Day 33, 34 46 miles.
Day 33 was wonderful rest day where the bikes got tuned up and we got to explore Salida. What a cool little town, it appears to be a place where you come to with money as the jobs are scarce and there isn't a lot going on other than the river in the center of town, good food and lot's of cool little shops. Not sure how the town survives but it was a nice break from all the "tiny" little places we rested in so far.
After a complete rest day we got back on the road for a long climb out of Salida and back on route. We experienced our first rain on the trip as we climbed and as thunderstorms built up and moved over us, a little unnerving to be climbing higher and higher onto ridges and then the plains as thunderstorms are building around us. We kept hearing the thunder but the lighting strikes stayed hidden from our view. After a couple of hours we finally broke free from the storms and rode north across the higher plateau. We rode until sunset, trying to put down some miles as we had decided to try and do the ride to Silverthorne in two nights vs 3. We found ourselves coyote camping by the side of the road with what water we had on our bikes. As we were making camp Wiley points out to Ina that her tube is sticking out of her brand new rear tire, a day of riding good roads has left her brand new tire with an inch long cut in her side wall... Ugh!!!
Day 33 was wonderful rest day where the bikes got tuned up and we got to explore Salida. What a cool little town, it appears to be a place where you come to with money as the jobs are scarce and there isn't a lot going on other than the river in the center of town, good food and lot's of cool little shops. Not sure how the town survives but it was a nice break from all the "tiny" little places we rested in so far.
After a complete rest day we got back on the road for a long climb out of Salida and back on route. We experienced our first rain on the trip as we climbed and as thunderstorms built up and moved over us, a little unnerving to be climbing higher and higher onto ridges and then the plains as thunderstorms are building around us. We kept hearing the thunder but the lighting strikes stayed hidden from our view. After a couple of hours we finally broke free from the storms and rode north across the higher plateau. We rode until sunset, trying to put down some miles as we had decided to try and do the ride to Silverthorne in two nights vs 3. We found ourselves coyote camping by the side of the road with what water we had on our bikes. As we were making camp Wiley points out to Ina that her tube is sticking out of her brand new rear tire, a day of riding good roads has left her brand new tire with an inch long cut in her side wall... Ugh!!!
Day 35, 39 miles.
Windy, windy, windy... We started our day by riding the last few miles into Hartsell, a town with a limited future. Nice wonderful folks, but listening to the conversations around us as we ate a well deserved breakfast out, the "town" is slowly dying. After breakfast we were told not to drink the local water, and the water they gave us to drink wasn't very good either. Grateful for the hot meal we thanked them and moved on thinking that we'd be in Como by midday. Not to be... the winds picked up and we creeped along fighting for any headway. My guess is the winds blew a pretty steady 20 with gusts close to 40. Getting blown across or off the road became common. Very few trees and high plains meant we rode for hours looking for any break from the wind. By late afternoon we had finally ground our way to Como, another town that is struggling and had a great conversation with a local about his town and our ride. We left our 10 minute conversation with a much better feeling about life and the ride than we had been feeling before our meeting. We rode to the ComoDepot a B&B in Como where we were told we could buy over priced food and get "good" water. Water has been an issue for the past two days as the locals all buy bottled water and warn you not to drink any of the water. (Not a good sign)
We are meet by the British owner who welcomes us into his business and we sit to drink water and converse about the ride and the racers who we are hoping to see. We end up buying ice cream, pie, fries and a salad and by the time we leave we are stuffed, and hydrated. A great little place after a long windy day. We push on and start the climb that will take us to Boreas Pass which separated us from Breckenridge and Silverthrone. We push on and up to the point of meltdowns and then make camp next to the road and burrow into the tents for the night. The wind that has pushed us back all day continues to blow all night and our tents shakes bucks and lifts all night long. I am amazed that a tent as light as ours is able to survive the punishment it is taking..(Well done Big Agnes)
Day 36. 34 miles
We wake to the wind still blowing and we finish the climb. Ah down hill bliss. It's funny but it seems as if the roads are always rougher on the down hills than they were on the up hills and this pass is no different, the top few miles of descent are spent dodging potholes, ruts, and rocks where the ride up the road had been graded smooth. We are soon rocketing down the hill to Breckenridge where we meet up with pavement and then a paved bike trail. The miles role by as we drop the wind no longer an issue as the hills are steep enough to negate the wind. We find a Starbucks in Breckenridge so we can check our emails and make some phone calls as we are trying to connect with some friends in Silverthrone for dinner. We are now in the heart of town and people aren't quite sure what to make of us with our fully loaded bikes. All of the towns we've been in have been small and we've ridden thru in a matter of minutes, or we've avoid the crowds, but here in Breckenridge we are in the thick of it. Interesting to see peoples reactions. We make our phone calls and connections and ride on and down to Silver throne where we have a hotel reserved for the night. Showers!!
