Road
Flat, quiet farm roads — and one of the great paved climbs in the American West, right at the edge of town.
Road riding in Fruita has two completely different moods, and you can have both before lunch.
Out on the valley floor it is flat, fast and almost eerily quiet — farm roads running between orchards and vineyards with the Book Cliffs on one shoulder and the Colorado National Monument on the other. You can ride for an hour out there and be passed by three vehicles, two of which will wave.
Then there is the other mood. The Monument’s west entrance sits a few minutes from downtown, and from there Rim Rock Drive climbs through red rock switchbacks and hand-cut tunnels to overlooks two thousand feet above where you started. It is one of the most spectacular stretches of pavement in Colorado, and you do not have to drive anywhere to get to the bottom of it.
Rim Rock
Drive
The ride people come here for, and the reason Tour of the Moon exists.
Roll from downtown to the Monument’s west entrance. Flat, a few minutes, a good warm-up whether you wanted one or not.
Switchbacks, tunnels and canyon walls, gaining around two thousand feet. Overlooks the whole way up, and no shame in stopping at every one.
Descend back into Fruita, or carry on across the top and drop into Grand Junction for a longer day and a different lunch.
Note: the Monument is a National Park Service site and charges an entrance fee, cyclists included. Check current rates and hours before you ride.
You can ride for an hour out there and be passed by three vehicles, two of which will wave.The valley floor
These are working roads
The quiet you are enjoying out on the valley floor exists because these are farm roads first. They were built for equipment, not for us, and the people using them are at work. Ride accordingly and you will be welcome here for a long time.
What you will actually meet: tractors and sprayers wide enough to take the entire road, hay and produce trucks, irrigation crews pulled onto the shoulder, and gravel trucks that do not stop quickly. Spring planting and autumn harvest are the busiest stretches.
Blind field entrances are the real hazard — equipment pulls out of gaps in the orchard rows with no sightline and no expectation of a bike doing 25.
Six things locals
would ask of you
Wide machinery cannot move over and often cannot see past its own load. Give it the whole road and let it pass.
They are slow enough to tempt you. Wait for the straight.
Gaps in the orchard rows are effectively blind driveways. Cover your brakes through them.
Trucks track it out of the fields, especially near irrigation ditches and after a wet spell. It sits in exactly the line you want.
Most are friendly and none are on a lead. Slow down rather than sprint — sprinting is what turns it into a chase.
It sounds trivial. It is not. Half the reason these roads are still pleasant to ride is that riders and growers have got along out here for years.
When to ride
Climb it, then
go sit down
Rim Rock in the morning, the river in the afternoon, and a patio by six. It is a small town and everything is close.
