Tribune, KS

Hello from Kansas!

more photos here:
http://berkeley.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2195077&l=c9a38&id=1209158

Last night I only made it about 15 more miles east before I just was too tired. I got an early start this morning (at 6:00am) and it took me almost four hours to make it the remaining 44 miles to tribune. The headwinds have been strong too, but slightly better than yesterday. The only good thing is that the road quality is excellent, at least compared to Colorado. Today it has been cloudy too, which has helped keep it cool. Lets hope the clouds stay.

Time to look for some lunch.

Eads, CO

Hi from Eads!

First, let me say a few things. Thanks to both Barry and Jeff for giving me some directions over the past few days when I didnt have a map. Both cases it was really me not going far enough on whatever road I was on, but its good to have friends to be able to call for help. Also, thanks again to Dave and Paula for letting me stay at their place. To clarify any confusion, Dave and my dad used to work together, and thats how I know them.

July 18th - Colorado Springs, CO to Ordway, CO - 120 miles, 7 hours!

Yesterday was definitely the fastest day of my trip. I had a good tailwind all the way from Colorado Springs down to Pueblo. I also lost about 2500' of elevation, which also helped. That ride was pretty enjoyable once I got away from Colorado Springs, because I took some nice back roads. Unfortunately, one of these back roads that I planned on taking was all dirt-- but the tailwind made it bearable.

After lunch, it was soooo hot. It must have been over 100 degrees, especially with the heat of the pavement radiating up at me. I plodded along, stopping multiple times for cold water, cold gatorade, cold ice cream, and more cold water.

It cooled down after a bit, and my legs felt better. They kept feeling better as I rode further, which seemed odd. I decided to push it a bit more, and slowly my speed was creeping up from 15, to 17, to nearly 20mph. This was weird. I realized that tailwind had been building behind me, pushing me along. Along with that wind was a rather large storm off to my right. It was pretty to watch from afar, lightning every now and then, with rain bursting down from the clouds. I kept a good eye on it, and it didnt seem to get any closer, so that was good.

I'll call it.. bike-surfing? Storm surfing?

Here's the better part. A new storm developed even closer, off to the left side of the road. This was a little too close, so I stopped every now and then, but the wind was so strong that it was getting somewhat hard to stand, when it gusted. I decided to get back on the bike and ride it out, letting it push me along at a leisurely 25 mph. The storm pushed me all the way to Ordway, and it was amazing. I've never ridden in such a strong tailwind. It was so strong that I couldnt put up my tent at the end of the day, because I was scared of it breaking a pole. Exciting stuff.

July 19th - Ordway, CO --?? 60 miles completed so far miles, 5 hours!

Now.. today has been a different story. I've had horrible headwinds all day, at times crawling at 8mph on a flat road. The library is closing, I've got to go. Anyway, everyone please hope that the wind changes direction, or I'll never make it.

This is the last town before I get to Kansas....which might be later tonight. That's my goal.

Pueblo, CO

So... today has been good so far. Tailwind all the way from Colorado Springs to Pueblo!

July 16th - Boulder, CO to Colorado Springs, CO - 100 miles, 8.5 hours

My legs felt like absolute mush that day. I started out at about 9:00 from Rob's mom's place, and the ride really sucked until I was south of Castle Rock, CO. It took me a while to get there--which was about 50 miles away from Boulder. It was really hot that day too. The ride south along CO-105 was amazing... it looked a lot like California, and made me miss home. It was rolling hills all the way, which really hurt in the legs, but made it nice and scenic. I saw some bison too!


Except they weren't wild, and were in someone's farm. I still got pretty close. I was welcomed by Dave and Paula Matz in Colorado Springs with a big dinner - Pasta salad with shrimp, two big burgers, and some really good homemade cheesecake.

July 17th - Colorado Springs, CO, to Colorado Springs, CO - Rest day!

So... I ended up going on a mountain bike ride yesterday. I rode John's (Paula's brother) Santa Cruz Nomad -- a sweet ride. I'd love to get a full suspension bike, except they're pretty expensive. The ride was good, through a bunch of swoopy singletrack. Descending on that bike was amazing.

July 18th - Colorado Springs, CO, to ??
So far, I've ridden about 60 miles in just over three hours, at an average speed of around 17.5 mph. This is amazing. I had a tailwind all the way down here, and I think I lost a few thousand feet of elevation too. Now it's time to find some lunch-- I'm pretty hungry, and then head east! It's pretty much straight east all the way to the Atlantic.


From last post, "Seven" is the number of pounds I've lost over the past three weeks of riding. I hope I don't lose too much more weight--or I won't be able to live up to my fatty mcsprinter name.

Colorado Springs, CO

Hello from Colorado Springs!

