RTR Day 6, Crested Butte to Buena Vista

June 20 — Crested Butte to Buena Vista

76 miles

5:43 ride time

9:00 elapsed time

Max. elevation 12,126′

Started at 6:45

It’s incredible what one day of rest will do for both your body and your attitude! We were both up early and ready to go this morning, nervous and excited about Cottonwood Pass. It had been my singular point of worry all through training, but I’ve felt so strong this week, and getting stronger … I’m ready to take a swing at it.

A beautiful morning in Crested Butte.

Full moon over Crested Butte

We caught the shuttle bus down into Crested Butte town and stationed our duffel in the parking lot next to the transport trucks. We have a system now:

1. Leave our regular shoes on, drop off the duffel near the trucks.
2. Walk the requisite 19 miles to where the bike lock-up is located (always at the maximum distance from the trucks).
3. Get bikes and walk them back to trucks.
4. Change into our cycling shoes, stow our regular shoes in the duffel, and load duffel onto truck.

Walking in cycling shoes is a pain and it ain’t too good for the cleats, either. But now that we’re almost through the week, we’ve figured it out!

But something strange is going on this morning — why has someone spray painted all the bikes white? The cool mountain air has pooled down in the valley overnight, and there’s a heavy frost. The air is frigid. The poor people who camped out at the school last night are struggling to pack up tents stiff with frost. We chatted with one guy later in the day who said the temperature in his tent was 32 degrees this morning! We picked a darn good time not to be camping.

So it was a chilly, chilly start to the day. That tortuous uphill that we had struggled through late Wednesday afternoon into Crested Butte was now a fantastic 17-mile downhill to the turn-off and first aid station of the day at Almont. Although it was cold, the day was crystal clear; alongside the road were brilliant green pastures of cattle, and frogs singing from the ponds. Almost too incredible to believe.

RTR Day 6, Crested Butte to Buena Vista

And it was absolutely delicious “gravity biking,” which is what I’ve decided to call the phenomenon whereby all you have to do is pull your leg up and let the weight of it carry through the rest of the pedaling cycle; gravity does the rest. This happens on long stretches like these that are slightly downhill. You build up a most wonderful momentum, and while you’re still pedaling, it seems almost effortless and you can easily roll along at 20 mph. Sweeeeeeeeeet.

So we made short work of it to Almont, where we left the main road and turned east toward the pass. Yes, it was open. I was not going to be denied the chance to face down my demon.

The mood out on the road and at the aid station is high and excited. It seems the rest day did us all good, and another beautiful morning is unfolding around us. We’ve all been on our bikes enough hours and across enough miles since we began, way back in Durango, that we’re feeling strong and confident. So much effort has already been put out … so many turns of the cranks. And now this big, big climb.

Leaving Almont, the road winds up along the Taylor River through yet more incredible Colorado scenery. For those of us who live on the Front Range, cozied up against the mountains but spending most of our time on the hot, dry flats, being in the rural high country day after day is such a treat. What a truly fantastic way to see the state.

The morning chill is finally easing and a few miles up the road from Almont people are beginning to pull over to shed their layers. Lush pastureland borders the river along this quiet road, smoke drifts from the chimney of a ranch house tucked back in against the hills. The road is climbing, but gently, and soon we’re at the second aid station.

The station is back from the road in the shade of the pine trees. Carol and I are both feeling good, good, good and we take the time for some breakfast burritos and to enjoy the gorgeous morning. Another ten miles of climbing, including one sharp, short uphill to Taylor Park and the reservoir. The landscape opens up around the reservoir and we can now see the snowy ridge of the Continental Divide ahead of us, to the north and east. Folks are down on the reservoir, in their boats fishing; what must they think of this endless train of cyclists coming through?

(“They gotta be nuts …”)

We top off our bottles at the Taylor Park aid station, then pedal a few miles further around the reservoir until we reach the turn-off for Cottonwood Pass. Here the pavement ends; we’ll see it again in fourteen miles, at the summit of the pass.

Riding skinny-tire road bikes on a dirt road? I truly wondered about this idea. But RTR has gone over Cottonwood several times before, so I had to imagine they knew what they were doing. And it turns out that the dirt road is amazingly good — very smooth, wide, and hard-packed. There were definitely areas with sandy potholes (not fun; they’d suck your wheels every which way), some washboards, some gravelly patches. But almost always you could steer yourself around the hazards and keep to the hard pack. It got trickier as we ascended and people began to get tired; it required some serious concentration to pick out a good line while moving in and out around the other riders.