We land at the hotel and squeeze our bikes one at a time into the elevator and then queing up for the hot water and showers. Then it's was off to t
Day 36. 34 miles
We wake to the wind still blowing and we finish the climb. Ah down hill bliss. It's funny but it seems as if the roads are always rougher on the down hills than they were on the up hills and this pass is no different, the top few miles of descent are spent dodging potholes, ruts, and rocks where the ride up the road had been graded smooth. We are soon rocketing down the hill to Breckenridge where we meet up with pavement and then a paved bike trail. The miles role by as we drop the wind no longer an issue as the hills are steep enough to negate the wind. We find a Starbucks in Breckenridge so we can check our emails and make some phone calls as we are trying to connect with some friends in Silverthrone for dinner. We are now in the heart of town and people aren't quite sure what to make of us with our fully loaded bikes. All of the towns we've been in have been small and we've ridden thru in a matter of minutes, or we've avoid the crowds, but here in Breckenridge we are in the thick of it. Interesting to see peoples reactions. We make our phone calls and connections and ride on and down to Silver throne where we have a hotel reserved for the night. Showers!!
We land at the hotel and squeeze our bikes one at a time into the elevator and then queing up for the hot water and showers. Then it's was off to the outlet mall to buy t- shirts, and other necessities. The highlight of our week and one of the major highlights of the trip came when we meet up with Dave and Betsy for dinner at a local Brew Pub. the food was good but the friendship was even better. Dave and Betsy once worked for us and they have watched our kids grow since they were Maya was 2 and Wiley was a baby. they now live outside of Boulder in Lyons where they have great jobs. Seeing old friends just felt so good, and to see that they were on the path to being parents was wonderful. Thanks to them both for taking on a 3 hour round trip to come and visit!!!
Day 37, 41 miles
Well after a restful night sleep we get back on the road. Just a afternoon in a hotel and dinner out with Dave and Betsy and we feel refreshed. We climb another pass but this time on pavement and it is a treat. We finally get to meet and talk with some of the tourdivide racers who are racing south. We say the tour leaders the day before but their pace allowed a smile and a thumbs up, and they were gone, today we actually start to converse with some of them. We learn about some of the other racers, and get some great quotes form one racer Taylor "Having any issues?" "If your not then you quit and are at home" and when talking about another racers who we guess had a attitude and a strong road racing history "You'd be better off teaching a mountaineer how to mountain bike for this race than giving a mountain bike to a road cyclist"
We ride against the wind till we come to a water source/lake where we make camp next to a "family group" that was friendly helpful and talkative. We make camp early in a hope that a short day will be helpful in the coming days as we push onto Steamboat springs. Wiley has a great time building dams and streams in on the lakes shores and we all relax in the shade and get hydrated.
Day 38, 38 miles.
Brutal.... For me this was one of my harder days. We started with an easy 12 miles to the banks of the Colorado river. Life was good, at this time we had the option of riding pavement to reconnect with route to the north or we could ride the route which would take us west and to the south before circling north again. Our map and the book both mention the option, but don't share any details on the pavement/ shoulders so we opt to stay on route. The "elevation profile" shows a climb and a drop to Radium where we will cross the Colorado River and then start a steady climb to Lynx pass. I'm thinking ok we are at 7000 feet and we need to climb back to 9000 feet for Lynx pass, not a big deal, we've done much bigger climbs and it will all start in Radium. Wrong!!
