Colorado was filled with some beautiful rides, however, there is one that stands out in particular. Our ride through Rocky Mountain National Park. We went over one of the highest paved roads in the world, an elevation of 12,183 feet.
As always, it started out like any other morning. We woke up... rather I woke up, turned the lights on forcing everyone else to get up, got dressed, ate breakfast, did bike maintenance. I stress did bike maintenance because my back wheel had a little bit of a wobble in it. I wasn't sure what to do because this had never happened to me before. I remember thinking I might have to ride in the van today until I can get this fixed, but it was such a monumental day to ride. So I asked a couple of my friends who didn't know what to do, so I really started to look at it, tightened the hub, it seemed to do the trick, and called it a day. I was a little worried about it because in the second half of the day we were going to plummet down a mountain and if anything were to happen with my bike it could have ended catastrophically. Needless to say nothing happened.
At route meeting, as we do every morning, we discuss the route and anything we should watch out for. This route meeting was a bit more intense. The leaders put the fear of God in us. I'm not sure if they meant to, but they acted as if this would be the hardest, scariest day of riding that we will ever do. They also told us that because we were riding through a national park that we would have to be on our best behavior. We also changed the route last minute so that freaked some people out as well. I didn't really mind that, I knew I'd find my way.
Oh well, we were on our way. It was a bit chillier than usual but nothing we couldn't handle. About 6 miles in I was riding with Stephen and Kevin when we see Ross and Daniel coming back the other direction. We asked what was going on and they said, "Google Maps said it was this direction." Patrick who was just slightly in front of us turned and followed them blindly, along with everyone behind us. Stephen, Kevin and I didn't. I don't like to follow people blindly, as I've done that before and it just added miles to my trip. We looked it up on Google Maps only to find out that we were going the right direction. So we trekked on. Just shortly up the road we ran into an elk in someone's yard. Yes that's right, an Elk, just chilling on the side of the road. Of course we stopped to take a few pictures with him. It was insane how comfortable it was with us so close to it.
Anyway, after a few shots, we left the beast alone to chomp on some more grass. Then we started making our way into the Rocky Mountain National Park. We were a little worried that we weren't going to be able to get in because Ross and Daniel had our permit. We gave it to them because they were in front and figured they would get to the gate first, but they were stupid and made everyone go the wrong way. It wasn't a problem, though. The park ranger was really nice, believed that we had a permit, and let us go.
A few turns of the winding road and there it was... The Climb. Once it started it didn't stop. We made the best of it, though. We were going slow so there was plenty of time to talk. It was a really foggy day, which was a little disappointing because you couldn't see any of the magnificent views that were apparently out yonder. We stopped at one scenic overlook and all we saw was this...
We climbed. Then we climbed. Oh, did I mention we climbed? We climbed for 25 miles! At one point the fog was so thick you couldn't see more than 15 feet in front of yourself. Finally, I don't know how far along we were but the clouds broke a little bit and we saw a mountain. We got so excited, we all stopped to take some pictures. Right around mile 30 we stopped to eat lunch. At this point we are roughly 11000 feet above sea level. It was cold. There were 5 or 6 of us that hopped in the van to get warm. I'm not one for stopping too long so I ate and ran. I was the first to the summit, 12183 feet of summit! In all honesty it was somewhat anticlimactic. There wasn't a marker or anything announcing that you were at the summit. You didn't know until you started going down the other side.
On the other side there was a restaurant, an information center, a gift shop, and some bathrooms. I stopped to use the bathroom, got a hot chocolate, and just to relax a little more since I cut lunch so short. A nice chunk of the group caught up to me at this point. I waited for people because after I left it was going to be downhill for miles and I didn't particularly want to ride along on such a monumental even in our ride. After a few of us were ready we all rolled out together. I was in front of Tim, I chose this carefully because he had a GoPro and would be filming the descent. The ride down the mountain was incredible. It wasn't the steepest hill and I wasn't going the fastest I had ever gone, but for 10 miles I didn't have to pedal, I was able to coast the whole way down. There was switchback after glorious switchback that made for a fun and interesting descent.
The rest of the ride was relatively uneventful. I saw a moose and it rained.
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