Bicycle Tours

From: Georgetown, Colorado
To: Frisco, Colorado
Today: 38 miles - 2194 miles total






Another pass and Continental Divide crossing (our 14th for this adventure) - Loveland Pass elevation 11,990 feet, mastered by the orange mountain goat!

Continental Breakfast at the Georgetown Mountain Inn consisted of small blueberry and banana muffins, watered down OJ, tea and coffee. It doesn't really cut it if your on a bike, and have a mountain pass to climb over. So we added to this bounty our oatmeal, and we were on the road at 7:30. Even though the Georgetown Mountain Inn is pricey, all in this cycling adventure (even SeeMore) had a great night sleep.

Climbing out of Georgetown you pedal by the Sliver Plume loop railroad on a bicycle path. The mining supported railroad, goes around in a loop to get up to the mine, and we passed under the trestles twice. You can ride the Silver Plume/Georgetown railroad for around 21 dollars. We took the SeeMore express, so we got to see a lot of what you would see from the railroad....but the railroad looks like a fun activity. After the bike path (only a mile long) we followed along Interstate 70 on a service road for 4 miles of quiet and pretty bicycle riding. Then it was 5 miles of cycling on Interstate 70....YUK! Because the Interstate travels through the mountains, the noise of the traffic is amplified. The Rear Admiral and I could not hear each other over the traffic. It was a long 5 miles. Interstate 70 has a tunnel (see Dad there are tunnels through the Rockies) but bicycles are not allowed! Which was fine with us! We exited and cycled on Rte 6, four miles up to Loveland Pass.

We stopped at the beginning of the four mile climb (the climb really started in Georgetown - elevation 8515 feet), to have some snacks and rescue our hearing. While resting, we saw a large yellow highway truck with a snow plow on it.....which made us think a bit. After the break, we climbed the rest of the pass, which featured no shoulder, little traffic, and very kind truck drivers. Trucks that were either too tall or carrying highly combustible materials are not allowed through the Eisenhower tunnel on interstate 70, and had to follow us cyclist up Loveland Pass. WHAT A BEAUTIFUL RIDE!!! Most of our ride up and down the pass was next to the mountain, so we didn't have to worry about pedaling off the side of the mountain. However, the last mile was not next to the mountain, and there was no guard rails.....this is a big no no for the Rear Admiral. Since the traffic was very light, SeeMore stayed mostly in the center of our lane.

After a break at the top, it was down down down....we think the people climbing the pass from the other side had a tougher time. It's always tough to tell, but we did notice all of the cyclist standing as they pedaled (something we can't do on SeeMore). We stopped a number of times on the way down, to make sure the brakes were cool...and to let traffic pass us. We are very grateful that SeeMore has a drum brake (along with our front and back V-brakes). The drum brake is the only way to control SeeMore's speed when going down these mountain passes, and there is no way we could be safe without it.

At the bottom of the pass, there is another bicycle path that lets you get off of Rte 6. The path through the towns of Keystone, Dillon, Frisco, and Breckenridge, most of it along the Dillon reservoir. Dillon must be the sailboat capital of Colorado; not only did we have the mountains to look at, but there are hundreds of small sailboats out on the water this Sunday. The bike path was also well used, and it did go up, down, and was very curvey. I was having a good time pretending I was a race car on the Autobahn until the Rear Admiral correctly reminded me that we are on a fully loaded orange colored tandem.

We are in Frisco living large at the Alpine Inn. We are setting up for Hoosier Pass (11,541 feet). Frisco is a very busy town with a population over the 2,443 according to our maps. I'm not a Frisco fan, but the Rear Admiral got a little retail fix. She even visited a WalMart....I can't remember the last time we were in a town with a WalMart in it. Time to go jump into the hot tub!