So now it was just time to shift it down, down, down and just chug. We hit aid station 4 about half-way up the climb and took a good long rest. The road climbed first through open scrub land, and then into the cool of the pine forest. And it climbed. And it climbed. Chug. Chug. Chug.

I started playing my counting games to keep my mind occupied, to distract myself from the tiredness in my legs. This is something Carol taught me when we were first training and I was trying to overcome my psychological distress with hill climbing, and it has really worked well for me. I either count breaths or pedal strokes, work my way up to fifty, and then start over. On the short hills around Fort Collins I never get past 150; here climbing towards Cottonwood I would do sets of one hundred with this carrot held out to myself: every time you get to 500, you can stop and take a little breather.

Now the road was beginning to come up out of the trees, and soon it began to switch back, back again, corkscrew its way up to the pass. Coming out of the trees was great because it meant the top was getting closer; but not so great, because now you could see where the road was going. And it was still going up.

But my legs were feeling great and I wasn’t having to stop. I … was … climbing … Cottonwood … Pass. I kept going by people and I kept feeling good. I came up to a sharp switchback where the photo people were stationed and I was feeling so ferocious that I flashed ‘em a bicep on my way past. Now I was climbing between massive snowbanks — the great, overhanging drift below the pass that had kept the road closed until just a week ago. People who had passed earlier had carved GO RTR! in big letters into cold walls, brilliant in the sun. I came up the last long ramp to the pass, crossed over onto pavement, and was there.

I didn’t know where Carol was; I had passed her a mile or two below and knew she’d be right behind me. I put my bike down quickly, dug out my camera, and ran back down the road to catch her coming up:

That’s Carol (fifth rider coming up) topping out Cottonwood Pass. Yeah, baby. That’s what I’m talkin’ about!

The wind was whipping fiercely at the summit, but the sun was warm, the day clear as a sounding bell. This is early afternoon on a summer day at high altitude in Colorado — not usually a good time to be on top of a mountain. But the charmed weather we’ve been having all week is holding again today and it’s time to party on Cottonwood.

I hugged Carol and we laughed; I was so overcome with emotion that I cried, too. It was an indescribable sensation — of accomplishment, pride, strength, and pure joy. I was in the most beautiful place in the whole world, with my partner, best friend, and dearest love, and we’d gotten there, together, on our own two wheels. All the hours and miles of training, all the hills I had battled my way up, all the while thinking, I don’t know if I can do this … so hard … so tired … and yet, here I am. I didn’t just climb this hill. I crushed it.

It was such a powerful experience, neither one of us wanted to leave. The poor Highway Patrol officer who was directing traffic at the crest of the pass was having a time of it — all these completely insane and giddy cyclists running around in the road, taking pictures, just being nuts — and the people in their cars wondering if the bus from the asylum had crashed and all the inmates escaped. It was truly a scene.

And ya know what’s next? Nineteen transcendental miles downhill to Buena Vista, a classic rip-snortin’ descent, and you want to talk about being high on life? You know you’re having an experience you’ll never forget.

Carol blew me up going downhill (although I think I cracked 40 mph for the first time) and we caught up with each other again just a couple miles outside of BV. “Bueny” (pronounced “Byoony”) has hosted RTR many times and is another one of those wonderful communities, like Montrose, that really has its act together. Getting set up at the high school was a breeze, and we were soon on the shuttle bus to the town park for a fantastic dinner and live music, at the end of one of the most memorable days of my life.

RTR Day 5: Crested Butte

June 19, rest day in Crested Butte

As of today, we’ve covered 281 of our 435 total miles, and Carol and I have spent approximately 19.5 hours in the saddle. So we’re averaging around 14.4 mph, which, I think, is pretty darn good.

You may be curious, what does one think about during all those hours? Here are some of the deep thoughts that have been going through my head:

1. Why does my nose constantly run while I’m biking? Even when it’s hot?
2. I wonder how many pedal revolutions I’ve gone through so far?
3. Does having a constantly runny nose contribute to dehydration?
4. What is that burning sensation?
5. Okay, let’s say I’m averaging 60 rpm (though it’s probably more like 70-75), times 60 minutes in an hour, carry the two … wait, where was I?
6. Why does my nose constantly run while I’m biking?

And so on. Believe me, no major world problems are being solved. And that, frankly, is quite lovely.

What was truly lovely was collapsing in our condo last night. It’s a wonderful little place with a decent bed, a kitchen, and a shower that about knocks you off your feet. Heavenly. We did a little saddle-sore triage (thanks to a large tube of A&D Ointment), and were asleep before it was even dark outside.

