Day 26: Sterling into Nebraska

Posted by: Arin

It took us almost two weeks, but we finally made it through Colorado (thanks in part to the tailwind we enjoyed for most of the day). We only really took one real break from riding to grab a soda from one of the seemingly endless number of 50 cent soda can vending machines that are out here. Around 3-4, we got to Julesburg, right near the border. We took the opportunity to rest under a pagoda and enjoy the shade before heading to the grocery store to get some dinner.

The things that people say to us are hilarious. At the grocery store, a guy came up to me and said "You guys got on your shit on there! Where you going, cross country?" When I told him that's exactly what we were doing he replied with "Wow, I'm in the gym six days a week but that's a good workout! You gotta give me a fist bump." The one constant we get is people telling us we're crazy.

Anyways, we continued on for a while out of town. The wind had shifted against us and we were on the lookout for anywhere to sleep. Our search was halted temporarily by Brad's rear tire going flat... 50 feet from the Nebraska border. We pulled off the side of the road in front of a house to fix it. An old man was out tending to his chickens and came over to see what we were doing in his yard. He said he wouldn't ever dream of doing what we were doing, but that he did ride a horse to Omaha when he was younger.

(Photo by Brad)

We were once again on our way, when what do we come upon? A tunnel under the road of course! We walked our bikes down a grass hill to the tunnel to eat dinner and get to bed early. Our spot was visible from a dirt road off the highway and we wanted to get out early in the morning so no one would see us.

(Photo by Brad)

Day 25: Wiggins to Sterling

Posted by: Arin

Waking up under that bridge was glorious. It was nice and cool out, and the wind was blowing to the northeast. Yes, a tailwind!

We set off in good spirits and started jamming down the road. It's crazy how you can feel so good about pedaling hard when you're rewarded for it with speed. We got maybe 20 miles down the road when the winds started to shift. First it was a cornering tailwind, then a crosswind, and finally a straight up headwind. On top of that, the road was in terrible condition. Every 10-15 feet was a huge crack in the asphalt. *kah-tunk* *kah-tunk* *kah-tunk*. After a while, I could feel every crack pounding my vertebrae together. Finally we reached a highway that connected us to more cities and a smaller parallel highway. We took it all the way to Sterling, where we stopped at a local grocery mart to get some dinner. We were about to head further down the highway when Brad discovered he had a slow leak, so we decided to find a place to camp nearby.  Luckily there was a wilderness area only a mile down the road, so we went there. A bit of hike-a-bike down some sandy trails and we found a nicely hidden spot to camp. The river was within view and the sun set perfectly along the other side.

Day 24: Barr Lake to Wiggins

Posted by: Arin 

After we left Barr Lake, this day was shaping up to be just like the last. High winds blowing either right at us or right across us seemed like all we could hope for. Turns out, that's all we were going to get.

One thing that improved, however, was the road. Rather than no shoulder, we were gifted a ten foot wide one. This made for easy drafting from any angle and a little more peace of mind from cars. The whole day was a battle against the wind, and we only made two major stops the whole time. The first was at a Family Dollar to get dinner. The second was in Wiggins a mile before camp.

It was getting late(ish) and we were on the lookout for a place to sleep. A sign on the side if the road said there was camping and we saw some gas stations, so we pulled off the highway to check it out. Turns out the camping was still eleven miles away! We decided to keep on along the highway because I had seen a bridge on my gps. In about a mile, we made it to the bridge and set up camp (and hiked down some sketchy rocks to get there!)

After setting up camp, all that was left to do was make some food. At Family Dollar they have this delicious brand of mixed vegetables, and we mixed a couple types of that with some instant rice to make a soup. The wind cooled off during the night, but we could still see a high wind advisory from our camp.

Day 23: Denver to Barr Lake

One thing I neglected to mention in my last post is what an awesome host Hanie was. She made us an awesome dinner when we got there and sent us off with homemade cookies and cream rice crispy treats, as well as just putting up with us being around for almost three days. So thank you Hanie for everything!

Anyways, we got a late start out of Denver because we were so comfortable. We probably left Hanie's around 11:30 before stopping by Safeway and Trader Joes to get dinner and snacks. We would have just gone to Trader Joes but didn't know it was there until after we went to Safeway. We already had groceries, but I had to stop in to get some chile spices dried mango so we got rolling around 1.

