Pirates on Bikes

Myself and my old GE colleagues and friends had planned over a year ago to take a sailing trip off the coast of Italy this last May. Like many things, Covid-19 put an end to that. But we decided we still needed to get away and embrace our other common interest of bike riding with a bike trip around and through the Rockies in Colorado. L to R Steve Richards, John Garrrett, Dan Klenke, Jimmy Dean, and Bill Amos joined Angela and I at our place in Frisco for some altitude acclimation and hydration a few days before our big cycling trip started on August 24th. 

Of course it wasn't all about bikes, Dan and Steve joined me on a morning trout fishing exhibition at the mouth of 10 Mile Creek and Dillon Reservoir.  We did however use our bikes to get upstream along the bike paths following Ten Mile!!

We also spent a lot of time in our biking garb in my garage next to our bikes using our phones too. What did we do with our time before Strava?  We were soooo busy.  We actually road our bikes a little bit too!

Monday started with 20 mile long climb from Frisco to the Climax Mine at 11,318 ft. before a 10 mile decent and additional climb into Leadville for the night. 

After a night of feasting and feeding our cycling furnaces on filet mignons at Quincy’s in Leadville we headed north on US 24 over Tennessee Pass. 

I’ve always liked the US 24 bridge over the little enclave of Red Cliff along side of the Eagle River. 

Our climbing wasn’t over after Tennessee Pass as we had to grind our way further north to the final decent towards Minturn. 

Our ride finished for the day in Avon where we joined Dan who’s been gallantly supporting us as our bike Sherpa at Gondola Pizza for lunch. 

Wednesday morning we continued our habit of meeting at Dan’s trailer for pastries and to talk over the day’s ride before we began. Dan’s day was filled with riding his 1975 Harley over some of the scenic highways in Colorado. 

And we’re off for our last day of cross country riding, next stop Vail Pass followed by a nice, long decent back into a Frisco. 

To commemorate our sailing trip turned biking trip we had jerseys made with “Pirates on Bikes” over a skull with an Italian flag bandanna. And no, my hand is not on John’s butt!

We finished up our 3 day ride in Frisco around 1pm, feeling good about finishing all safe, having had great weather and no fires!!


Within minutes we were hydrating our celebration at Outer Range Brewing. 

Thursday and Friday while based in Frisco there were additional rides to Breckenridge around Dillon Reservoir for lunch and a more challenging ride up to Loveland Pass. 

 

John and Amos beat my PR up to Loveland Pass so now I’ll have to up my game next time I ride!

Friday night we celebrated a successful and fun week with an excellent dinner at Frisco Prime. 

The boys were all packed up with motorcycle, bikes, tools and gear and on the road back to Olathe Kansas and St. Louis by 7am on Saturday.  It was a great visit and I know I’m very fortunate to have such good and long lasting friends like these guys.  

Aspen and the Long Way Home

Tuesday we left Glenwood Springs around 8 and in less than one mile we found ourselves on a gentle 40 mile long climb on the Rio Grande Trail all the way to Aspen. 

Lots of long views and few people were found as we steadily climbed up the Roaring Fork Valley. The sun was warm so we decided to pedal in our hats on the trail rather than our helmets and enjoy the naughty freedom we felt. 

Within about 5 miles of Aspen we started to see the “beautiful people” and the Texans on their rental e-Bikes. We also saw lots of fisherman like these guys trying their hand at fly fishing for trout.  After checking in to the Aspen Mountain Lodge on Main St. we washed the stink of sweat and smoke out of our bike clothes in the bathtub and treated ourselves to a great meal at the White House Restaurant. We would sleep now and in the morning see what news of the fire brings to us. 