From: Winter Park, Colorado
To: Georgetown, Colorado
Today: 37 miles - 2156 miles total






For those cycling from Fraser to Winter Park, there is a bicycle path that takes you away from riding Rte 40. The Adventure Cycling Maps do not mention this path. We cycled some of it, but wished we had rode all of the path. It ends at Winter Park Ski area. We believe the path is called the Fraser River Path.

We both didn't sleep well last night, sometimes that happens...it wasn't the room or the multi train whistles...we just didn't get our sleep. A good night's sleep or not, it was Rte 40 and the attack of Berthoud Pass that filled our morning ride. We had planned an early start, thinking that Saturday morning traffic might be the lightest. We did ok , although the traffic coming from Denver on the other side of the road was heavy, the traffic on our side was minimal. We were a little concerned about going down the pass, because going up (from North to South) there is very little shoulder. We had an advantage of a truck lane on our ride up, but we kept looking at the other side of the road where there was no shoulder. So on we climbed, on our orange mountain goat, SeeMore. We were passed twice by other cyclist, who were decked out in there cycling speedos and riding racing bikes. The pass was beautiful, complete with mountain vistas and waterfalls. If the traffic wasn't there, this would be a great ride. We stopped by a rushing mountain stream, with 1000 feet of elevation left to climb, to take in the scenery and have a snack. Just before crossing the Continental Divide (our thirteenth on this adventure) we got "mooned" by a rather hairy gentleman (why is it always a guy?). We think it was a friendly moon, we also had a lot of thumbs up and encouragement shouted at us on our ride up! Also, as we reached the top of the pass we received a phone call from Dustin to let us know he was able to find a spare tube for the front wheel. Thanks Son, sorry for the gasping for breath in your ear......it wasn't an obscene phone call!

From the top, the rest of our ride was all downhill (10 miles) into Empire Colorado. The south side of the pass was....... FANTASTIC! Wide shoulders, new pavement, wildlife fences, and the embankments were all held back by cement block reinforcement. Colorado and/or the Federal Government spent a pretty penny on improving the south side of Berthoud Pass.

Yesterday while waiting for the Rear Admiral to secure accommodations, a couple (fellow cyclists) came by and hammered me with questions about our orange mountain goat. After a long conversation, they both suggested two great places to eat. Hernado's Pizza in Winter Park for supper, and Jenny's Cafe in Empire, Colorado when the pass was over. They were right on both accounts. We sailed into Jenny's at a little before 11 am. They were still serving breakfast, so the Rear Admiral tried quiche and I had the breakfast burrito (Jennitto). We walked out extremely satisfied and looking for a place to lay down an take a nap!

No nap, but a very leisurely 6 mile ride into Georgetown, our stop for the night. Georgetown is an old mining town (late 1800's), which is now a tourist mecca. It is a historical town much like Virginia City (if you are reading along), the old downtown is restored and now occupied with gift shops and small cafes. We walked and window shopped and walked and window shopped and walked...you get the picture. There is a neat shop for us guys though, there is an art gallery of nothing but trains by the artisit, Scotty.

We are living large in Georgetown, in a hotel (a little pricey). Tomorrow we attack Loveland Pass (elevation 11,990 feet). Hopefully tonight we will rest up.

From: Granby, Colorado
To: Winter Park, Colorado
Today: 22 miles - 2119 miles total






The photos are from yesterday.

Short cycling day today because we are setting up for Berthoud Pass (11,315 feet). Rte 40 is very busy (but not as busy as going through Estes Park), so we are hoping to get an early start tomorrow..coupled with it being Saturday...we are hoping to make a quieter mountain pass. We are in Winter Park which is proclaimed as the Mountain BIking capital. There are A LOT of mountain bikes and road bikes. However, there is only one orange colored recumbent tandem.....so SeeMore is attracting another fan base. Maybe we should start charging Rans a commission!

We are going to walk downtown, eat pizza, do laundry, get the Rear Admiral's retail fix cured, and basically be bums. We are living large at the Viking hotel and BIKE SHOP....we are in cyclist paridise again. Now if Rte 40 would just quiet down!