I will say we saw some great views and scenery in the next 26 miles but they were brutal miles. We climbed and dropped almost to the river then climbed again, to drop again before we climbed a last little bit before dropping into Radium. We were beat by this time. We had spent the last 18 miles going south and west to get back to the river we had been on earlier in the day. and the whole time we were riding we were being passed by vans and trucks hauling rafts. Why hadn't we floated down the river? Now we were starting the climb! Holy crap we've been climbing all morning! We start up after lunch and things are going well, when the road turns and we rocket back toward the river. And then back up we go, we look across the valley and we see all the climbing we had done in the morning, hours ago and here we are climbing again. Up and up and then down again. We'll never get back to 9000 feet at this rate, we climb 500 feet and then drop a few hundred feet on a steep and wicked drop that takes minutes and then we climb again. what had appeared as a steady climb on the map is a series of up and downs stair stepping back up. We hike and ride often finding ourselves after a hour of labor looking across a slope that shows the our last high point only 1/4 mile away on a contour of the slope. "this road builder was a moron"
My attitude sucked, and we were wasted, so minutes from a mutiny we made camp in the aspens, sucked down dinner and fell fast asleep.
Day 39. 54 miles.
We wake and pack camp hoping to get a few miles in before the headwinds that have plagued us for the last week start blowing. We are still shy of our 9000 feet and lynx pass and we start the day in the hiking mode. We push and grunt and at some of the steeper sections I find my body close to horizontal as I push the bike up hill. I know we have heavy bikes, but as the touring thing goes we are pretty light, I can't imagine having a trailer. I now understand why this ride is "sold" as a north to south route, this stretch says it all. We have been meeting more racers and many admire and want to do it at a slower pace as we are with our comforts of food, chairs etc. We are defiantly stronger riders than we were but some of these sections are stopping us dead...
Our goal for the day is Steamboat Springs where we hope to meet up with some other old friends who call Steamboat home. e aren't sure we can make it as the "Great Divine" is constantly throwing us curve balls and we push and ride on. the miles start to tick by and by mid-afternoon we ride into Steamboat, yahoo! We connect with Chris at her work place, where we meet her wonderful boss, Stephanie. Stephanie and her husband are bikers and they offer their wonderful house to us for the weekend as they are going camping. (Small world time, they are also friends of Steve and Amy, friends of ours from the Methow). We leave Chris at work where we ride up the hill toward her house where we get an escort form her daughter Eva. We spend our first evening camped In Chris and Glenn's yard while the kids, Eva and Noel play with Wiley and Maya. Good pizza, and conversations with Chris, Glenn,and Glenn's dad Micheal, who is also visiting is a treat. We retire to our tents and sleep deep knowing we have a rest day coming.
Day 40, 41 Rest days
Well with the offer of a house we are taking an extra day off and I am now enjoying sitting in a living room with my ipad on my lap writing as the family is sleeping. We explored steamboat yesterday and will visit and rest more today before hitting the road tomorrow for Rawlings Wyoming. Colorado is going by much faster than New Mexico did and it is a good feeling to feel as we are going north! We are still trying to work out "issues" with the bikes and I am hoping to enlist Glenn as he is a biker/mechanic of many years.
