18 Road

In 1995 Fruita, Colorado was essentially broke: irrigation problems had collapsed its agriculture and the local oil refinery had closed. Then Troy Rarick bought a cheap building downtown, opened a bike shop called Over the Edge Sports, and with local riders started building singletrack on the surrounding public land. Mountain biking now brings the town an estimated $42 million a year and roughly 50,000 visiting riders, a good share of whom come straight to 18 Road, where 54 trails and 93.2 miles of singletrack, Zippity Do Da and PBR and Kessel Run among them, fan across the North Fruita Desert at the foot of the Book Cliffs.

The map traces every trail in the system as it threads through the contours, from the tight lines stacked against the Book Cliffs down to the open desert below. The contour lines show why the riding works the way it does: long, even ridgelines that let trails run downhill for miles, cut by the shallow washes and gullies the flow trails drop into. The campground sits right in the middle of the ink, where every ride here begins and ends.