While my bike coach, Piglet, rode ahead on the down­hill moun­tain bike trail at the Snow­mass Bike Park, I fol­lowed cau­tious­ly behind, try­ing to remem­ber what she had said about not hav­ing a “death grip” on the handlebars.

Crouched in the neu­tral down­hill stance she taught me ear­li­er in the day, I tra­versed over rocks, cruised around turns and tried my best to look up from the trail every once in awhile to catch a glimpse of the laven­der, yel­low and white wild­flow­ers among the groves of leg­gy aspen trunks.

When we neared the bot­tom of the moun­tain, she took me to the begin­ner skills park and explained how to safe­ly ride over a small jump. Even though I didn’t catch any air, I let out a “Wheeee!” as I crest­ed the small mound of dirt. Piglet was right: Going down­hill on a moun­tain bike does make you feel like a kid again.

The Snow­mass Bike Park is one of many rea­sons why the Roar­ing Fork Val­ley — home to the moun­tain com­mu­ni­ties of Aspen, Snow­mass, Glen­wood Springs, Car­bon­dale and Basalt — earned a cov­et­ed gold-medal des­ig­na­tion from the Boul­der-based Inter­na­tion­al Moun­tain Bike Asso­ci­a­tion ear­li­er this year.

This Col­orado val­ley is one of just sev­en regions in the world to earn the gold-medal title from IMBA’s cycling experts, who also judged the area’s bike shops, rental options, guides and instruc­tors. What’s more, they con­sid­ered what it would be like to spend a bike-cen­tric vaca­tion in the val­ley, tak­ing into account the acces­si­bil­i­ty of oth­er activ­i­ties, enter­tain­ment options, bars, restau­rants, lodg­ing and shopping.

But per­haps most impor­tant, the region stood out as an award-wor­thy cycling des­ti­na­tion because it’s friend­ly and acces­si­ble to begin­ners. Some of IMBA’s goals include break­ing down bar­ri­ers to entry into the sport and help­ing peo­ple at all abil­i­ty lev­els improve their cycling skills.

News of the des­ig­na­tion, cou­pled with the desire to spend more time out­doors because of the pan­dem­ic, has made the Roar­ing Fork Val­ley a pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tion for peo­ple who like to ride bikes this sum­mer — or want to learn how.

“The trails, the roads, the instruc­tors — the stoke lev­el is huge here,” said Erik Skar­van, a long­time bike rac­er and own­er and instruc­tor at Aspen’s Sun Dog Ath­let­ics, which offers a whole host of out­door expe­ri­ences and lessons. “Just in terms of the vibe, cycling is the ski­ing of summer.”

As a begin­ner myself, I want­ed to check it out and expe­ri­ence first-hand what the Roar­ing Fork Val­ley had to offer by spend­ing a long (social­ly dis­tanced) week­end here, most­ly on two wheels.

Downhill mountain biking

I spent most of my time at the bike park (OK, if I’m being hon­est, all of my time) on the eas­i­est trail on the moun­tain, Verde. Piglet (whose real name is Peg­gy Har­ris-Fos­ter, and she’s a total badass) spent the entire day with me, start­ing with a les­son in how to use my bike’s brakes, how to turn a cor­ner while going down­hill, how to posi­tion my body on the bike and, impor­tant­ly, how to get a huge moun­tain bike onto the gondola.

Dur­ing the win­ter, Snow­mass is cov­ered with snow and teem­ing with skiers and snow­board­ers. But dur­ing the sum­mer months, it’s lush and green, with a criss-cross of flowy moun­tain-bike trails designed with help from the pros at Grav­i­ty Log­ic, which spe­cial­izes in build­ing epic and inten­tion­al moun­tain bike trails.

The bike park first opened in 2011. Since then, Aspen Ski­ing Com­pa­ny (along with plen­ty of oth­er part­ners) has been adding more and more trails to improve the park’s diver­si­ty. As with ski­ing, moun­tain bike trails are col­or-cod­ed by dif­fi­cul­ty — green is the eas­i­est, blue is medi­um dif­fi­cul­ty, black is the most difficult.

