Final Day-Avon to Silverthorne

Today is our last day of our 4 day trip. We left the Comfort Inn in Avon a little after 9 into a cool and sunny morning. We climbed 25 miles up to Vail Pass and back down the east side into Silverthorne a little after 3pm catching a few light rain showers on the east side of Vail Pass.

  

Riding into the morning Sun as we leave Avon on US 6. 

As we wander into W. Vail you can see some of the ski runs on Vail Mointain. 

We've been on a steady climb all morning. Now as we pass East Vail it's about to get more serious as we close in on the pass. 

We left the highway about 7 miles back and have been on a bike path.  There's a couple of pretty steep pitches, the hardest a few miles back as we crossed south under I-70.  We're at about 10.000 ft. elevation now and about a mile to go before we summit Vail Pass. 

This is the elevation profile for our ride today. We moved left to right on the chart above. 

At the summit we take a quick break for some food as it's past 1 and we haven't eaten much since 8:30 this morning. It's much cooler and getting very cloudy at 10,600 ft. so we strap on our wind/rain gear for the ride back down to Silverthorne. The hardwork of the day is over. 

I'd have to say one of the prettiest parts of the bike trail along I-70 is between Vail Pass and Copper Mointain where the trail winds between the east and west bound lanes which are widely separated here. There are all kinds of pretty wildflowers and lush green grasses and trees all around you.  You can see the ski runs at Copper in the background. 

Near Silverthorne  a sailboat regatta can be seen on Lake Dillon. 

If you look really closely you can see a bright green speck on a bike crossing Dillon Dam.  That would be Angela who has bolted up ahead of me like an old trail horse heading back for the barn!!

 

3pm at the Mountaineer Hostel where we left our faithful Jeep parked, we are done for this trip and Angela flexes her mighty muscles.  We're both pretty happy how well we handled this trip.  We haven't been training very much as the summer has been pretty busy. But we feel we're going to be in good enough shape for our big trip along the Pacific Coast starting in about 3 weeks.