Extremely easygoing

Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Feb 29, 2004 by DAVE PHILIPPS THE GAZETTE

a fresh four inches of snow covered the streets, the cars, and three feet of white stuff already piled on the pointed Victorian shacks of Crested Butte when I first saw the funky mountain town in the daylight and started to adjust to Crested Butte time.

On the radio that morning, a local woman with a voice as rich as a $5 cup of coffee read an avalanche forecast instead of a traffic report.

Crested Butte's downtown, wrapped in the icy arms of the West Elk Range of the Rocky Mountains, has two paved streets and a 15 mph speed limit, so traffic is rarely a problem. But after up to a foot of fresh flakes fell on the surrounding mountain ranges the night before, avalanche danger was "considerable" below treeline and "high" above the trees, the DJ cautioned in her warm way, adding, "so be careful out there."

The morning temperature was 12 degrees.

For hearty locals who pride themselves on their mix of extreme athletic feats and mellow lifestyle, it was a perfect day for a bike ride.

Through the window I could already see a local resident bundled in a down jacket pedaling a rusty old bicycle through the untracked snow, followed by a furry, tail-wagging Alaskan malamute.

I saw almost the same scene again when I shuffled out of the antique Elk Mountain Lodge, the refurbished miners' hotel where I was staying.

As I loaded my snowboard into the car on my way to the ski mountain, a woman rounded a corner in the crisp air on an old red Schwinn. She rolled by with snowshoes tucked in the basket and the rhythmic squeak of her pedals keeping time.

I called after her to find out why Crested Butte had so many old, funky bikes, she shrugged and said, "it's an old, funky town," and pedaled on down to the main drag, Elk Avenue.

Crested Butte may seem more ideal for skiing than pedaling in mid- winter.

The town gets almost 17 feet of snow a year and the average winter temperature hovers below freezing. And the skiing, both at Crested Butte Resort and in the backcountry, is world class.

But the locals ride their bikes year-round.

They commute around the eight-block-square metropolis on creaky old wrecks called town bikes, townies, or by their most endearing nickname, klunkers.

It doesn't faze them that the air is as icy as the roads. They have puffy down jackets and studded snow tires for their bikes.

The wire baskets, homemade ski racks and rattling fenders are all just part of the easy lifestyle in a town where few folks feel they need to get anywhere faster than a klunker can carry them.

I found klunkers leaning against shopping carts outside the local grocery and piled in front of the most popular bars on Elk Avenue. Some were completely buried in snow and the streamlined handlebars poked out of drifts like periscopes.

On powder days, the colorful cruisers stacked up at the stop for the bus to Crested Butte Mountain Resort.

Today, Crested Butte is best known for its burly ski mountain, which boasts more lift-accessed extreme terrain than any resort on the continent. But people who visit fall in love with the town's well- preserved mix of Old West architecture and hippie cool.

Tin-roofed mining shacks and rows of clapboard storefronts still line the streets, but the shops are painted psychedelic colors and shacks fly strings of Tibetan prayer flags in the wind.

I walked down Elk Avenue drinking in the bohemian flavor and the lack of chain businesses in town and trying to adjust to Crested Butte's leisurely pace, but I knew the only way to truly slow down was to find myself a klunker to pedal around.

The bike shops in town weren't renting them. The local classifieds didn't have any for sale.

I could have just borrowed one off the street since a locked klunker is as foreign as a McDonald's in Crested Butte, but I remembered a faded sticker on the back of a Jeep that read WE HANG BICYCLE THIEVES.

Eventually, I was lucky enough to run into Don Cook, who runs the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame.

He rolled up on a white klunker with a home-made ski rack on the back and a frame broken and rewelded many times in his 26 years in Crested Butte.

Not only did he have a klunker I could borrow, because his wife, Kay, was recovering from surgery, he also had a few ideas about how so many of the two-wheeled relics showed up in his town but not in other Colorado ski towns.

"We've never had the money that Aspen or Telluride have," he said as he pedaled up Elk Avenue. "We didn't even have a paved road until 1983. We're more of a true ski-bum type of town, and all the hippie skiers here realized you could get around town cheaper and easier on a klunker."

Paved roads arrived, but the bikes are still the best way to see Crested Butte.

It was only a short ride to the shuttle up to Crested Butte Mountain for a day of snowboarding, and after I was exhausted and hungry, it was a short ride to the town's restaurants lined up on Elk Avenue.

I couldn't decide between longtime favorites like the Wooden Nickel, the town's oldest saloon which serves a great elk tenderloin, or a new spot like Soupon, which serves French-inspired cuisine, like shrimp and goat cheese tarts, so I just followed the other klunkers to a local hangout called The Secret Stash.