A letter from a local
The bike-town bar was set here.
Horsetooth Reservoir sits fifteen minutes west of Old Town, ringed by singletrack and red sandstone hogbacks. That's the after-work default. The Poudre — Colorado's only designated Wild & Scenic river — pours out of its canyon just north with class III-IV water all early summer and granite cragging up the walls.
This is one of America's original bike cities: cruiser lanes everywhere, gravel roads fanning north into the plains, and a beer scene (New Belgium, Odell) that grew up around the riding. Lory State Park and the foothills fill in every weekday gap.
Big-resort skiing is the honest miss — nothing lift-served inside an hour and a half. If your winters lean nordic and your summers lean everything, this is the one.
— Beck