The story of the day was the wind. We were riding through some of the most intense headwinds and crosswinds either of us had ever been in! Wind is bad and all, but what made it worse were the roads we took out of Denver. Instead of calling on local advice, we decided to look at a map and take the most direct route. Colorado St. (Highway 2) to Highway 76 was what we chose. It was awful. The shoulder of the road was nonexistent to a foot wide the whole time, with gravel on the right and semis on the left. The wind was blowing us all over the place, and every time a big truck would come by, it would block the wind and force us to try to not swerve towards the left. Often times we would end up riding on the gravel because any other option was too sketchy. Two hours and about 10 miles into the ride, we sat down on the side of the road and stayed there for an hour. We were too discouraged to continue right away. We finally did, and made it maybe 12-13 more miles by 6. At this point, all we wanted was to find a place to camp. In this picture you can see the wind blowing Brad's windbreaker around even when we're standing still.

On the map, we spotted a state park nearby: Barr Lake. We had to cross the freeway and backtrack for a little over a mile, but it seemed worth it. We headed over that way and turned onto a dirt road into the park. The lake was huge and the road was awesome.

We rode for a while, not finding anywhere to camp until we reached a picnic area. That's where I got my first Colorado flat tire. As I stopped to fix it, Brad scoped out the area ahead to try to find a spot. Meanwhile, the ranger drove by a few times. That wasn't a good area, so we headed back to look around the other side of the lake we could have turned onto. There we found an awesome hiding spot behind some trees and set up camp. 

(Photo by Brad)

It was in an out-of-season hunting area, so there were a bunch of those little hunting boxes around. We ended up using one of them to hide from the wind and cook dinner. Just goes to show you that even a crappy day of riding can end in a cool way. 

(Photo by Brad)

In the morning, we sat in the box again and there were tons of hawk out flying around. I'll leave you with one last picture of some majestic birds.

Days 21-22: Denver

We decided to take a couple days off and enjoy ourselves in the Mile High City. What we didn't know was that these two days would be all about food. Warning: this is a food blog today.

On our first day off the idea was to go skate around Denver. We left Hanie's house and headed to a spot called Martine's Muffins. It's run by this kooky lady who is super passionate about all the food. We both got veggie breakfast burritos and blackberry lemonades, delicious! We left to head to the skatepark and found a couple cool street spots on the way.

The Denver skatepark is awesome! The ground is so smooth and they have some of the most awesome stuff I've ever seen at a skatepark.

We skated there for a couple hours but got so thirsty we had to leave. The water fountain at the park didn't work. We were hungry too, so we headed down the street and found a pizza joint. They had some crazy slices there! One of them looked like a loaf of bread, and both types were really good.

After that, we were pretty tired so we headed back to the house to rest for a while. Of course we got hungry again, so we set out to some torta place. This place had the best torta I have ever had. It was so good. 

The final stop before going to bed was Voodoo Donuts. The atmosphere was terrible. It was really dark with bright neon lights and they had super loud techno blaring on the speakers. However, the donuts were amazing.

The next day we went to Martine's Muffins once again because we wanted to try the quiches she had there. They were also amazing and she gave us cookies for our trip!

We were going to drive out to Boulder with Hanie to visit my vacationing grandparents, but she wasn't feeling up to it so we decided to take the bus. I told my grandparents and they drove all the way to Denver to pick us up! It was great. We all headed out to Boulder and ate at a place called Foolish Craig's. Here's a sneaky selfie I took with them on the way out of the restaurant 

After that they went to walk around a little bit and Brad and I headed to this skate spot we had heard about called the boulder ditch. It was a rad little DIY spot.

We all reunited and headed back to Denver to eat dinner. Using yelp, Brad and I found a Mediterranean spot that turned out to be delicious. 

After that we headed back to Hanie's and said our goodbyes. I was really happy to see them, especially in this foreign environment. Afterwards, Brad and I went to bed to get ready for life back on the road.

Days 19-20: Salida area to Denver

Posted by: Arin 

Up until this point of the trip, we hadn't had any falling snow. That was about to change, however, as we continued a steady climb past Buena Vista and Fairplay. Small bits of snow fell on is periodically, stopping and melting on our arms and bags. Layers of clothing were coming on and off all day, as we got hot and cold depending on the terrain. After two mountain passes, we reached Jefferson, CO. As we stopped to snack and put on more clothes, a man came up to us and said there's nothing else for 12 miles, along with a big mountain to climb right ahead of us. It was already 6, so we pulled off on the first road we saw that had national forest access. It was a dirt road, slightly uphill, with probably the worst bumps I have ever had to ride over. We struggled for about a mile before turning off the side of the road to camp in the middle of a field. It was just about 6:30 when we got there, so we made camp first. It was actually the first time we've staked our tent down. The wind was ferocious. 

After camp was set up, we sat down to make dinner consisting of penne with marinara sauce, instant mashed potatoes, and a can of okra, tomatoes, and carrots. Just as we finished making dinner, a flurry of snow hit us. The ground was white almost instantly, so we gathered up all our food and stuff we didn't want to get snowed on and hurried into the tent. What followed was a 13-14 hour tent session. We woke up around 8, but didn't leave the tent until maybe 9:30.