The offer of this house is one of those things that warms the heart and makes us remember that there are many good people in the world. Well folks are waking up and it's time to rejoin the family,
thanks for checking in and we'll update next week sometime
cheers
Windy, windy, windy... We started our day by riding the last few miles into Hartsell, a town with a limited future. Nice wonderful folks, but listening to the conversations around us as we ate a well deserved breakfast out, the "town" is slowly dying. After breakfast we were told not to drink the local water, and the water they gave us to drink wasn't very good either. Grateful for the hot meal we thanked them and moved on thinking that we'd be in Como by midday. Not to be... the winds picked up and we creeped along fighting for any headway. My guess is the winds blew a pretty steady 20 with gusts close to 40. Getting blown across or off the road became common. Very few trees and high plains meant we rode for hours looking for any break from the wind. By late afternoon we had finally ground our way to Como, another town that is struggling and had a great conversation with a local about his town and our ride. We left our 10 minute conversation with a much better feeling about life and the ride than we had been feeling before our meeting. We rode to the ComoDepot a B&B in Como where we were told we could buy over priced food and get "good" water. Water has been an issue for the past two days as the locals all buy bottled water and warn you not to drink any of the water. (Not a good sign)
We are meet by the British owner who welcomes us into his business and we sit to drink water and converse about the ride and the racers who we are hoping to see. We end up buying ice cream, pie, fries and a salad and by the time we leave we are stuffed, and hydrated. A great little place after a long windy day. We push on and start the climb that will take us to Boreas Pass which separated us from Breckenridge and Silverthrone. We push on and up to the point of meltdowns and then make camp next to the road and burrow into the tents for the night. The wind that has pushed us back all day continues to blow all night and our tents shakes bucks and lifts all night long. I am amazed that a tent as light as ours is able to survive the punishment it is taking..(Well done Big Agnes)
Day 36. 34 miles
We wake to the wind still blowing and we finish the climb. Ah down hill bliss. It's funny but it seems as if the roads are always rougher on the down hills than they were on the up hills and this pass is no different, the top few miles of descent are spent dodging potholes, ruts, and rocks where the ride up the road had been graded smooth. We are soon rocketing down the hill to Breckenridge where we meet up with pavement and then a paved bike trail. The miles role by as we drop the wind no longer an issue as the hills are steep enough to negate the wind. We find a Starbucks in Breckenridge so we can check our emails and make some phone calls as we are trying to connect with some friends in Silverthrone for dinner. We are now in the heart of town and people aren't quite sure what to make of us with our fully loaded bikes. All of the towns we've been in have been small and we've ridden thru in a matter of minutes, or we've avoid the crowds, but here in Breckenridge we are in the thick of it. Interesting to see peoples reactions. We make our phone calls and connections and ride on and down to Silver throne where we have a hotel reserved for the night. Showers!!
We land at the hotel and squeeze our bikes one at a time into the elevator and then queing up for the hot water and showers. Then it's was off to t
Day 36. 34 miles
We wake to the wind still blowing and we finish the climb. Ah down hill bliss. It's funny but it seems as if the roads are always rougher on the down hills than they were on the up hills and this pass is no different, the top few miles of descent are spent dodging potholes, ruts, and rocks where the ride up the road had been graded smooth. We are soon rocketing down the hill to Breckenridge where we meet up with pavement and then a paved bike trail. The miles role by as we drop the wind no longer an issue as the hills are steep enough to negate the wind. We find a Starbucks in Breckenridge so we can check our emails and make some phone calls as we are trying to connect with some friends in Silverthrone for dinner. We are now in the heart of town and people aren't quite sure what to make of us with our fully loaded bikes. All of the towns we've been in have been small and we've ridden thru in a matter of minutes, or we've avoid the crowds, but here in Breckenridge we are in the thick of it. Interesting to see peoples reactions. We make our phone calls and connections and ride on and down to Silver throne where we have a hotel reserved for the night. Showers!!
We land at the hotel and squeeze our bikes one at a time into the elevator and then queing up for the hot water and showers. Then it's was off to the outlet mall to buy t- shirts, and other necessities. The highlight of our week and one of the major highlights of the trip came when we meet up with Dave and Betsy for dinner at a local Brew Pub. the food was good but the friendship was even better. Dave and Betsy once worked for us and they have watched our kids grow since they were Maya was 2 and Wiley was a baby. they now live outside of Boulder in Lyons where they have great jobs. Seeing old friends just felt so good, and to see that they were on the path to being parents was wonderful. Thanks to them both for taking on a 3 hour round trip to come and visit!!!
Day 37, 41 miles
Well after a restful night sleep we get back on the road. Just a afternoon in a hotel and dinner out with Dave and Betsy and we feel refreshed. We climb another pass but this time on pavement and it is a treat. We finally get to meet and talk with some of the tourdivide racers who are racing south. We say the tour leaders the day before but their pace allowed a smile and a thumbs up, and they were gone, today we actually start to converse with some of them. We learn about some of the other racers, and get some great quotes form one racer Taylor "Having any issues?" "If your not then you quit and are at home" and when talking about another racers who we guess had a attitude and a strong road racing history "You'd be better off teaching a mountaineer how to mountain bike for this race than giving a mountain bike to a road cyclist"
We ride against the wind till we come to a water source/lake where we make camp next to a "family group" that was friendly helpful and talkative. We make camp early in a hope that a short day will be helpful in the coming days as we push onto Steamboat springs. Wiley has a great time building dams and streams in on the lakes shores and we all relax in the shade and get hydrated.
