Elephant Rock 2010

I Signed up for the 2010 edition of the Elephant Rock Cycling Festival.  I’m not really sure how many times I’ve done the Elephant Rock.  I think my first one was in ’98.  I know I haven’t done it every year since then, but I think I’ve done it most years.  I’ve committed to the century this year.  I figure if I’m expected to be doing Day 1 of the BTC two weeks later, I better be able to do the Elephant Rock century by the first weekend in June. 

BTC 2010 sans Meals

Signed up for the BTC today. 

I didn’t need to sign up for meals yet, so I didn’t.

BTC 2010

Getting ready to register for the Bicycle Tour of Colorado. Marcie isn’t going to be able to ride it this year because of her knee, so I am on my own. She and the kids may be BTC groupies and follow the tour independently.

I was looking at the meal plan and made the mistake of getting the calculator out. Don’t get me wrong, the food was good, even great by cafeteria standards, but it works out to be more than $17 a meal. I know if I went to a restaurant and paid $17 for their food, I would feel ripped off.

I know I need to take into account the other options I would have. I am going to camp and most mornings I would not have access to a microwave, much less some place to cook and clean up. For the cost, I could eat out every meal, but some of the tour stops are pretty small and I don’t like the idea of relying on there being a restaurant every day. Bonking early in the morning because I couldn’t find anything to eat would be bad.

BTC 2010

I’ve been neglecting my blogging responsibilities.

They have announced the route for the 2010 Bicycle Tour of Colorado.  Gunnison, Creede, Alamosa, Chama (New Mexico) Pagosa Springs, Center, Gunnison.  I really regretted not going last year.  I am going this year regardless.

BTC 2008 – Part VIII – Cortez to Durango

This is the eighth and final part of a series of posts on my 2008 Bicycle Tour of Colorado experience.

Today as a relatively short day. There was an optional side trip to Mesa Verde, but having been to Mesa Verde the year before, I wasn’t about to try that climb. For the last twenty miles of yesterday’s ride, I was having foot problems. My right foot was going numb and it was getting hard to pedel. This has happened in the past, but I have never had to do another long ride the next day. Because of the shorter distance, we slept in a little and started a little later. By the time we left, most people were already gone. Though short, there was some climbing to today’s route. I made it over the first climb and into the Mancos rest stop without too much problem, but on the climb out of Mancos, my foot started to bother me again. I pulled off the road and waited for the SAG wagon, my tour was over. I joined about half a dozen other riders who also called it quits. Fortunately, this time we were in a 15 passager vans instead of a U-haul truck.

On the way home, we went north back through Silverton, Ouray and Montrose and spent the night at my dad’s place in Glenwood Springs. We got see the portion of the route we missed the first go round.

BTC 2008 – Part VII – Naturita to Cortez

This is the seventh part of a series of posts on my 2008 Bicycle Tour of Colorado experience.

Day 6 was billed as a “century” and was the longest day of the tour.  In reality, it was about 97 miles, but I made sure to do enough riding to make sure I got the full century distance in. We were definitely in the high deserts of the southwest now.  Today’s route had something called Gypsum pass, which wasn’t much of a climb and an unnamed climb out of the aptly named Disappointment Valley which actually didn’t dissapoint. The route after the Disappointment Valley climb was a lot of rolling hills. It was a long and hot day. Becuase of the length of the day, lunch was served at one on the rest stops. It was over a hundred degrees by the time we got to Cortez. We got another motel room for tonight. The heat was just zapping the strenght out of me as we set up the tent to store our stuff. I was so glad not to have to try and sleep in the heat.

BTC 2008 – Part VI – Telluride to Naturita

This is the sixth part of a series of posts on my 2008 Bicycle Tour of Colorado experience.

Today was another relatively easy day. Mostly flat or downhill. We decented down from Telluride back the way we came. There was one climb on the day, the climb out of Nor wood Canyon. This was a transition day of sorts. We went from the mountain landscapes of Telluride to the desert landscapes of Naturita. Naturita was by far the smallest town to host the BTC this go round. It literally seem to be bursting at the seems with all the bikers. Tent city overwhelmed the school, and some riders decided to stay at a near by camp ground. Those who reserved hotel rooms were shuttled back to Tailored. After lunch and a shower, we sprung for a massage. One of the perks of a supported tour like the BTC is a massage table at each camp. My IT bands (IlioTibial band – they are right in the middle of your upper thigh) were killing me. The massage made a world of difference and I wished I had reserved one back in Ouray. After our massage, we headed over to the city park for a concert. The band wasn’t all that great, but their sound guy wasn’t half bad when he was doing karaoke between sets.

