You may well be wondering if I survived my weekend adventure to Estes Park. The jury is still out. Thank god the human brain has a huge capacity for forgetting pain, is all I’ve got to say.
We rolled off the driveway at 8:30 Saturday morning (you can check out the photos that go along with the story on my Flickr page). The weather was cool and crystal clear — just another day in Paradise. Heading south on Overland, we were soon swinging west (photo 1) and heading for our first climb up to Horsetooth Reservoir (2). We’ve been up these hills a lot since we began training in March, so I’ve come to know every inch of them, it seems like. Soon enough we were on the backside and rolling downhill into Masonville (3).
Another short couple of miles and we were at the intersection of Highway 34, where we took a brief break and swapped out our fuel bottles (4). The couple miles from the Masonville turnoff to the entrance of Big Thompson Canyon are not great — very little shoulder, and drivers are just whipping through there. But once in the canyon, the shoulder is nice and wide, and the traffic is much slower (5, 6, 7).
It’s incredible riding through that canyon. You get to experience it in a much different way than riding in a car. The sound of the water crashing down that narrow gorge is wild music and your eyes are drawn upward, unimpeded by windows, to the high cliffs that surround you.
It’s also quite wonderful because the grade at the bottom of the canyon is relatively gentle.
Once out of the narrow portion of the canyon, it’s a bit of a slog up to Drake. There was quite a bit of traffic, but I must say that everyone was pretty well behaved. We saw a lot of cyclists, too. The grade starts to pick up, though, and there’s a lot of it.
Plus, I was just having a devilish time trying to get my delicate female parts arranged on the saddle. Sometimes it works just right, other times you just can’t get yourself settled in. It was really bothersome and quite distracting. Especially with the stress of a long climb, it’s hard not to focus on every little discomfort.
We took a very welcome break in Drake (8) where we refilled our water bottles and mixed up a fresh batch of Cytomax in them. We were at 2:15 of saddle time, which I thought was pretty good. Mileage-wise, we were about 2/3 of the way; but the worst of the climbing, by far, was ahead.
At Drake we took a right turn onto Devil’s Gulch road, which leads to Glen Haven. The first couple of miles were wonderful, pretty flat or just gently uphill, with the traffic of Highway 34 left behind (9). The road winds along the Little Thompson River, with cattle grazing in the open fields, and I finally got my female parts settled in. Over all too soon, unfortunately. The road begins to climb in earnest, long, winding segments with little to no rest to be had anywhere. It’s tough when there’s no opportunity to rest or to coast, just grind, grind, grind. I finally bailed on one stretch and dismounted for a few minutes, which helped.
We stopped again at the National Forest picnic area just before Glen Haven. I was having to rest more and more frequently; my legs were really getting dogged. It’s amazing how much even a little rest can help, though. But I couldn’t help but fret about the monster hill waiting for us after Glen Haven.
Another rest stop at the foot of the switchbacks that lay between Glen Haven and Estes Park. What are you going to do? You know intellectually that it’s really going to suck. I had a faint glimmer of hope that they might not be any worse than the switchbacks going up to the top of Rist Canyon. But we hadn’t already been climbing for over 40 miles when we did Rist.
Carol took off, and, animal that she is, she made the climb in one shot. Incredible. The climb itself is only a little over a mile, with a 700′ elevation gain. It took me over half an hour to get up that one mile, and four stops (10). Getting back into the pedals on that steep of a hill is a real adventure! The second gooseneck of each switchback is super-steep; maybe around 15% (11).
(A note about the last two pictures: after riding all the way to the top of the hill, Carol came back down the second switchback so she could take pictures of me coming up. That’s true love, folks.)
It was unbelievably hard and unbelievably painful. If I’ve ever done anything that hurt more, I sure can’t think of what it was. The situation did not improve when I realized that I was gasping uncontrollably — I hadn’t even thought about the elevation (the climb tops out at around 8000 feet). Finally I got around the second switchback. I could SEE the top. I wanted to be ON the top so bad — so, one more push — but what had looked like the top was not actually the top. There was just a little bit more, maybe another 150 yards, but I couldn’t make it. I stopped again and was so frustrated, so mad, so exhausted, that I just screamed. I put my head down on my saddle and sweat sprinkled out of the top of my helmet like I was a watering can. I could see Carol at the top but I truly wondered if I could ever get myself up to her.
But with one more push, I was up. I rode the whole hill — didn’t walk one step of it. If I never have to climb that hill again, it will be too soon.
I felt like I was finishing L’Alpe d’Huez at the Tour de France (okay, that’s 21 switchbacks, but still …). Carol caught me before I fell over and I just collapsed on the ground. We had a nice, long break (12, 13), chatted with some other cyclists, and contemplated the Payoff — five miles, all downhill, into Estes (14).
More later.
