Days 25-28, Colorado

Glad to leave Wyoming after four days of incessant, relentless headwinds. Sorry I could not appreciate the high desert for its true beauty, pre-occupied as I was by slow progress and monotonous vistas where you can see where you are going 10 miles before you get there.

Almost on cue, the wind changed when I crossed the Colorado state line. In Walden, I met Ian Klepetalar (sp?), founder of Bicycle Benefits (www.bicyclebenefits.org), an organization that gets businesses and communities to give bicyclists special discounts and other benefits as an incentive to encourage bike riding. He was drinking two quarts of Corona on a bench on Main St. before attempting to cross Cameron Pass on his way to a sustainability conference in Fort Collins.

Next day rode to Kremmling to meet Mark Mathis, owner and founder of Confluence Energy, a pellet manufacturing plant built to utilize the massive amounts of dead and dying lodgepole pine resulting from the western pine bark beetle infestation. Mark and Karen were kind enough to put me up at their home near Silverthorne, and get me to the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park the next morning, making it possible for me to get to Boulder in one long epic ride. Mark fights the battle every day to bring common sense to public land management and open the national forests to a reasonable salvage of hundreds of thousands of acres of dead timber otherwise tied up by the feds' bureaucratic intransigence. A comfy bed, a great meal - thanks Mark and Karen for your hospitality.

Mark put me in Grand Lake just east of Granby the next day for the start of the climb up and into Rocky Mountain National Park. Nearly 4,000' feet of vertical climb to the Rocky Cut pass at 12,178', the highpoint (literally and figuratively) of the trip. I could really feel the thinness of the air starting around 10,000'. Unfortunately my camera could not capture the scale of this high mountain western landscape. I did not linger long as it was spitting sleet from a few passing clouds, and 30 degress colder at the top. The climb was made much easier by the companionship of two brothers on a five day swing through the mountains - Doug and Dan Breyfogle. Both were accomplished bike tourists who made for great company and dialogue as we slogged our way up the switchbacks.

I left Rocky Cut Pass at 4 PM with over 50 miles to get to Boulder before dark. The drop off the Front Range into the high plain and Boulder was over 7,000', including some long steep grade canyon stretches where I hit 40 mph and was slowed by car traffic. I got to Jonathan Falk's outside Boulder after dark after 85 miles and an epic climb, running the last 35 or so from Estes Park on adrenaline and endorphins.