Today was my first day flying solo... which was alright. I rode just over 100 miles to get here to Dave Matz's house. I was welcomed with a shower from his dogs, who licked me all over, a shower in a bathroom, and an amazing dinner. It was perhaps the biggest dinner I've eaten the entire trip.

I'm pretty tired, and don't feel like writing much right now, so I'll leave you with a number...

Today's number is.... SEVEN. What does the number mean? Leave me some comments with your best guess. I'll post the answer either tomorrow or later in the week.

Also totally cool--I'm going riding with Dave's brother-in-law tomorrow, mountain biking!!!! I might be able to borrow his Seven.. or a Santa Cruz Blur... or a Nomad... or I dunno what. They're all mountain bikers, and have some sweet rides. I think tomorrow night Dad is flying into Denver on some business, and he'll come down here and meet up for a bit.

But, I'm about to pass out. Hmmmmm... I wonder what seven is...

Boulder, CO #2

So... time to write about yesterday's ride.

July 14th - Timber Creek Campground, Rocky Mountain National Park, to Boulder, CO - 80 miles, 6:45 riding time

On this day I hit a few milestones:

• Reached 2000 miles elapsed
• Rode at above 12000+ of elevation, peak height was 12183 ft.

These are pretty big ones... at least for me. I rode through Rocky Mountain National Park, along Trail Ridge Road. This road blew my mind. Once we got to the top, it was like riding along the top of the world. The few miles at the top actually take you through tundra, which is usually only found in Canada and Russia. We were above the treeline, looking at the peaks of all the other mountains. The computer I'm on won't let me upload pictures yet, but I'll put some up as soon as I can. I wish I could have taken some sort of 360 view photo... it's hard to describe what it was like up there. The air was thin, I felt like I was panting like a dog, trying to get my breath, and it was cold. Quite cold and windy. The visitors center said that the wind gusts up above 150 mph at times. If it had done that while I was on the road, I would have been blown off the cliff never to be seen again.

After going through the park, we descended down to about 8000 ft to the town of Estes Park. It was really touristy there, flooded with people. It was shocking, nearly appalling, how many people there were. I wanted to get out, but was pretty hungry, and ended up waiting about half an hour for a tasty, but small, calzone. From there, we rode to Boulder.

So, Boulder is at around 5300' altitude. Trail Ridge road was above 12000' for a good bit. We descended 7000' in one day. That's like going down Diablo, twice (not that I've ever ridden down Diablo). We descended for maybe 30 miles? It was amazing. There were a few rollers once we got to Lyon, CO, and my legs were totally dead... but Boulder was within sight, so I just kept pedaling.

Michael and I arrived in town around 4:00pm, and just slowly made our way in. We found a Safeway to stock up and buy some more food, because we were both hungry. After that, we split up. It was great riding with him, I certainly got further ahead of schedule by pushing 100 miles/day. Not only that, but he was a great riding partner--waited for me at the top of all the climbs, and was good company all the time. I'm really glad to have had someone to ride with. Especially since of the whole way eastward, I've only passed three others going east? The chance of meeting up with someone and being able to ride 1000 miles with them is incredibly small...

I got to Rob's mom's place around 5:00, and pretty much sat around all evening and read.

July 15th - Boulder CO - Rest Day

Today, I walked around the Pearl Street area of Boulder, visited the city library, and relaxed. I started out the morning with a coffee, muffin, and NY Times. It took me most of the day to read all of of it, but it kept me busy. I searched for some good food, and got a burrito--but it was nowhere close to Gordos. Sometimes I miss Berkeley a lot--Berkeley Bowl, good places to eat, and everyone back home. A lot of the time I see people riding by on mountain bikes or road bikes and that makes me jealous too--I wish I could ditch the BOB and just go on a sweet ride through all these places I've been.

Lets see... I have about 2500 miles to go, probably a bit more? I haven't figured out how to get to Ocean City from the Adventure Cycling route, but I'll probably take some ferries or something to get across to the eastern shore. After that, I need to ride back to Columbia, MD....

I miss Alia a lot. I try to call as often as I can, but some things definitely limit how often. The route takes me through a lot of remote areas, where I don't get signal. Also, I only can charge the phone so often. I miss her a lot. Only...five weeks till I get to see her again! My flight back is August 22nd, I'm supposed to get in at 10:35pm. I can't wait to see her.

Boulder, CO

Hello from Boulder!!!

The last few days have been amazing. Boulder is a great town, kinda like Berkeley, but a bit yuppier. Still, I think I'd definitely be able to live here. I've seen so many people out on bikes--all sorts of people, not just racers, etc. They have a great network of bike paths for everyone to ride on, and the city is pretty cool. I'm in the downtown area right now. There's a nice creek running by, lots of shady space, and the Pearl Street Shopping area seems to have a lot of good food, etc. I'm probably going to spend all day here. The only problem is that its somewhat hot outside, but I'll have to deal with that for the rest of the trip. I think I'm out of anywhere where its going to be cool, except maybe Appalachia.

