Hey all...here are some great photos from our Thompson Dam ride of 8-20-11...enjoy! your Queen B, Fran

Colorado Bike Tour - Our Excellent Adventure - June 19-25, 2011

The seed for the Colorado Bicycle Tour was planted in our heads several years ago by Alan Chasse, who has ridden the event twice before. The event, which is now in its 17th year, follows a different route each years but always involves climbing and descending half a dozen or more of Colorado's premier passes, many of which top out at elevations of over 11,000 feet. This year’s event was held over a 7-day period and featured 450 miles of riding.

We'd been looking to do this tour for a few years, and when we put out the invite to the Thread City Cyclers e-mail list, nine answered the challenge:

Eric Anderson
Bill Penn
Skip Kuzel
John Hankins
Beth Hankins
Keith Hurley
Jeff Buske
Tammy Walesczyzk
John Jackman

In addition, I got a call from Garth Bean's wife Andrea, who was looking for a creative Christmas present for her husband. Rob Recalde from the Expo Wheelman rounded out our 11-person contingent.

We arrived at the starting point for the tour in Blackhawk, Colorado two days early in an attempt to acclimate ourselves to the elevation. Blackhawk is a former mining town that has re-invented itself as a gambling mecca. The town features about 30 casinos and nothing else. Really, nothing else. When we asked the young man behind the counter at the hotel what there was to do he reported “Unless you gamble, there is nothing to do here. It is a terrible place.”

Presented with that glowing testimonial, we elected to get out of town, hopping in our rented Ford Explorer and driving over to the Mount Evans Auto Road, which at 14,000+ feet of elevation has staked a claim as the highest paved road in America. On the way up we saw a mountain goat and a herd of elk, as well as 20-foot high snowbanks on the sides of the road left over from an unusually snowy winter in the Rocky Mountains. We also saw plenty of cyclists making their way up the road. By the time we passed 12,000 feet on the drive up the weather had gotten nasty, with cold wind and light snow falling. As we drove back down the road the snow and rain had picked up, and virtually all of the cyclists had abandoned their quest for the summit. We saw a wet couple tentatively negotiating their way down the wet switchbacks, clearly unhappy with their situation. We said aloud, “it would suck to be them right now”. Little did we know how soon we would be in a similar situation.

The first day of the tour was a relatively easy 56 miles spin from Blackhawk to Estes Park. The ride featured three significant climbs, but nothing that would be considered a “Pass”. As would be the case each night of the tour, the local high school was co-opted and became a Tent City for the 1500 riders. There were four options for overnight accomodations. The majority of the crew (and all of our contingent) elected to sleep in tents each night. A variation on this theme, which John Jackman and Tammy used, was to use the “Shuttleguy”, a service that rented you a tent and a pad and set your tent up for you each day. Those less hardy had the option of sleeping indoors in a gym or taking the truly wimpy option of sleeping in a local hotel. Three meals a day were provided by the tour and administered in the High School Cafeteria, unless like Keith and Rob you elected not to sign up for the meal plan. In that case you stood outside in the cold parking lot and ate warmed over breakfast burritos from a local vendor. This, combined with the fact that neither Keith or Rob had ever slept in a tent, provided humorous fodder for their team-mates.

For months before the trip we had been fearing Day Two, which started in Estes Park at 7,500 feet and climbed relentlessly up Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park to an elevations of 12,183 feet, the highest point in the trip, and also the highest paved through-road in the country. The weather forecast for Monday June 20th was not good, with rain and chilly temperatures predicted. Trail Ridge Road had been closed two days out of the last eight due to new snow, and with the wet weather blowing in it was likely that there would be fresh snow at the top of the pass overnight. The tour director announced that we were to assemble in the high school cafeteria at 5:00 AM, at which point he would tell us the plan for the day. They had already warned us of the importance of getting an early start to avoid afternoon thunderstorms.

On Monday we woke up in the dark at 4:30 to the sound of rain falling on the tents. We dutifully made our way to the cafeteria where we found a sign that said the announcement would now be at 5:30. At 5:30 we learned that the road was closed, but that it might re-open later in the morning. We were to sit tight and listen for another announcement at 7:00. 7:00 became 7:30. A rumor spread that we would be getting on our bikes and riding back to the start in Blackhawk, where we would be bused 3 hours around the mountain to that night's camping spot in Granby.

At 7:30 the organizer was back on the microphone, “I think we have a solution. It is not the best solution, but it is a solution. Trail Ridge Road is open to Aid Station 2 at the 18 mile mark at 10,850 feet. At that point the road is closed to the top because of 4 inches of new snow overnight and treacherous weather conditions. The Park Service has announced that the road may re-open later this morning. If it does, we will allow people to ride over the top. If it does not, we will all ride back to the start and you will be bused to Granby. The weather at the top of the pass is 27 degrees with 50 mph gusts and sleet blowing sideways. Wear everything you brought, as these conditions are very dangerous. Good luck.”

