Biking, in the mountains ... Not quite "mountain biking"

Given the choice, I'll go on a mountain bike ride over road riding any day. But I still like to mix it up and count myself as an enthusiastic road biker.

Yesterday I rode the Copper Triangle on my Trek 5200. This was the first time for this road event, which starts and ends at Colorado's Copper Mountain ski resort, going through Leadville, Minturn and Vail.

The tour (this was not a race) covers 80 miles (although the event website says 78, both my bike computer and GPS put it at 80) with a bit under 6,000 feet of climbing over three mountain passes.

While not the speediest rider, nor even close, I felt pretty good. The morning after, my legs feel only slightly fatigued and not achy.

Next weekend I'm headed to Crested Butte for three days of mountain biking, so yesterday's road epic should have been great conditioning. The altitude didn't phase me on the Copper Triangle, so I'm hoping that I'll be OK on CB's high trails.

One thing that struck me yesterday was the size of this first-year road event. The Copper Triangle managed to attract more than 2,000 riders! Road biking is just so much more mainstream than mountain biking. Yeah, it's partly the Lance factor.

But as enjoyable as yesterday's road ride was, I couldn't help but think that all these heavily lycra'ed road bikers don't know what they're missing by sticking to the pavement.

Of course, I really don't mean this as a complaint. Most mountain biking trails I ride (mostly Colorado and Utah) are fairly uncrowded. I'll be happy to see it stay that way.