From: Granby, Colorado
To: Granby, Colorado
Today: 78 miles - 2097 miles total






Rocky Mountain National Park......WOW!!!!!

We had oatmeal to begin our day, and began cycling with Bertha (our backpack) and the yellow dry sack staying behind in our motel room. We quickly joined Rte 34 heading toward Rocky Mountain National Park and the Trail Ridge Road. Rte 34 had a wide shoulder, but the traffic was semi busy and we were hoping that it would lessen the closer we got to the National Park. We cycled by million dollar vacation homes, Lake Granby, Shadow Mountain Lake, Grand Lake, and marinas. What a noisy, but gorgeous ride into the town of Grand Lake. We then cycled down and around the town Grand Lake, stopping at a restaurant for our second breakfast. Grand Lake is a small touristy type town, but it is very quaint (per Mary).

The Trail Ridge Road begins at Rocky Mountain National Park. It winds itself through the Rockies and has many hiking trails off of it. We knew it was going to be a GREAT day (besides the 16 miles to Grand Lake) because as we were taking a photo op at the park's entrance sign, the Rear Admiral spotted a moose! A little too far off for a photo, but things were looking up. We climbed and climbed all morning, we had started of at an elevation of 7880, and hoped to reach the park's visitor center at an elevation of 11,796. Imagine traveling at 5 mph for 23 miles with snow dotted mountains on the horizon and millions of wildflowers next to you. Reds, yellows, whites, purple, blues, and orange wildflowers along both sides of the road. The vehicle traffic was not bad, we had a lot of stretches that SeeMore was the king of the road. We also had many thumbs up and also shakes of heads. There is a lot of pine beetle damage, which made the forest look like it was autumn or that a brown forest fire had taken place. We made it up to Milner Pass (our twelth Continental Divide crossing on this adventure) and had a break with an orange and some gorp.

It was then a four mile climb to the park's visitor center, where we lost the trees at 11,000 feet. At the visitor center, we met another couple who ride tandem, and three guys who are doing the Trans America who were quite taken with SeeMore, they were really fascinated with the seats (they must have had sore buts, which I'm sure they did). The Rear Admiral and I both had to use the rest rooms (SeeMore seems to never have to go!), but could not get away from the questions. Finally, we made it to the rest rooms....and then had lunch at the Park's cafe while looking out the window at elk and mountains.

We spent almost the same amount of time going down as going up. We stopped for many photo breaks....and just plain soaking it all in. Close to the bottom of the descent, we spent an hour at one of the rest areas. Neither one of us wanted this day to end! We cycled slowly (on purpose) out of the park, and all the way back to Granby, and just before exiting the park, we encountered some more elk on the side of the road! Three miles from our motel, SeeMore got some more retread wire in his front tire. Because it was just a slow leak, we just filled it with air, and patched the tube when we got back to the motel. We had Chinese food (a first on this trip) for dinner, which was very good! There was some sad news, at 2:30 (while we were in the visitor center) two cyclist fell going down the Trail Ridge Road. We don't know how bad, but it is a reminder that anything can and will happen so ride alert, ride carefully.

From: Walden, Colorado
To: Granby, Colorado
Today: 55 miles - 2019 miles total






Today's ride was a 10! If you have a chance to cycle Rte 125 in Colorado, do it!

We woke to find frost on both the Prince of Wales II and the freshly cut grass of Walden's city park. We also noticed that the 4 cyclist from Oregon....had been forced to move their sleeping area. Well, they can't say we didn't warn them! I had one of my best nights, while the Rear Admiral spent a bit of a chilly night.

