{"id":243,"date":"2008-11-02T09:07:48","date_gmt":"2008-11-02T16:07:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/?p=243"},"modified":"2013-12-14T12:03:29","modified_gmt":"2013-12-14T17:03:29","slug":"rocky-mountain-quad-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/rocky-mountain-quad-squad\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocky Mountain Quad Squad"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was in Phoenix for awhile I kept<\/a> myself<\/a> amused<\/a> with motorcycle<\/a> rentals<\/a>. When I learned I’d be in the Denver area for 5 weeks I was going to do the same thing: but it’s a bit late in the season. Instead I looked around for other activities, and found the Rocky Mountain Quad Squad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yesterday I managed to get in on one of their 2-hour quad tours with two other people. They’re in Idaho Springs<\/a>… a little town that was part of the gold rush a long time ago. It wasn’t too far from Denver: I left at noon for the tour at 1pm and arrived in plenty of time: first a bit of a drive out of the flats of Denver up towards the mountains:<\/p>\n

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The tour starts at a related business: Rocky Mountain Trout Hunters…<\/p>\n

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…where we met our guide Tyler Hawks (one of the owners of the Quad Squad) and signed all the paperwork. From then it only took about 20 minutes to load our gear into the truck, drive out of town, and unload the quads at the beginning of the trail. All safety gear like gloves and helmets was provided:<\/p>\n

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Compared to riding in Ontario<\/a> there was a lot<\/strong> more rocks. And obviously much bigger hills to climb \ud83d\ude42 The were very few places where you could speed up at all (unlike in Oregon where you bombed around in the sand<\/a>): most of the time you were weaving around the trail at slow speeds trying to dodge the worst of the boulders… but that was mostle for a smooth ride… nothing you couldn’t have just rode over anyways. We stopped for several breaks to drink some water and ask questions: here’s one of the first:<\/p>\n

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I took too many pictures along the way: here are some from one of the highest points we reached… looking back down into the valley towards Highway 70 (the road I drove in on to get to Idaho Springs)<\/p>\n

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Here’s another shot pitstop where we had a good view crossing the side of a hill:<\/p>\n

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…and at a hub between many of the trails…<\/p>\n

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On our way back down we stopped at an old mine entrance (well secured). There were a couple old buildings: one still sturdy enough to get into and one in shambles on the side of the hill. There was also a really<\/strong> old (as in it had metal wheels) air pump that used to be used to force fresh air down into the mine. <\/p>\n

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From the mine it was an easy path back down the mountain looping back down the trail we came up, then we loaded up the quads and headed back to Idaho Springs.<\/p>\n

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I had a fantastic time. I first thought of trying to take one of the longer tours… but 2 hours was perfect! I’d really like to thank Randy Simpson at the Rocky Mountain Quad Squad (part owner) for getting back to me weeks after I first inquired about the tour, to make sure I could go… and special thanks to the other owner Tyler Hawks for being a great<\/em><\/strong> guide (and all around funny guy)!<\/p>\n

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If I get back to Denver I’d definitely go again!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was in Phoenix for awhile I kept myself amused with motorcycle rentals. When I learned I’d be in the Denver area for 5 weeks I was going to do the same thing: but it’s a bit late in Continue reading Rocky Mountain Quad Squad<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/ptY4v-3V","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1009,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions\/1009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikekirk.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}