The spot we slept at was above 9500 feet and the high temperature was 39 that day, so it was tough to get moving. We ate cold oatmeal in the tent and packed our stuff up as quickly as possible so we could get moving and stay warm. That turned out to be impossible; even through two pairs of socks and two pairs of gloves, my hands and feet felt instantly frozen. The dirt road we had come up the day before was just as excruciating as the first time, but we finally made it out of there. Snow was falling on and off, and we started our climb up to the pass. Did I mention how cold it was? Not even a long uphill could warm us up. At the top of the mountain a police car was blocking all traffic, but he let us through. We found out later that a semi had crashed and taken out some live power lines. From there, we turned downhill and got even colder. A cafe on the side of the road promised more warmth than we had, so we pulled off the side of the road and went in. My feet still felt like blocks of ice, but after an hour or so inside the cafe along with some coffee and cookies, I got feeling back.

At the cafe, someone told us it was pretty much all downhill to Denver. They lied; the next 20 miles were up and down, with steep climbs up to 2 miles long. We had to constantly stop to put on and take off clothes. Finally, a long descent led us down the mountain to a big flat area where we could see Denver and the surrounding cities. It was still 20 or so miles to our friend Hanie's house and it was still cold! Apparently losing 4000 feet of elevation doesn't mean that much here. We finally made it to the city, but Hanie wasn't home, so we hung out at Sunken Gardens park for a while. She called us 30 minutes later and we headed over to be treated with an awesome pasta dinner. We hung out with her and her boyfriend Daniel for a while before passing out in the spare room.

Days 16-18: Durango to just past Salida

Posted by: Arin

I'm grouping these three days together because in all honesty, not that much happened (aside from lots of riding). The scenery has been gorgeous though.

On day 16, we rode to Pagosa Springs from Durango. It was really hard to leave, but we finally did around 11. We were able to ride the Animas River trail for the first few miles before hopping off and onto the 160 highway. We were both really sore from all the skating we did, and my crash wounds were pretty fresh, so we just chugged along for a while. Rolling hill after hill lead us through Bayfield and all the way to Pagosa Springs. We stopped to get some food and set out to find somewhere to sleep. It was getting dark and we spotted a campsite, so we decided to check it out. The lady in the office told us it would be $24 for us to get a site for the night. $24!?!? That's ridiculous for two people on bikes. However, we saw that there was an option to leave an envelope with no money and pay in the morning. With that knowledge, we decided to bandit camp there. It was a cold night, and somehow the tent gathered a lot if condensation that dripped onto my sleeping pad. In the morning we woke up and made a clean getaway without paying. We were on the road at 10, which is early for us.

The next day we encountered our first real mountain pass. Shortly after starting to ride, we came across an awesome waterfall and stopped to marvel at it for a while. Directly after the falls, we saw a sign that said "Wolf Creek Summit Pass - 8 miles. We had already climbed for maybe a mile just to get there, and the rest of the day was looking to be slow going. We were climbing for what felt like (and was) hours before we got to the top. It was cold up there!  

A look back revealed a sign that said "7% grade - next 9 miles", which you can imagine was pretty gnarly with 90 pound bikes. An internet search later told me the pass was over 10,800 feet, the highest I've ever been by my own human power. An amazing descent followed by miles of rolling hills brought us into Del Norte. We grabbed some food and started heading to the National Forest area so we could camp for free. On the way though, we spotted a crappy little skatepark and decided to stop and skate for a while. We were the only ones there aside from a couple of little kids and had a blast, despite there being only 6-7 obstacles. As it got a little later, we headed off further down highway 112. We turned off on county road 33 towards a place called Elephant Rocks or Elephant Boulders or something like that. A bit of riding down some dirt roads and we ended up at a pretty well hidden spot to make dinner and camp.

Day 18 involved a lot of riding. We continued up 112 for a few miles before reaching a section if highway 295 called the gunbarrel, a long and straight two-lane highway that doesn't turn for 20 or more miles. We started off with a headwind, but soon the wind was blowing in our favor; we reached the end of the gunbarrel and continued along the highway. About 70 miles in, we reached a junction. We could either buy food at a gas station and camp in the national forest nearby or go to Salida (5-10 miles out of the way) for what seemed like better luck for food. We decided to check out Salida, but when we got there everything was closed! We ended up buying food from a 7-11 and continuing on. By this time it was dark, so we had our lights on. It was wild; as we rode back towards the 285, there were deer everywhere. If you flashed your light off the side of the road, there was a deer. We got back on the 285 about 10 miles further than where we got off and it seemed difficult to find a spot, so we ended up camping off the side of the highway behind a patch of trees. Luckily it was fairly warm out that night so we got to sleep without a tent and stayed more hidden.