I've encountered a lot of animals while bicycling along some of my favorite trails around western Colorado. The most common being rabbits, chipmunks or prairie dogs. If I encountered this enormous bear, which was photographed along the Rio Grande Trail between Aspen and Glenwood Springs, I'm not sure if I would watch in awe or pedal away as fast as my legs would go.While I haven't ridden this trail, I've seen portions of it from the highway and had heard it's my kind of trail, scenic, well maintained and the difficulty falls into the easy category. It's been on my list of "gotta ride someday" trails and the thought of this bear turning a leisurely ride into a race isn't keeping me from wanting to ride the trail, although I may wait until the bear moves to it's summer home in the mountains.

The Rio Grande Trail was built along the same route where the old Denver and Western Rio Grande Railroad tracks ran until the mid-1990s and is open to walkers, bicyclists, horseback riders and other non-motorized use.

The trail is a total of 42 miles long, but there are several spurs along the way making it easy to walk or ride part or all of the trail. After reading more about this great Colorado trail it's moving from someday to this summer on my list of bike rides. If you've been on this trail, please share your comments below.

 

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