hill for a snack, and you can complete the 7-mile Gold Hill Road ride (#13 at 1,300 feet of elevation gain), from the town to Peak to Peak Highway, which the leaf-peeping crowd clogs in the fall. If you’re feeling hearty, climb either Sunshine Canyon (#5) or Fourmile Canyon (#6) from Boulder and arrive in Gold Hill for a meal or even a concert at the Inn or the Store, both of which regularly feature amazing local bands.
Sunshine (3,000 feet) and Fourmile (2,600 feet) are both approximately 10-mile climbs from downtown Boulder, and offer breathtaking 360-degree views of the Front Range and jaunts through tiny communities like Salinas.
A bunch of the 25 rides can be done from anywhere in the city of Boulder with a spare hour or two — such as Linden (#12), Bow Mountain (#20) and Chapman (#16) — but the most rewarding for me were the mysterious locales, like Raymond (#19) and Logan Mill (#11), that start in the middle of more famous rides and take you through unique, isolated neighborhoods you might only discover through this kind of adventure.
Of course Ward (#1) — usually reached by cyclists from north Boulder via Lee Hill Road (#8) — is the most well-known training ride in the area with about 4,000 feet of climbing from Boulder, but for me the grandest adventures on Zach Lee’s poster are Magnola (#2), with its absolutely transporting initial grades that eclipse 20% on the way to lush Continental Divide Views, and the unrelenting journey from Boulder to Nederland via Sugarloaf Road (#3). I listened to Tyler Childers all the way to Nederland while climbing Sugarloaf and imagined myself beamed to the steep backroads of Kentucky or Virginia, far away from the concerns of my life and work in Colorado.
In the end, Sargent was able to join me on a bunch of the 25 rides on Lee’s poster, including Ward, Chapman and a few others, but he got a flat tire at the ridiculously steep base of Magnolia and had to turn around, and was just too busy running in races and running his successful Savory Catering business to complete all 25 rides in a year. However, I obsessively completed all 25 rides the first year the poster hung in my garage, and am at six “X” marks for this year so far.
According to Lee, Simple Cycling Maps is currently developing on a Colorado Profile Series that will capture iconic cycling climbs around the state, including Pikes Peak, Independence Pass, Trail Ridge Road and more. If you’re looking for motivation to get outside, or motivation to earn a champagne toast with a friend, check out Lee’s work for a potential spot in your garage.