We let the Prince of Wales defrost, and had breakfast in town. Nothing bad, they had Cowboy French Toast on the menu (this time with almonds and raspberry sauce), so I went for it. Returning to the city park, the other cyclist were up and their sleeping bags were in the trees being dried by the morning sun. We packed up, and headed out on ultra quiet RTE 125. It was so quiet, that SeeMore decided to ride next to the center line, for 90 percent of today's adventure. We cycled through the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge, where we saw hundreds of ground squirrels, chipmunks, and prairie dogs. There were also lots of raptors (hawks, eagles, and falcons) keeping an eye or two on the ground. There was almost NO road kill on Rte 125, all day long. However, the pine beetle has done HUGE job on the pine trees. It looks like aftermath of a brown forest fire. Thousands of acres have been destroyed by this bug.

We stopped in Rand Colorado, at the only store. It was more of a gift store, but they also had cold drinks and a rest room (privy). We had oranges, Gatorade, and gorp; then proceed up and over Willow Creek Pass (elevation 9683 feet). We crossed the Continental Divide (our eleventh on this trip) when we finished this mountain pass. We did not use our low gear ring, so it was not hard at all. It was, however, beautiful (except for the pine beetle damage)! Snow dotted mountains, trees, small water falls, Willow Creek.....what more could you ask for ( maybe a moose or two).

We had a picnic lunch at Denver Creek campground, at a water front picnic table right on Willow Creek. We are living semi large in Granby at a motel. We have no Internet (no big deal), but have a railroad running by across the street. Tomorrow we are going to ride light (with very little in our panniers and no Bertha backpack) into Rocky Mountain National Park. Depending on the riding conditions, we will ride as far as we like....then turn around and spend another night here in Granby.

From: Riverside, Wyoming
To: Walden, Colorado
Today: 55 miles - 1964 miles total






Happy Birthday Aunt Patty!

Last night we had dinner at the Bear Trap cafe/bar in beautiful downtown Riverside (population 58, maybe). We had ShockTop beer (on tap), the Rear Admiral had Chicken Fried Steak, and I settled for the Bear Trap burger. This morning at the Bear Trap I had Cowboy French Toast (French Toast with Frosted Flake coating!). What great eats! So if your beautiful downtown Riverside Wyoming, with the North Platte flowing through town....stop in and enjoy the great food and drink.

Route 230 (which changes to 125 in Colorado) was very quiet and rolling. We spent the morning seeing the same prairie grass, sage bush, snow fence...etc... as the last couple of days. We have cycled a great deal in Wyoming, and we can take it off our lists of things we need to do. About a mile from the Colorado border, we met Daniel, another adventure cyclist on the Transamerica route. Daniel is of college age, and is from New Zealand. He is enjoying this view of America from a bicycle. We must have talked for a half an hour, in the middle of no where (well about a mile from Colorado's border!). It was then on to the border, and (it seemed) the farther we cycled away from Wyoming, the prettier things got! Still a lot of sage bush, but now snow dotted mountains and trees on both sides of the road appeared. We cycled into Cowdrey Colorado, where we had a picnic lunch by the two ponds in town. While we ate we watched them move a heard of cattle down the road to a new pasture (see photo below). It was then on to Walden Colorado (you can now start humming the tune from Gilligan's Island).

We were two miles outside of Cowdrey (about seven miles from Walden Colorado), when we noticed the sky turning BLACK. In our favorite state, Wyoming, when black skies appeared every afternoon they never produced anything but wind. Colorado black skies produce liquid sunshine....hum....rain...hum....lots of rain...hum....mega rain....hum....cold mega rain....hum...HAIL! Oh well, we just cycled through it. Two miles from Walden, it was sunny and 72 degrees. and we pretended SeeMore was a huge blow dryer. Walden has a population of 734 and has 5 motels. Every motel was booked solid by oil well workers or by an automobile club. No big deal, the Adventure Cycling maps state that camping in the city park is ok, as long as you ask the sheriff and you can use the city pool's showers (for $3.00). The park is beautiful, has lots of flower beds, green grass, picnic tables, flush rest rooms, and is very quiet! It is also located next to the ball field, so you can watch a game of slow pitch softball. It is 2 blocks from downtown. We suggest you skip the motels, and set up your tent. But be warned, set it up on the north side of the park and be sure to tell the sheriff or they will turn the water sprinklers on you at 6:00 am.