With that dire announcement, we were off. As was the case most days, we broke into small groups and headed up the road. The climb to the top started right away. Although the roads were wet, it had stopped raining and the climbing kept us all warm. When we got to Aid Station 1 at the 10 mile mark we learned that the road was still closed above Aid 2. We snarfed down some peanut butter sandwiches, filled our water bottles, and headed upward to an uncertain fate. Patches of snow became common along the roadside at elevations above 9,000 feet. Eric and I arrived at Aid 2 at about 10:00 and found the “Buske Boys” waiting at the closed gate – Jeff, Rob, and Keith. The temperature had dropped to 40 degrees, and the sky ahead looked grim. Cyclists continued to pile up behind the closed gate, and in the next hour about 300 of us had accumulated.

Meanwhile, the officials were stopping the rest of the group at Aid 1 back at the 10 mile mark, and telling the riders that they could not continue until and unless the road re-opened. As they waited, the weather at Aid 2 continued to deteriorate, and eventually it started spitting rain on us. The Buske Boys and I decided it did not look like they were going to open the road and we were all starting to shiver in our wet clothes, so we stared back down the hill. Eric continued his patient wait at the gate. As we approached Aid 1 on the way down the hill we ran into Garth, Beth, Skip, and Bill on their way up the hill. We learned from them that they had opened the gate and that it would now be possible to ride over the top. The Buske Boys continued down the hill, while I turned around to re-gain the 2,000 feet I had just donated to mother nature. Beth, Skip, Bill, Garth, and I climbed as a group toward Aid 2. John J. and Tammy decided discretion was the better part of valor and headed back to the starting point in Granby.

When we arrived at Aid 2 the gate was open as promised and they were letting riders through. The skies, if anything, appeared darker and the wind had picked up a bit. Eric had waited at the gate with 150 others and proceeded upward when they opened the gate. Beth and Bill were not certain whether they would continue because of the weather. Skip and I were afraid they would close the road, so we pushed out of Aid 2 and up the road. We turned the corner from Aid 2 and were blasted with a wind coming over the ridge laced with froze ice pellets. As we climbed the visibility dropped to about 30 feet, which diminished further as the moisture accumulated on our glasses. The trip from Aid 2 to the top was only 7 miles, but we needed to climb another 1500 feet in this distance against heavy wind and sleet so it took over an hour. Although we couldn't see anything, we later learned that much of the route is at the top of a ridge, with steep drops off to one side and 20 feet or more of accumulated snow bank on the other side. At one point I realized that it was not sleet I was feeling on my face, but instead it was wind-blown snow dropping onto the road from a snow bank that loomed high over our heads on the roadside.

At the 25 mile mark, only about a mile from the ultimate summit, the organizers had erected Aid Station 3. It was a cold and miserable place and volunteers were directing those too cold to go on into the support vehicles. Most of us just rolled by, unwilling to sacrifice our effort-driven warmth for a handful of wheat thins and a few gulps of Gatorade.

At the head of our group, Eric made the mistake of rolling past a visitor center just over the crest of the hill at about the 27 mile mark. It would prove to be a costly mistake, since it was the last opportunity to get warm before the long descent off the pass. When I reached the visitor center at an elevation of about 12,000 feet, I parked my bike in a snow bank and made my way quickly to the building. After I'd cleaned off my glasses, I realized that the building was choked with several hundred shivering riders, all trying to warm up and all wondering how they were possibly going to ride down this mountain without launching themselves off the edge. Garth stood in front of me shivering uncontrollably. He had been in the Visitor Center for over 20 minutes and could not get warm. The ranger in charge announced that they would be bringing buses in to transport the riders down, but it would take more than an hour for them to reach the top. They did not recommend that anyone attempt to ride down.

A few minutes after the announcement, Skip arrived. His jacket was covered with ice. His ashy white face poked out of his black rain jacket hood. He was also shivering uncontrollably and when we asked him how he felt he stammered some jibberish that convinced us he was not in a good way. Recognizing that riding in such a state might not be the safest choice, I pretty much ordered Skip to stay put and not even think about riding down the hill. The next day Skip found out that in addition to the cold he was experiencing he was also hypoxic (low blood oxygen) as a result of the sustained effort he had been putting out in the rarefied Rocky Mountain air, a condition he recovered from after another day.