July 13th - State line between Wyoming/Colorado to Timber Creek Campground, Rocky Mountain National Park - 105 miles, 8 hours

I wrote about this day a good bit in my last entry, but I'll write a bit more on the ride from Granby to the campground. We got a decent lunch at this place called Mad Munchies, and then rolled out of town. On the way out we stopped to get some food at this farmers market, then proceeded to get ripped off--- $7 for lb of pasta, $6.50 for a loaf of bread, and $4 for this other bread thing. We headed to Grand Lake, stocked up on some more small groceries from a gas station store, and got into the park. It was a lot less crowded than Yellowstone, so it seemed.

Riding into the park was great. About ten minutes after entering, we saw a big herd/group of what we think were mule deer -- smaller than elk, but not regular looking deer. I tried to get some pictures. This was by far the biggest collection of wildlife at one time... I was about to count 32 total. They were just lounging about everywhere, munching on some delicious grass. My legs felt surprisingly well for that late in the day. Later on up the road, we saw a bull moose (male moose), which was cool. We hadn't seen one before. Sadly, this one didn't have any horns, but it was still huge.

The only disappointment that day was that by the time we got to the campsite, the campground was full. We decided to roll around (it was around 100 sites total), and found an older couple that we decided to ask if we could share the site. They had one of those VW van campers, so there was all the room we needed for us to pitch a tent. They also let us stay there without helping to pay, which otherwise would have cost about $15.

So... it turned out that the pasta/bread and stuff we got was actually amazing. Given our situation, it was definitely worth it. All of the stuff was fresh and organic, grown from around the area, and so it was super delicious. We got to bed relatively early at around 10pm, which was good, because we needed an early start the next day.

I think I'm going to go get some lunch now, I'm getting hungry. I'll write about yesterday's ride later on.

Granby, CO

Hello from Colorado!

Last night Michael and I camped right on the state border with Wyoming. I'm glad to be out of there. Our goal was to get to Walden, CO, but an afternoon thunderstorm delayed us a bit. Pretty much the goal was to be OUT OF WYOMING!!!

Thursday, June 12th - Rawlins WY to Wyoming/Colorado state border - 90 miles
See yesterday's entry. Not much happened, except we fought a headwind most of the afternoon, and it sprinkled on us. We saw one cool storm that got a little too close, and I think it hailed a good bit. Michael got a good picture.
Friday, June 13th - Wyoming/Colorado State border to somewhere in Rocky Mountain National Park - 75 miles completed by 3pm, hopefully doing around 30 more

This morning started off really, really, cold. It must have been below 40 degrees, but not quite freezing--there wasn't frost anywhere. Yet, I wore the following:

two pairs of socks
leg warmers
arm warmers
bib shorts
underlayer shirt
jersey
wind vest
raincoat

I could have worn a fleece, but that would have been too much. The problem with this is that I got really sweaty too fast, and if I took off any layers I would be too cold (because of the sweat). It was about 22 miles to Walden, and we got there at about 9am. After a good breakfast of biscuits and gravy, we headed back down the road, our midday goal being here in Granby. It warmed up a lot, and its really pleasant to ride.

Interesting thing to note today:

Rand, CO has no running water. At least the guy in the one store that was there wouldn't give us any, only giving us the choice to buy some bottled water. We passed, and the post office lady graciously gave us some. They also have a closed down yacht club restaurant, though I'm sure there aren't any lakes for miles around. Go figure.

Colorado's scenery is getting better and better. I think its because we're further away from Wyoming. From here, we're going to head into Rocky Mountain National Park, where we'll ride along Train Ridge Road, which reaches a peak elevation of 12183 feet. It's the highest continuous paved road in the continental US. The only thing that is bad about that is that right now I'm at 8000 feet, and it was cold at night. Tonight we're gonna freeze! And 4000 more feet is a lot of climbing. I don't think I'll get altitude sickness, because I've been acclimated to this fairly high elevation for a while now. The air sure will be thin though.

Tomorrow we get to Boulder, which is about 100 miles from here, with an unknown amount of climbing--but it's probably a lot. Boulder is at around 5000 ft elevation though, so all afternoon will be descending. After that, I'm headed to Colorado Springs, CO where Dad has a friend, hopefully I can crash there. From Colorado Springs, its down to Pueblo, which is about 60 miles away.

Hopefully the next time I'll update I'll be on Boulder! Maybe at Rob's mom's place if all goes well. I plan on taking a rest day there too, after tomorrow.