Also staying at the park are 4 college age young men from Oregon. They are following the Transamerica route also, and are having a BLAST (except they did not like Kentucky because of the dogs that chased them and Kansas because it was HOT). They are very excited about this neck of the journey. We exchanged cycling stores, until they needed to eat. We also told them about sleeping on the north side of the park, but I don't think they are going to listen to us.

The Prince of Wales II is up, the ball game is about to start, and we have full bellies. I think I will only be able to watch a couple of innings....the Prince of Wales II is calling my name.

From: Rawlins, Wyoming
To: Riverside, Wyoming
Today: 62 miles - 1909 miles total






The trees are back!!!

We left Rawlins early, about 7:00, after trying to eat everything the Comfort Inn had to offer (fresh made waffles....yes!). The skies were overcast for our ride all day. We started out wandering the side streets, to the side of Interstate 80 until we got to Sinclair. Sinclair is made up of....a HUGE oil/gas refinery owned by the Sinclair Oil company. The refinery looked to be in full production, and Sinclair's parking lot has seen resent expansion. From Sinclair it was onto Interstate 80, SeeMore's first Interstate highway adventure. This part of the cycling featured vehicles whizzing by at 80+ mph, shredded retread tires lining the break down lane, and hold your nose road kill. We had a number of friendly truckers blowing their encouraging horns at us, which was very much appreciated. The 13 miles of of Interstate 80 we traveled had the same scenery that we have been experiencing since Dubois. So with SeeMore dodging retread debris, boring landscape, and noisy traffic (besides those truckers!)....it was a long 13 miles. We took one relief, by stopping at the Wyoming rest area which was located in the center of our journey on Interstate 80.

We finally turned onto RTE 130/230 (which changes to 230 near Riverside), and it was a pretty quiet ride. Still the same scenery, but pretty quiet. We had crosswinds most of the day, but they were more in our face than our sides. Outside of Saratoga we stopped to look at the remains of the Overland trail (see photo above). Then we approached Saratoga. We began to see strange tall looking green things lining the North Platte River. Could it be? Are our eyes deceiving us? Nope they are real.....the trees are back!!!!

We cycled around Saratoga, and it is a very nice town to spend some time in, so we went to the food store and had a picnic lunch. After lunch our spirits returned to the normal cycling tandem. Again, the scenery in Wyoming can be magical at times.....but it can also be a lot of the same old, same old. After our picnic, we headed towards Riverside and into very powerful crosswinds and liquid sunshine. Just enough liquid sunshine to change your solid colored shorts, into polka dotted shorts. The crosswind slowed SeeMore down, but the sight of trees and green ranches speeded our spirits. About 8 miles outside of Riverside, I noticed that SeeMore's front tire was going soft. Just in time to meet 3 Adventure cyclist going west on the Transamerica. We visited, in the middle of the road, for about 30 minutes. They were very impressed with SeeMore, and he smiled for their cameras...soft front tire and all. Cyclists are so friendly! When they left, I got the tire pump out and filled SeeMore's front tire up. I then checked it about 3 miles down the road, and found out that it was just a slow leak, so we had plenty of pressure when we rolled into Riverside.

Riverside has a population of 58, and the tree lined North Platte runs straight through it. We are at the Lazy Acres Campground and Motel. We opted for the motel, because of the chance of rain and we want to make an early start of it again tomorrow to try and get ahead of the wind. It is an great place to stay, whether you are camping or lodging. The 4 room motel is a trailer full of 70's decor, but very clean. The Rear Admiral says tonight we are having beer and burgers at the cafe in town. I love when she takes command!