"Beloved Mountain Biker Shot and Killed on Colorado Trail"

‘Have you ever ridden Limbaugh Canyon?” State Sen. Michael Merrifield asks over a strained cell phone connection.

I’ve mountain biked the Mount Herman area a little, I tell him, but have a poor sense of direction and a bad memory for road and trail names.

“Oh, you’d remember it,” the prolific cyclist says. “ ... The flowers are beautiful, the grass is high.” Then his voice slows. “I don’t think I’ll ever do it alone again.”

Despite the fact that the U.S. Forest Service banned shooting there in 2014, Merrifield says gunshots are a constant at Mount Herman, which is near Monument and Palmer Lake. Once, near the drop into Limbaugh, he saw a man and his son shooting right next to a “no shooting” sign. He reminded them of the ban, but he says the father told him to “mind your own fucking business.” Unarmed and alone, Merrifield simply moved on.

Other times, drivers have tried to run him off the road. And once, he “heard and felt [a] bullet go over my head.” It was, Merrifield says, in about the same area where the body of his friend was recently found.