We had hoped we had dodged the bullet on Monday by being able to maneuver past the Grizzly Fire in the canyon on our way to Glenwood Springs. I thought worse case, if Interstate 70 and the Glenwood Canyon Trail were going to stay closed I had talked Angela into hitching a ride with our bikes over Independence Pass to Leadville, about a 62 mile trip over a 12,000 ft. pass, far to long, challenging and way too much traffic to ride our bikes. Because 70 was closed almost everyone having to bypass 70, including illegal semi-trucks, had the same idea and within a few hours of day break the state had shut the pass down due to miles long traffic jams in Aspen and two semi-trucks stuck in the “Narrows” just east of Aspen. As for the fire in the canyon, rather than dying down as we had hoped, it had doubled in size in the last 24 hours. We needed a Plan C. 

Angela suggested we rent a car at the Aspen Airport and drive home which was a great idea and pretty much our only real option. By 11 we had left our hotel and started what we thought would be a short and easy 5 mile ride to the airport.  Then we found Google Maps had struck a blow against Good Artificial Intelligence by turning our “bike” ride into a 30 degree hike-a-bike climb out of the Roaring Fork Canyon. 

 

By noon we had our bikes stuffed into the back of our Mitsubishi SUV and were on our way back to our car at the Eagle County Regional Airport where we had left it. 

Having a car was only part of the solution. In normal times it should have been a 70 mile trip. But with the I-70 closure we had to route west to Rifle, then north to Craig, followed by east to Steamboat Springs  and then south and west back to Eagle. After dropping the rental car off we headed back east for the last 70 miles to home. And of course the rest of America: the cars, SUV’s and RV’s from Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Nevada, California, Arizona and the cross county semi-trucks all were traveling these same two lane roads with us. 


After about 300 miles and 6 hours of two lane highway, seeing some of the beautiful Colorado scenery, we found ourselves under a bloody red sky at the Eagle Airport as the sun set over Glenwood Canyon 15 miles behind us. Plan C had worked!

I asked Angela to take the wheel of our van on the way back to Frisco over Vail Pass while I relaxed, hydrated and thought back over the last few days. Our bike trips together almost always run the full spectrum of emotions and states of mind: happy, sad, pleasant, unpleasant,  hungry, stuffed, simpatico or at each other’s throats, rested or beat, alone or fully socialized. And things rarely go as planned. But the challenges we face are part of the satisfaction we get when we persevere, work together and solve the puzzle. We never really know what lies ahead and that’s what makes it so great. 

Smoke on the Water, Fire in the Sky

We’re on a little 4 day cycle tour from Eagle, CO to Aspen and back.  Our original plan was to make it a 6 day trip from Frisco but we just seem to be running out of time this Summer so we drove about 60 miles to the Eagle County Regional Airport Long Term Parking and started our trip from there.  This is one of our favorite touring rides although we’ve never gone all the way to Aspen, so this will be a different kind of trip. 

And the Amtrak train that runs from Chicago to San Francisco through Denver and Glenwood Springs is our favorite train ride. 

And our different kind of trip became an adventure after we dropped into Glenwood Canyon with only about 5 miles to go and we encountered this towering smoke plum above the canyon walls ahead of us. 

We continued riding down river and we’re advised to turn around by highway workers or firemen several times. Apparently the fire had only started about an hour before but was expanding fast. They had already closed East and West bound I-70 but we were one way travelers with a confirmed (and paid for) motel in Glenwood Springs!  And we had the Colorado River for safety!  Turning back meant riding with the strong westerly wind AND the fire up the canyon. We chilled for about a hour or so within a few miles along the river and by then the fire had moved on up the canyon with only smoldering fire to deal with and much less smoke. 

We stopped to help some kayakers that said they had found a “bad line” and needed to go back upstream.  We helped them lift their kayaks about 9’from the river shore to the path so they could portage.  They were nice fellows and we saw them later down stream after the fire had abated.  Angela says “Hey buddy!  Don’t you know there’s a fire down there!?” 😁

You don’t get to see this up close very often. This big boy hovered just a few hundred yards downstream and sucked up water for about 5 minutes before it headed west to make a drop on the fire.  Very cool. 

We made it to The Best Western Antlers Motel only a few hours later than we expected. It was an adventurous and exciting day and we celebrated our successful challenge of the fire with margaritas, quesadilla and ice cream!!