Today, you can tack­le one green trail, six blue trails and four black trails, includ­ing one dou­ble-black dia­mond. Some are long, some are short. Some are super smooth and flowy, while oth­ers are more tech­ni­cal­ly demand­ing. All told, there are more than 25 miles of ter­rain offer­ing 2,893 feet of ver­ti­cal descent here.

“We’re final­ly at a point where we have a real­ly strong diver­si­ty of trail offer­ings both in terms of abil­i­ty-appro­pri­ate­ness and in terms of the style,” said Tyler Lind­say, a long­time moun­tain bik­er who helps run com­pet­i­tive events put on by Aspen Ski­ing Company.

If you pre­fer to earn it, there are a hand­ful of cross-coun­try trails at the bike park. You can eas­i­ly con­nect to the more than 300 miles of sin­gle­track through­out the val­ley, with­out real­ly hav­ing to get off your bike.

“You can start at the top of Elk Camp at almost 10,000 feet and ride con­tin­u­ous sin­gle­track all the way down to the Rodeo Lot or even all the way down to Brush Creek some 4,500 feet beneath you, and that’s pret­ty unique,” said Lind­say. “One of the great­est parts (of the bike park) is the way it ties into the exist­ing lega­cy net­work of singletrack.”

And if down­hill moun­tain bik­ing isn’t your thing, of course there are plen­ty of oth­er oppor­tu­ni­ties to enjoy the moun­tain: hik­ing, a chal­lenge course, a climb­ing wall, an alpine coast­er or just gen­er­al sight­see­ing and qual­i­ty time with your dog.

Riding the Rio Grande

No vis­it to the Roar­ing Fork Val­ley is com­plete with­out a walk, jog or ride along the Rio Grande Trail, a 42-mile paved won­der that stretch­es from Glen­wood Springs to Aspen. The trail is easy to access from down­town Aspen and can con­nect you to many sin­gle­track net­works if you’re itch­ing for anoth­er day of moun­tain biking.

“It’s pret­ty nice if you don’t have to get into a car to dri­ve to a trail­head,” says Mike Pritchard, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Roar­ing Fork Moun­tain Bik­ing Asso­ci­a­tion. “You’re not going to ride all 40-plus miles on your moun­tain bike, but more often than not, you can ride from home along that trail a cou­ple of miles or a few miles in the mid­dle of your ride. It real­ly does con­nect everything.”

The Rio Grande is what’s known as a “rail-to-trails” project, since it replaced a train route of the Rio Grande West­ern Rail­road. After trains stopped run­ning in the mid-1990s, local gov­ern­ments, non­prof­its and the Col­orado Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion bought the cor­ri­dor and cre­at­ed the Roar­ing Fork Tran­sit Author­i­ty to help build and man­age the mul­ti-use trail.

RELATED: Ride your bike on these Col­orado rail­road routes with­out fear of being run over by a train

I opt­ed to ride a cruis­er bike to explore the Rio Grande trail, start­ing with a stop at the John Den­ver Sanc­tu­ary, a love­ly lit­tle gar­den on the Roar­ing Fork Riv­er fea­tur­ing the lyrics of some of Denver’s pop­u­lar songs (and quotes from oth­er note­wor­thy fig­ures) etched into boul­ders. You’ll leave with “Rocky Moun­tain High” stuck in your head, but it’s so worth it for a moment of qui­et reflec­tion and to imag­ine Aspen through Denver’s eyes.

If you like hav­ing a des­ti­na­tion in mind while rid­ing, head out of Aspen and ped­al for approx­i­mate­ly 8  miles (most­ly down­hill) until you reach Woody Creek, a tiny town that’s best known for being the home of Hunter S. Thomp­son (and a hand­ful of oth­er celebri­ties, too).

Before you turn back, stop for a mar­gari­ta at Woody Creek Tav­ern, a funky dive bar with park­ing for dozens of bikes out front. And maybe don’t have too many, since you’ll still need to ride back to Aspen — and this time you’ll be going uphill.

Cruising to the Maroon Bells

E‑bikes, in par­tic­u­lar, are also hav­ing a moment in the Roar­ing Fork Val­ley. These high-tech bikes are not new, but they’ve become exceed­ing­ly pop­u­lar here since the start of the pan­dem­ic.

You still have to ped­al, but you get some assis­tance from an elec­tric motor, which makes them great for com­mut­ing around the valley.