Massage Tent

BTC 2008 – Part V – Telluride

This is the fifth part of a series of posts on my 2008 Bicycle Tour of Colorado experience.

Today was the scheduled rest day and we took the oppurtunity to do just that. We slept in late, wondered around town, took the gondola to Mountain Village and cleaned up our bikes. I have to admit I was a little nervous walking around own. Besides the BTC, Ride the Rockies had a stop in Telluride the week before, so it was a little disconcerting to see flyers up advertising a bike auction the week after we left.

We checked out ‘La Marmotte’, a restraunt in Telluride. Which is french for The Marmot. Marcie and I have always had a thing for marmots ever since our honeymoon when we lost two water bottles to the furry little creatures. They were very brazen, even crawled into the tent with us. Dinner at “La Marmotte’ was equally costly, $120 for dinner for two.

La Marmotte

After dinner, we took the gondola back to Mountain Village and enjoyed a free concert and called it a night early so we could be ready for tomorrow.

The Gondola to Mountain Village

BTC 2008 – Part IV – Montrose To Telluride

This is the fourth part of a series of posts on my 2008 Bicycle Tour of Colorado experience.

We started today by heading South, retracing our route from yesterday minus the out and back to the Black Canyon. We headed back to Ridgeway, which was the first town we hit after leaving Ouray. From there we headed West toward Telluride (“To Hell You Ride”).

The today’s major hurdle was the Dallas Divide.  The day was sunny and it was starting to get hot.  There was a rest area at the top, and just as we were getting ready to head down the other side, it started to rain. By the time we had finished our coast down, the rain had stopped.  Where was the rain on the way up?

The top of Dallas Divide

The day finished with a climb up the canyon into Telluride.   Telluride is one town in my home state, that I can’t ever actually remember visiting  before.  I had no idea what the lay of the land was.  The law firm I work for had a case involving  a land use issue in Telluride.  At issue in the case was what was going to happen to the valley floor.  The valley floor was a large tract of undeleveloped land leading into Telluride.  I spent a lot of time working with a video showing this route into Telluride. In my head anyway, Telluride lay in this flat valley. In reality, it lay in a flat valley, at the end of a very long and windy climb out of the canyon. As each mile passed, I would replay that video in my head and wonder where the flat part was.

Telluride, one of Colorado’s premire ski resorts, boasts many fine and expensive accomodations, we stayed on the athlectic field next to the community center.

After dinner we wondered around town some and stopped for a beer.  Now I am not exactly a heavy drinker, but I do enjoy the occasional beer. Combine 9500 feet in altitude, a long day in the saddle, a little dehydration, and you get a very cheap date.

BTC 2008 – Part III – Ouray To Montrose

This is the third part of a series of posts on my 2008 Bicycle Tour of Colorado experience.

Today was a relatively easy day. A generally downhill route from Ouray to Montrose. For the most part I caught onto the tail of one of the trains that went by and cruised into Montrose.  Once there, there was an out and back route to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument. We rode out to the turn off, but didn’t go in. I wasn’t really feeling up to it. Once in the the Monument, riders had the option of riding along the rim or taking the road down into the canyon. The road into the canyon had some 16% grades, some of the steepest in Colorado.

We had resevered a motel room for tonight. The motel was about 3 miles from the high school where the campers were staying. We made a detour to the motel on the way back into town, but couldn’t get into our room until 3:00. So we headed back to the high school to get our luggage and have lunch. Staying in a motel presented us with a dilemma, how do we get our luggage from the high school to the motel?  We couldn’t get our luggage to the motel on our bike, we didn’t have a place to store it at the high school, and I don’t see a lot of cabs trolling the streets of Montrose, CO. After giving it some thought over lunch we decided we could hide it. We set up are tent, took what we needed, and left the rest of our stuff in the tent, figuring it was safe hiding in a mass of several hundred other tents.

Montrose High School Welcomes the BTC

We got back to the motel at 3:00 and had to wait behind a group of ‘bikers’ (motorcyclists) from New York trying to get into their rooms. They couldn’t quite get their minds around what we had done that day, not to mention what we were doing that week.

We showered and went across the road and had the buffet at the Chinese resturant. It is nice to eat and not have to worry about calories.