Outside Magazine

Josh Harrod pedals through his hometown at a child’s pace, savoring the autumn emptiness and crisp air at 8,200 feet. It’s early October in Nederland, a last bastion of Front Range freedom located 13 miles west of Boulder, which might as well be New York City as far as local Nedheads like Harrod are concerned. Theirs is a place where residents go door to door asking if anyone needs firewood, and where locals fought the idea of putting sidewalks on their dirt roads. There’s a co-op grocery and funky boutiques and the only chain is Ace Hardware. About 1,500 people live in the city limits, but the broader population extends five miles in any direction and totals around 7,500. “The reason I moved up here 20 years ago is because it wasn’t Boulder,” Harrod says. “You could go out and get lost in the woods.”

Harrod, 47, has graying stubble and is wearing a plaid, collared shirt for our mellow weekday jaunt. We met that morning at Tin Shed Sports, a local shop where he works as a bike and ski tech. Tin Shed also serves as unofficial headquarters of the Nederland Area Trails Organization, an advocacy group that Harrod cofounded. The organization has no paid membership but counts about 200 people on its e-mail list as well as $2,000 in donations in the bank and $1,000 in tools that Harrod, NATO’s president, stores in his garage.