And this morning: NO ALARM! First of many wonderful things. Peace and quiet. Coffee and hanging out; catching up on journaling; washing out cycling clothes (including gloves and helmet straps, which are absolutely encrusted in salt), reorganizing the duffel bag. For some reason we’re still carrying around what feels like a 10-pound bag of gummy worms, now all thoroughly squished together. You don’t even want to know what the Pig Newtons look like.

After we were collected, we went for a little walkabout in Mount Crested Butte. Nothing spectacular; just lots and lots of fancy condos clustered around the ski lifts. This is a tiny little ski resort, though, and it reminds me of what Snowmass looked like 30 years ago. But you don’t come here to admire the buildings; it would be pretty hard to compete with the scenery.

One of the RTR “goodies” for this rest day is a free ticket to ride the chair lift, so Carol and I quite happily indulge. The day is perfect in every way: cool air, warm sun, no wind; a few puffy clouds, and a surrounding amphitheater of high mountain peaks. Beautiful, beautiful place, and one I hope to come back to.

There were a steady stream of RTR’ers on the chair lift, which is cleverly equipped to haul bikes up the ski slope too. A lot of people had taken the opportunity to rent mountain bikes and try out some of the runs down the slope; we, personally, just couldn’t see putting our butts in a saddle again quite so soon! We even saw a couple of adaptive mountain bikes — totally cool.

As for us, we hopped off the chair lift and wandered for a bit through the forest in the sweet high mountain air. We didn’t linger too long, though, as we had massages scheduled back down at the high school. After a short walk we rode the chair lift down, grabbed a bite of lunch, and caught a shuttle bus down to town.

(Just an aside: getting a massage when you’re screaming sore all over isn’t really a very pleasant experience. There’s a cadre of massage therapists who follow RTR from town to town, and there’s an assembly line of people moving through the massage “machine” every day. It helps so much to get some of the gunk wrung out of your muscles, especially after yesterday’s marathon 92-miler. But my quads were so tender I could barely stand to have them touched! I about went through the roof. Then the therapist climbed up on the table and “walked” down my back on her knees. OMG. Ow.)

We spent the rest of our glorious rest day doing some grocery shopping, wandering around the town (a very neat little place), and then fixing a delicious lasagna and salad dinner for ourselves back at the condo. Tomorrow is a big, big day: Cottonwood Pass, at over 12,000 feet, fourteen miles of climbing on a dirt road, no less. The rumor was flying all over today: that the pass still wasn’t navigable (it was only finally opened to traffic six days ago due to deep overhanging snow drifts) and we’d be re-routed over Monarch Pass, which would put us at around 105 miles for the day. But these guys who run RTR really know what they’re doing, and I have no doubt that tomorrow morning we’ll be heading up that dirt road.

RTR Day 4: Montrose to Crested Butte

June 18 — Montrose to Crested Butte

92 miles

7:25 ride time

10:55 elapsed time

Started at 6:30

Well, what do you think? Can we ride 92 miles? It is, I think, going to be a looooooooooooooong day.

New strategy: breakfast on our own, in the tent. Bagels and cream cheese (lotsa carbs!). A Naked Juice fruit smoothie for me. For Carol, an experiment: a Monster energy drink.

And then we were off.

RTR 2008 Day 4, Montrose to Crested Butte

When we woke up, the wind was already blowing. Not such a good sign. Jill, who has ridden this stretch before (at least as far as Gunnison), had warned us of the winds and counseled an early start. Riding out of town, we were all greeted by a stiff wind tunneling right down out of the hills east of Montrose. I was in my small chainring, perilously close to being out of gears altogether, riding on the flat.

Except, of course, that it wasn’t flat; we were immediately on a ramp headed up to the first climb of the day, Cerro Summit. The wind had us at a practical stand-still. We were all hunkered down, glued to the wheel in front of us, everyone looking for some sort of draft. It’s so hard, with this many riders — finding other people riding at your pace, and riding consistently, not slowing down, speeding up, weaving, swerving, whatever. I’d find a little pack to settle in with for a few minutes, but then they’d falter and I’d have to pass and go looking for the next pack. Carol was out somewhere ahead of me; I felt like I was riding through sand.

I was struggling not to become completely discouraged; we weren’t even climbing and I couldn’t keep my speed over 10mph. Ninety-two miles? See ya some time around midnight. Wind. It totally blows.

Then the road started tipping up more, and we were climbing up to Cerro Summit. It’s a long, winding ramp that doesn’t look like much, but after four or five miles of it … geez, what a slog. But the pay-off was a sweet downhill into the Cimarron River valley, which was just beautiful. And did I mention that it was downhill?

