Carbondale

CARBONDALE, COLORADO

The day started out beautiful. Terry Moran and I left our hotel in Brighton, Colorado for the one-hour drive north to Fort Collins for the start of my 4th Ride the Rockies.

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I-70 (by bus) in Glenwood Canyon

Arriving Fort Collins, we were directed to a parking lot across from the Odell Brewing Company, which was the official ending point of RTR. We loaded our bikes on a truck and then boarded a bus for transport to Carbondale, the official start town of Ride the Rockies.

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I-70 West

The bus headed south to Denver then picked up I-70 and took that west. We had secured front-row seats on the bus and had awesome vistas. I had traveled as far as Idaho Springs before but that was the farthest west I had been on this highway.

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Carbondale, Colo.

This was my first time through the Eisenhower Tunnel and the view was spectacular. We went over Vail Pass and I was marveling at the bike path that was sometimes next to I-70. We followed I-70 through Glenwood Canyon, truly an engineering masterpiece.

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Our route took us to Glenwood Springs which looks like a nice place to visit someday. We went through Glenwood Springs and made our way to Carbondale. The sunny skies soon turned gray.

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Logistically, Day 0 is always the toughest at RTR. We went to the registration tent and got our credentials. Then we took our luggage and boarded a bus to our hotel. After dropping the luggage off at the hotel and waiting 20 minutes for the rain to subside, we took a bus back to RTR headquarters and picked up our bikes. The rain had stopped.

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I’m not sure what happened next. I told Terry I was going to go for a bike ride although I wasn’t leaving from the school. I had a backpack that I needed to offload. I followed a trail down to the hotel, stopping at a Subway for a sandwich to take back to the room.

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With gray skies, I set out on my “explorer” route. I had studied some maps and had a general idea where I was headed but wasn’t entirely sure. I found the Rio Grande Trail which is a rail trail built on the old Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad. It connects Glenwood Springs with Aspen and runs 42 miles.

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I followed the rail trail until it moved away from the main road. Then I jumped on the road and began climbing. I had planned to follow the road until I reach Crystal Springs Road but once I did I kept going instead. The road continued up and simply looked interesting.

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A view from Panorama Drive

I came to a road called Panorama Drive. Who would want to follow that? Me, that’s who. I rode that for about five miles until I was back at the entrance. I then turned and found Crystal Springs Road. What a wild descent that was. All fun all the time. It was five miles of nothing but downhill. Glorious downhill.

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Reaching Highway 82 I trusted my instincts and went left. Looking at a map later, right would have worked even better. But left got me seven miles instead of two back to the hotel. My instincts were a little off.

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This simply allowed me to retrace some of the earlier route although I was confused about why I ended up there. But more riding. Back at the hotel, we got ready for an early night with an early rollout in the morning.

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Lodging was at the Days Inn. Mostly good but the bathroom was extremely tiny. Ride the Rockies starts tomorrow!


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