Drive due west, past Glenwood and beyond the bubble of the Roaring Fork Valley. Continue on past Rifle and through Parachute as gas prices plummet, the altitude drops, the sun sharpens and the white-painted peaks of the Rockies begin to fade in the rear view mirror.

On this stretch of Highway 70, and just about 33 miles before being assailed by the metropolis of Grand Junction, there is a stock-green sign sitting quietly on the side of the road — DeBeque. Take that right hand turn, roll the windows down, slow your speed to about 35 mph and prepare to enter a sleeping hamlet that would normally pass as a mile marker for your trip to Moab or  odyssey to Vegas.

Push on through Main Street  — the only street — where the local bank is simply called “Bank,” and the Presbyterian church is called ”Church.” Keep your eyes peeled for Isaiah, the 4-year-old sheriff with a shiny new buzz cut, who sits outside of the one salon, waiting for his mom and poking people with his stick. If you're lucky, he'll tell you that his birthday is next month, and presents are always welcome. 

Beyond town, the road turns to dirt, heads north, and Isaiah's town of 500 people disappears. You are now heading towards nowhere — hundreds and hundreds of miles of BLM land, on top of which sits the occasional tan oil pump carved deep into the soil. The land is a barren, arid jungle. You might see a couple of motorcycles, some off-road vehicles, but that’s about it. There are no houses; the creeks are dried up and the farmers have taken their flocks to greener pastures.

But on Saturday, when the Front Range poured into Fruita for the Fat Tire Festival, DeBeque had visitors — an unlikely occurrence. The only way you could have found them was by following small wooden signs staked into dirt that read, “SMVCO” (Snowmass Village Co.). And if it weren't for those signs, you'd be lost within minutes. There are no maps, no welcome centers, no groomed campsites.

Instead, there is only a group of 25 mountain bikers who have gathered to celebrate the passing of winter and the coming of spring. As the sign explained, they call themselves SMVCO, which specifically refers to a 24 Hours of Moab team that was put together a couple of years back. But it generally refers to a group of friends who live in the Snowmass Village area, love to ride bikes and have formed a tradition of heading west the weekend after the lifts close.

After 15 minutes more of driving through rutty, washed-out roads, their campsite comes into view. It is perched on a bluff — a vantage point from which the surrounding area comes into view. No longer are the hills of DeBeque a wasteland, but an endless, undulating preserve of buttes, boulders, slick-rock, mesas, sage fields, and more. It is the graceful meeting point between the desert and the mountains, the cold and the heat, the wet and the dry — a transition for those seeking equipoise between this year's suffocating snowfall of Aspen and the red-charred flats of Utah.

Approaching the campsite by 11 a.m., it is clear that the crew have taken a morning ride. The campsite is empty of bodies, but full of spare bikes leaning against trees, wrenches soaked in grease, dirt-smeared sandals, dogs tied up and sleeping in the shade, tents ensconced in the brush and jugs half-filled with water. It is a makeshift bike shop, a frat house and kitchen appearing like a mirage from afar and an apocalyptic ghost town from up close.

An hour later, there are sounds of life. Somewhere out in the sinuous, snake-coiled trails, there are yelps, shrill shrieks of excitement and laughs.

They are coming.

Then, slowly, one by one the riders emerge in a trail of whirring rims and tires. Their legs are lathered in mud, their arms gleaming with sweat, and their faces tinted with a florid hue that has come from hours of leg-thrashing, endorphin-releasing riding.

Reaching the campsite, they stow their bikes, strip off their drenched jerseys, and un-tie their ridged shoes. Beers are opened, sandals are secured and lunch is made.

The winds are coming up with an autumnal rush, cooling every hot body huddled below a shaking tree. For the hell of it, someone unfurls a kite and sends it soaring into the sky, which only lasts a few minutes before it comes crashing down into dirt, tangling the lines and eliciting a lazy laugh from onlookers.

The day continues to pass in this fashion — languid conversations coming and going, friends catching up with friends and eyes shutting as the sun reaches its full force.

A trio of riders then jump onto their bikes to go play in the slick-rock   nearby. They briefly transform the sand-colored stones into a playground — hopping between different outcrops in a test of balance and accuracy; forcing the bike to come to a complete stop in precarious poses.

Minutes later, another group of riders throw their bikes into the back of the pickup truck and drive north towards a spot called “Purple Rock.” From there, they dismount and stare up towards boulder-strewn hills with soil that glows in a deep violet hue. They race to the top and then carefully investigate different downhill descents, calling out to each other:

“What about this one?”

“No, check this out.”

“I think I found the line.”

“Sweet. Drop it.”

“Okay.”

Then, in a sudden burst of steel, flesh, and adrenalin, they accelerate down the hill, navigating each perilous gesture of rock and loose earth in the blink of an eye — in a moment that is over before it even began, leaving behind a misty trail of stirred dust that corroborates what happened, even though you might not believe it.


The riders then return to camp and swap the latest stories as the sun begins to sink below the western horizon, shifting and darkening the cloudless skies towards a point of rest.

And just as the moon makes its first appearance, imbuing the trails of DeBeque with a bright, white, spectral light, the members of SMVCO awake, strap on their helmets, tie their shoes, and ride off for one last adventure into the night.