As I stood in the Visitor Center wondering what to do, Alan Chasse's voice spoke to me from a cold wet ride we did a decade ago in New Mexico. He said to me “You paid the money to do the ride, now do the damn ride!”. With that, I told Garth and Skip to stay put unless they warmed up, I pulled my bike out of the snowbank, and I followed Eric down the hill. According to a display at the Visitor Center, temperatures tend to climb 3.8 degrees for every 1,000 foot drop in elevation, so my plan (and Eric's) was to drop as many feet as quickly as possible to regain some warmth (it was about 30 degrees at the top). I started my descent in heavy sleet with a guy named Jake from Missouri. We agreed to use the buddy system on the way down for safety reasons. After about a mile down the hill we were both shivering enough that it was affecting our ability to control the bikes (a condition known as the Dave Burdette shimmy after a particularly chilly descent of Middlebury Gap a few years back). We stopped on the side of the road and each did about 20 heat-producing pushups, ran in place for a few minutes, and then hopped back on. I'd learned this warming technique from the Buske boys an hour earlier at Aid 2, and Jake and I used it every mile for the next four or five miles until we got below the snow line into the warmer air.

Little did I know during my chilly descent that Beth and Bill had decided to continue up the road from Aid 2. I had remarked to Skip earlier that Beth was “one tough chick” but I honestly didn't know she had this kind of climb in her (and she reported later that neither did she). She and Bill made it to the top even as the weather deteriorated further. By the time they got there, the tour organizers had recognized how dangerous this situation was, and they were pulling people off the course at the top and preventing them from going down the hill. They ended up busing 300 people off the top of the pass at 12,000 feet, 30 of whom they brought directly to the hospital with signs of hypothermia. Perhaps 200 of us got down the hill and made it to the finish, although none would probably describe their decision to descend the hill as a “good idea”. The balance of the riders turned around at Aid 1 or Aid 2, or in some cases elected to “Sag” the entire day. Those that elected to return to the start were rewarded with a three hour bus ride around the mountains.

As I departed the final Aid station at the bottom of the pass, Garth rolled in from the long descent, cold but smiling – apparently Alan’s voice had spoken to him as well. Our group all recovered from this arduous day, and no one got to have any toes or fingers amputated. Eric took the worst of it, having completely missed the opportunity to get warm at the top. He did not return to his normal riding form for another two days.

The balance of the trip was thoroughly enjoyable, with great weather and spectacular climbs every day. On Day 3 we did a 80 mile ride over Rabbit Ear's Pass (9426 feet) to Steamboat Springs, which Beth declared her favorite climb of the trip. The following day we rode over two moderate passes on our way to Glenwood Springs, where we took a rest day. During our day off we took advantage of record high water levels on the Colorado River to do a 20-mile whitewater rafting trip and hit a mountain-top theme park with a terrifying giant swing that launched you repeatedly off the edge of the cliff 1500 feet above the river.

Day 6 was an 80-mile ride up Vail Pass (10,666 feet), which was a climb of nearly 6000 feet from our low spot on the Colorado River. Much of the trip up Vail Pass was on bike trails and a highway that had been closed to motor vehicles. We stayed overnight in the town of Frisco at an elevation of 9500 feet, with snow-capped peaks visible in every direction. To celebrate the beauty, Rob declared that we must ride our bikes the four miles into the downtown area wearing sandals and no helmets. Once we got into town and had a few beers, he further announced that the sub-set of us in attendance should partake in the drinking of shots. His selection of alcoholic beverage, colloquially termed the “Red Headed Slut” was a concoction of liquors of which I was not familiar. Our libations were followed by a wild four mile ride down a winding downhill bike trail. At one point Keith attempted to bunny hop an obstacle, which works well if you are clipped into your pedals, but not so well if you are wearing sandals. The abrupt contact that his nether regions made with the top tube of his bike will remind him of this in the future.

We wound up our trip on Day 7 with a climb to the top of Loveland Pass at 11,990 feet. As we ascended the switchbacks to the top we passed Arapahoe Basin ski area, where the lifts were still running and skiers were happily making their way down the slopes – on June 25th ! Their season will run this year into July. Part of the descent from Loveland Pass was on Interstate 70, where we screamed along down the hill at 40 mph being passed by trucks going nearly twice that speed.

All in all a great trip, with the proper combination of adversity, adventure, and camaraderie. The organizers put on a first-class event, and I would recommend this tour to anyone – as long as you're willing to roll with some surprises along the way.

Thank You Steroids

Hi friends. I manage to post a little something from each of my TCC rides on my diary on YouTube, but this edition deserves special mention since a good chunk of the video is dedicated to last Saturday's ride. It was a good one. Thank you Dave Waldburger!

TCC A- ride, Saturday, May 28, 2011

Biking with Cancer

My first bike ride since cancer treatment began.

More of my videos here.

More of my writing here, including today's post, about yesterday's bike fitting.

PS. About vlogging on the bike, and vlogging while driving: I am a professional. Do not try this at home.