Still Climbing on a Downhill Day
As mentioned, I was in the higher altitudes for the past two nights, including biking over Hoosier Pass on Sunday, at 11,539 feet (3517 meters). I stayed in a motel Sunday night and woke up several times noticing that I was a little short of breath. It was nothing major, but I was ready for Monday’s ride which would bring me down to 5,000 feet.
Donald was still riding with me and the plan was to go 75 miles to Canon City. In looking at the map for the day the thought crosses your mind that it will be an “easy” 75 miles due to the drop in elevation, but you learn by now that there aren’t too many easy days.
In going over Hoosier Pass there was reason to celebrate because it was over the Continental Divide for the last time and also the last mountain pass to climb. However, I noticed on the map that there was actually one more pass. A minor one, relatively speaking, but it would still involve more than a little effort.
Donald is great on the hills and got far ahead of me. At the top of one he had pulled over and sat down to wait. Here we somehow got into a discussion on politics and other issues before I mentioned that we still had about six more miles to go to get to the top of the pass. He had thought we were there as the road started to go downhill, but the map showed otherwise. Sure enough, it went downhill for a bit but the road turned and you were then greeted by several more miles of steep uphill.
Finally we crossed over the pass and when that downhill began I thought that possibly the rest of the ride would be a breeze. Wrong. The downhill was great, but it always led to lots of short to mid-range climbs. So while you were dropping in elevation overall, you were still doing a lot of climbing.
At one point some black storm clouds began to appear over me while on a climb. I felt a single drop and then began trying to quickly get over the hill to outrun them. Over the course of these 40 days rain has threatened several times, most notably the three storm day a week ago Sunday on the way to Jeffrey City. But I’d say I’ve only actually had to ride in the rain for less than an hour total, which is pretty lucky.
Aside from those dark clouds, the day was great with lots of public forest land with some very scenic spots to pull over and rest or have lunch at. Spots that made you think that all the pedaling is worth it.
Eventually, after a few more time consuming climbs there was a very fast five mile downhill into Canon City. Donald’s wife Kristy was coming by soon to pick him up as he had to be back in Pueblo the next morning to work. Since I’m staying with them in Pueblo they offered me a ride. Of course I couldn’t accept. You can’t ride a bike across the US and leave a 50 mile gap where you rode in a car. So I told them thanks but that I’d catch up with them the next day.
To get to Canon City from Fairplay was 75 miles, but with a lot of biking around town I got up to 85 miles for the day, which made it the second most miles biked in a day of the trip. This was interesting as the day before was the second shortest day of the trip.
So with day 40 over and one more day to Pueblo, which is the halfway point, I’m actually several days ahead of the loose timeframe I have for making it to the coast of Virginia.