Day 38, 38 miles.
Brutal.... For me this was one of my harder days. We started with an easy 12 miles to the banks of the Colorado river. Life was good, at this time we had the option of riding pavement to reconnect with route to the north or we could ride the route which would take us west and to the south before circling north again. Our map and the book both mention the option, but don't share any details on the pavement/ shoulders so we opt to stay on route. The "elevation profile" shows a climb and a drop to Radium where we will cross the Colorado River and then start a steady climb to Lynx pass. I'm thinking ok we are at 7000 feet and we need to climb back to 9000 feet for Lynx pass, not a big deal, we've done much bigger climbs and it will all start in Radium. Wrong!!
I will say we saw some great views and scenery in the next 26 miles but they were brutal miles. We climbed and dropped almost to the river then climbed again, to drop again before we climbed a last little bit before dropping into Radium. We were beat by this time. We had spent the last 18 miles going south and west to get back to the river we had been on earlier in the day. and the whole time we were riding we were being passed by vans and trucks hauling rafts. Why hadn't we floated down the river? Now we were starting the climb! Holy crap we've been climbing all morning! We start up after lunch and things are going well, when the road turns and we rocket back toward the river. And then back up we go, we look across the valley and we see all the climbing we had done in the morning, hours ago and here we are climbing again. Up and up and then down again. We'll never get back to 9000 feet at this rate, we climb 500 feet and then drop a few hundred feet on a steep and wicked drop that takes minutes and then we climb again. what had appeared as a steady climb on the map is a series of up and downs stair stepping back up. We hike and ride often finding ourselves after a hour of labor looking across a slope that shows the our last high point only 1/4 mile away on a contour of the slope. "this road builder was a moron"
My attitude sucked, and we were wasted, so minutes from a mutiny we made camp in the aspens, sucked down dinner and fell fast asleep.
Day 39. 54 miles.
We wake and pack camp hoping to get a few miles in before the headwinds that have plagued us for the last week start blowing. We are still shy of our 9000 feet and lynx pass and we start the day in the hiking mode. We push and grunt and at some of the steeper sections I find my body close to horizontal as I push the bike up hill. I know we have heavy bikes, but as the touring thing goes we are pretty light, I can't imagine having a trailer. I now understand why this ride is "sold" as a north to south route, this stretch says it all. We have been meeting more racers and many admire and want to do it at a slower pace as we are with our comforts of food, chairs etc. We are defiantly stronger riders than we were but some of these sections are stopping us dead...
Our goal for the day is Steamboat Springs where we hope to meet up with some other old friends who call Steamboat home. e aren't sure we can make it as the "Great Divine" is constantly throwing us curve balls and we push and ride on. the miles start to tick by and by mid-afternoon we ride into Steamboat, yahoo! We connect with Chris at her work place, where we meet her wonderful boss, Stephanie. Stephanie and her husband are bikers and they offer their wonderful house to us for the weekend as they are going camping. (Small world time, they are also friends of Steve and Amy, friends of ours from the Methow). We leave Chris at work where we ride up the hill toward her house where we get an escort form her daughter Eva. We spend our first evening camped In Chris and Glenn's yard while the kids, Eva and Noel play with Wiley and Maya. Good pizza, and conversations with Chris, Glenn,and Glenn's dad Micheal, who is also visiting is a treat. We retire to our tents and sleep deep knowing we have a rest day coming.
Day 40, 41 Rest days
Well with the offer of a house we are taking an extra day off and I am now enjoying sitting in a living room with my ipad on my lap writing as the family is sleeping. We explored steamboat yesterday and will visit and rest more today before hitting the road tomorrow for Rawlings Wyoming. Colorado is going by much faster than New Mexico did and it is a good feeling to feel as we are going north! We are still trying to work out "issues" with the bikes and I am hoping to enlist Glenn as he is a biker/mechanic of many years.
The offer of this house is one of those things that warms the heart and makes us remember that there are many good people in the world. Well folks are waking up and it's time to rejoin the family,
thanks for checking in and we'll update next week sometime
cheers