Unfortunately, another climb was in the offing, this time a 7-mile grunt up to the top of Blue Mesa Summit. But thank god, the wind had quit by now. I made it to the top, passing Carol along the way, and waited for her there.

She got to the top and put her bike down next to mine; I was chatting about the climb and so on, and she wasn’t saying anything. She sat down on a wood fence and was just silent. It hadn’t really been an awful climb; mostly just annoying because it was so dang long and around every curve there was just more of it. But she looked cooked. After a few minutes, she told me that she had totally bonked shortly after Cerro Summit; that she had broken out in a cold sweat on the climb up to Blue Mesa Summit and was now feeling nauseous and really shaky. It was the Monster energy drink; it had given her a huge “up” at the beginning of the day but had now dropped her like a brick. Not good. SOOO not good. MANY miles to go. I felt just terrible for her.

We took a long break until Carol felt like she could get under way again. Now we had another nice, long downhill and I hoped it would give her a respite until she started to feel better. I was feeling good; I would just pull her, for a change.

We came down into another beautiful, narrow river canyon when the State Patrol stopped us. We stood over our bikes on the shoulder for five or ten minutes, wondering what was going on. In true mob fashion, weird rumors started coming back down the line: maybe there had been a bad accident up ahead, and they didn’t want us to see it. I hadn’t seen any accidents yet during the week, although in the bathroom in Montrose I had seen a woman with some bandaging on her shoulder and leg, covering road rash from the crash earlier in the tour.

But as it turned out, we were waiting for a trailer with a wide load to come up the canyon. Just not enough room for all of us!

The rest of the day was awfully long. I kept glancing in my rear-view mirror (mounted on the side of my helmet) to make sure Carol was right behind me. On a long stretch along the Blue Mesa Reservoir I heard her say, Look, we’ve got a tailwind. And sure enough, the grasses along the side of the road were all bending their heads toward the east. It was a huge psychological boost. And with the two climbs behind us, now we were making good time.

We got to the aid station at Sapinero shortly after noon. It had turned hot and although the wind was blowing in the right direction, it was still drying us out. The landscape around the reservoir was open, rocky, and baking in the sun. We scrounged a scrap of shade at the aid station and got something to eat; Carol was still pale, quiet, and feeling very poorly. I was truly wondering if she should considering taking the sag wagon; we had over 50 miles to go.

I led the way to the next aid station, at mile 55, where the DJ was set up and the general party was going on. By this time the wind was blowing whitecaps on the reservoir; still going our way, thank god, but it was so hot and dry. Carol was just spent. We saw a road that curved around the east end of the reservoir and headed back into the wind; it was just too horrible to image that we’d soon be there. Meanwhile, we heard the DJ over the sound system offering a free T-shirt to anyone who would jump in the reservoir; next thing you know, a woman had totally stripped down and was heading into the water. A very popular choice, judging from the roar of approval.

Carol pulled on a lightweight long-sleeve shirt to give her some protection from the sun and reluctantly got back onto her bike. She told me later that she had very nearly decided to sag, but warrior that she is, she gave it another go. Almost immediately we came around a curve to see that our road continued on straight to the east, NOT doubling around the reservoir and back into the wind. We both cheered. We now came into a lush green valley where the Gunnison River flowed into the east end of the reservoir, and shortly after came out onto a high plain blanketed in sagebrush and covered over by the most enormous blue sky.

RIde the Rockies 2008, somewhere west of Gunnison

You know how in the West you come upon those high, open places where you can see the road ahead of you for miles and miles and miles? That’s very intimidating when you’re on a bike.

But the tailwind held true and I kept pulling us along and the miles rolled by until we came into Gunnison. Carol was hanging in; covering up from the sun had helped revive her. We took a shade and rest break, I got my first flat tire on the road just north of town heading up toward Crested Butte, and we re-grouped one last time at the final aid station, still 19 miles from the day’s end.

That last 19 miles was a killer. I was just worn out and the aid station did little to help that. Carol felt better now and offered to take over the pulling and I gladly let her. I had pulled us for 45 miles and was used up. We had lost our tailwind; the wind was now coming down the valley and although there weren’t really any hills to speak of, it was a long, constant uphill until we finally hove into CB.

Tomorrow, however, is a rest day — a beautiful, shining dream to contemplate on those last endless miles. Plus, total bonus, we have two glorious days in a condo up in Mount Crested Butte (the ski resort area) awaiting us. Perfect timing. We showered at Crested Butte High School and changed into our “civvies,” got some food and beer at the community feed (we learned our hard lesson in Telluride: eat as soon as you can), and then finally caught a shuttle bus up the mountain and got checked into the condo.

What a day.