RELATED: Pop­u­lar­i­ty of e‑bikes sky­rock­et­ing as peo­ple con­tin­ue to head out­doors dur­ing the coro­n­avirus outbreak

(Though the rules vary through­out Pitkin Coun­ty and based upon the type of e‑bike, these bikes are gen­er­al­ly only allowed on roads, mul­ti-use trails and paved trails — not on sin­gle­track, side­walks, pedes­tri­an malls and non-paved trails. If you decide to rent an e‑bike, make sure to edu­cate your­self about where you can and can­not go with it.)

They’re also a pop­u­lar choice for rid­ing on the road up to the icon­ic Maroon Bells, a route that climbs more than 1,300 feet in 7 miles. Of course, if you’re up for a chal­lenge, you can ride your reg­u­lar road bike instead. (Go ahead and also plan a ride up Inde­pen­dence Pass while you’re at it.) Anoth­er option: Rent a bike and get a ride from Blaz­ing Adven­tures, an out­fit­ter with spe­cial per­mis­sion to dri­ve up to the Bells, then coast back down.

Because of COVID-19 and the wild pop­u­lar­i­ty of these twin peaks, vis­i­tors need to make a reser­va­tion to access the Maroon Bells and the road is most­ly closed to vehi­cle traf­fic between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., except for shut­tles and cer­tain exemptions.

The good news? This means there are very few cars on the road, which makes it safer for cyclists. Even so — and even on an e‑bike — it’s impor­tant to under­stand your own phys­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions (remem­ber: the air is very thin up here!) and take all the nec­es­sary safe­ty pre­cau­tions of rid­ing a bike on the road.

Along the way, don’t for­get to keep an eye out for wildlife, like bighorn sheep, deer, tons of birds, mar­mots and black bears (I was lucky enough to see one ambling across the road on my way up!).

Wondering how else to spend your time? Here are a few ideas.

• Check out the clev­er­ly named “Sculp­tural­ly Dis­tanced” exhib­it at Ander­son Ranch Arts Cen­ter in Snow­mass. Here, you’ll see 17 sculp­tures from local, nation­al and inter­na­tion­al artists.
  Take a tour of the art and grounds of the his­toric Aspen Insti­tute, aka Aspen Mead­ows Resort, which was designed in the Ger­man Bauhaus style by archi­tect and artist Her­bert Bay­er between 1953 and 1973.
• Learn about the for­ag­ing exploits of Bar­clay Dodge, own­er and chef at Bosq in down­town Aspen. Dodge, who grew up in Aspen and trained all over the world as a chef, reg­u­lar­ly heads into the near­by wilder­ness to for­age wild foods and uten­sils like water­cress, pine nee­dles and ser­vice­ber­ry branch­es. The restaurant’s menu high­lights his for­aged ingredients.
• Wan­der through the Aspen His­tor­i­cal Society’s Wheeler/Stallard Muse­um to learn about the region’s hum­ble sil­ver min­ing begin­nings. Or, take a guid­ed his­toric walk­ing tour with one of the society’s docents.
• Learn about the valley’s flo­ra and fau­na on an infor­ma­tive guid­ed hike with the Aspen Cen­ter for Envi­ron­men­tal Stud­ies.
• Take a social­ly dis­tanced yoga class among the wild­flow­ers on the top of Aspen Moun­tain with Aspen Shak­ti yoga studio.

Wear your mask in the Roaring Fork Valley

Aspen, Snow­mass and oth­er com­mu­ni­ties in the val­ley are tak­ing the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic very seri­ous­ly. If you’re plan­ning a road trip, remem­ber to respect and fol­low all local rules and guide­lines relat­ed to pre­vent­ing the spread of COVID-19.

Most impor­tant, wear a mask that cov­ers your nose and mouth at all times when you’re in pub­lic, espe­cial­ly when you’re in busy areas. Yes, that even includes wear­ing a mask when you’re hik­ing, cycling or oth­er­wise hit­ting the trails in the val­ley and oth­er peo­ple are around.

Since require­ments can change, be sure to keep an eye on city and coun­ty gov­ern­ment web­sites (or call before you visit).

The Aspen Cham­ber, for exam­ple, has put togeth­er a com­pre­hen­sive COVID-19 vis­i­tor resource guide.

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