Erik Skarvan found Aspen the way so many kids of the ’70s  did: As a 14-year-old in the backseat of a station wagon from Wisconsin, on a classic family road trip for a week’s worth of skiing. Nearly 50 years later, he vividly remembers staring out the car’s frosted window as the Skarvans motored into town, seeing the snowcats working the slopes of Aspen Mountain, and declaring, even then, that one day this would be his home.

“I just [said]: ‘I’m moving here,’” Skarvan recalls. “And my mom was like, ‘You should.’”

And he did. Half a decade later, when he took a break from college to live the ski bum dream, arriving “Aspen Extreme”-style in a big old van with a friend. Yet it was biking, not skiing, that would cement his local legacy. Working in the fitness and hospitality industry while competing in both road and MTB races, Skarvan realized newbies to the biking boom needed more than just an orientation: someone who could show them where to ride and how to ride well.

In 1996 he founded Skarvan Performance Athletics (which he rebranded the following year as Sun Dog Athletics in a tribute to his Labrador retriever, Sunny), banking on the idea that cycling lessons combined with guided tours would make his business stand out. With proper instruction, he reasoned, clients would better enjoy their time on Aspen’s roads and trails, and avoid the “carnage” he’d seen so many suffer already.

“Safety plus performance equals fun,” Skarvan says, reciting a personal mantra-turned-business motto that, 30 years in, has earned a loyal following as “Aspen’s Adventure Sports School.” Now a year-round enterprise, Sun Dog during the summer offers instruction not just in mountain biking and road riding but also e-biking, canoeing, and hiking, infused with the wonder of local flora and fauna; in addition to fatbiking, wintertime disciplines include snowshoeing and cross-country skiing, peppered with Skarvan’s reverent tales of local history and photo ops with the Elk Mountains.

“Passion and love,” says Skarvan. “To me, that’s a really sustainable model.”
A niche side hustle: Skarvan is locally famous as The Voice of the Roaring Fork Valley, coupling his engaging personality with booming in-the-know commentary as a for-hire (and much in-demand) announcer for local cycling races and fundraisers. Over the past two decades, Skarvan has also hosted and produced more than 600 episodes of The Local’s Show, an interview series with iconic Aspenites that shoots every Wednesday at the Red Brick Center for the Arts and typically airs the following day on Aspen’s local GrassRoots Community Network.

And since 2022, he’s led Pristine Riders, a local nonprofit founded by Kent Blackmer that challenges cyclists to pick up at least one piece of litter every time they ride, and organizes semiannual “Trash Crush” community cleanup events that help keep some of Aspen’s most scenic bike routes garbage-free.

At Sun Dog, even though he now employs a staff of five other seasoned instructors, he’s still doing most of the guiding himself—baking chocolate chip cookies for the next day’s adventure the night before and relishing the prospect of seeing one of his clients “light up.”

“You’re opening up the door to the rest of their lives,” Skarvan says.  
Like that day he arrived in Aspen in the backseat of the family station wagon, almost a half century ago.     

Ticket to Guide

A short list of local outfitters and outdoor education providers offering guided adventures on Aspen’s trails and roads. 

Aspen Center for Environmental Studies 
Naturalist-led hiking tours, with a focus on local ecology 

Aspen Cycling Tours 
Bike tours, custom training, race support, and skills coaching, plus adventures farther afield

Aspen Expeditions 
Guided hikes, alpine climbing, and rock climbing, plus mountain and gravel biking and overnight hut trips by foot or bike

Snowmass Bike Park 
Downhill biking skills clinics and private lessons on Snowmass Mountain’s lift-served trails

Sun Dog Athletics
Instruction in multiple forms of cycling, plus hiking, canoeing, and athletic training, with an emphasis on instruction and skill-building;