Cycling Day 2
Saturday I went up the Cherry Creek Trail northwards. I went about 16 miles past the Cherry Creek Lake Reservoir and turned around. Unlike the C470, it was very picturesque. Rural with excellent views. There were loads of runners and cyclists out and if there was any drawback I would say if you are a fast cyclist looking to do dedicated training it probably isn’t your best bet since going faster than 20 mph is going to put other people in danger. I did 30 miles round trip and it was quite nice. I highly recommend, especially the roads around lake, which were quite bucolic and conducive to road cycling.
Rice and Eating Healthy on Vacation
Much to my eternal joy, my sister (whose family I was visiting) had a rice cooker. Since we had no dinner plans everyone was left to fend for themselves. I had a single serve portion of rice (about 2000 calories) with no beans or sauce. You gotta make due sometimes.
Rice and potatoes are the best and it’s almost impossible for me to overstress the importance of rice to my diet and basic existence. Rice is also hard to get when traveling because most hotels or Air BNBs don’t come with rice cookers. I suppose you could go to a chinese restaurant and order 3 portions of steamed rice and veggies, and when all else fails that's not a bad idea.
It was very awesome to get to eat a huge plate of rice at least once on the trip and was quite happy to have gotten it in. So what else did I eat? Not counting the family dinners and the burrito trips my shopping list for the 5 days was…
*2 boxes Kashi Flakes with Blueberry Cluters
*1 pack blueberries
*1 gallon Almond milk unsweetened
*1 bag of Thomas’ Everything bagels
*7 bananas
*1 tub low fat cream cheese for the bagels
*8 white chocolate macadamia nut cliff bars
As you can see, mostly breakfast stuff. I ate out for lunches out each day and did dinner with the family. A couple lunches were served by this stash and the cliff bars and bananas also came with me for on the bike food.
Cycling Day 3: The Big Boy
This was the ride. Mount Evans. 27 mile climb, 5% average grade, Beyond Categorization. I was as physically ready as could be.
The trip from Parker to the base of the climb in Idaho Springs was sketchy as hell. Interstate 70 into the mountains is scary. 7% grades down hill with turns and semi trucks was gnarly. I felt the way out of towners feel driving in thunderstorms in Florida.
Upon reaching Idaho Springs I realized I left my water bottles at home. Shit. Luckily there was a gas station nearby and I purchased two bottles of Smart Water which fit neatly into my cages. It wasn’t until about an hour into the climb I realized I left my cliff bars at home too. Big problem. Upon leaving the parking lot the climb starts with a BASE elevation of 7,500 feet and I begin my journey up the mountain. I took it fairly easy and kept myself out of the red zone, because blowing up would have been especially bad. I just found a nice easy pace and held onto it the whole way. I wish I had a power meter, but based on my perceived effort I reckon I went at around 200 watts on average.
It was an overcast and cold morning but the scenery couldn’t have been nicer. Rural (but expensive looking) cabin type houses and stunning mountain scenery. The road pitched up a bit when I hit the Arapahoe National Forest. The grade went from 3-5% to more like 5-7% for a few miles. The roads started winding more and the exposed cliff faces were a tad scary. It was around this time it started raining on me, but just a sprinkle and not terrible at all. This was about when I realized I had no food. My game plan radically changed from hit the summit to “go as far as I can until I get close to bonking and then go back down.”
After over an hour spinning my way up through the Araphoe Forest I turn a hair pin and, almost magically, the road flattens out and the most amazing scenery I’ve ever seen opens up in front of me. This was Echo Lake. To say it was picturesque is an understatement. Rather than try to do it justice, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
After taking pics and gawking at the view, I continued up the road to the base of Mount Evan’s proper. It’s rather amazing that the official climb hadn’t even started yet and I’d already climbed for 12 miles and 3000 feet. The climb before the climb was itself a Beyond Categorization climb. That’s like running 26 miles to get to the marathon course to run the marathon. Intense!
At the “base” of Mt. Evans there is a lodge. Inside said lodge there is a gift shop. Said gift shop sells cans of coke and snacks. I happily purchased a can of pepsi and a bag of pretzels. Fuel! I would have preferred my Cliff bars, but this was a life saver. Now adequately fueled I continued up the mountain, about 12 miles and 3k feet of climbing left.
After the third switch back, I encountered a rather big problem. I was now above the treeline and the wind was gusting pretty heavily. Going around a bend I see an exposed cliff face, no guard rail and a sheer drop. To make matters worse, the road had a really bad reverse camber. I hate to make excuses for failure, but this was frightening. I am not good at all with heights, and this was terrifying. I could have soldiered on and continued up but the thought occured to me: how am I going to get back down? Going up was scary, but not really dangerous, and I could just block out the cliff and focus on the road no problem. The problem would be trying to go down. Bad tires, bad brakes, reverse camber, no guard rail, narrow road with some cars. I just didn’t have the confidence that I was 100% safe. If I had my own bike with it’s Conti GP 4000s tires and top of the line disc brakes I feel like I would have been able to negotiate it. But with the shitty rental bike? I’m just not willing to die.
So I turned around after only about 1000 feet done. I feel super shitty about it and I’m quite torn. On one hand, I made the prudent choice given the circumstances. And I still did an HC categorized climb, the first in my life and it was still beyond an epic adventure. On the other hand, I didn’t accomplish my goal and I know that people weaker and less experienced than me have completed this climb. Instead of viewing it as giving up, I’ll label Mount Evans as ‘unfinished business’ and plan on conquering it on my return trip to Colorado, hopefully with a better bike.
So now I began the descent. Nearly 4,000 feet and 15 miles of non-stop downhill. Oddly enough, despite the sketchy bike I rather enjoyed this one. I took the turns rather easy; if I used the full road I could have gone a bit faster but there were a few cars and motorcycles on the road and I didn’t want to do anything dangerous. The straight sections were great and I was able to throw it in the 53-12 and power down. The descent took long enough that I started to get tired holding my aggressive attack position. It’s very surreal coming from Florida to descend for 40 minutes. The longest descent in florida that I’ve done might be like a minute.
When I rolled into the parking lot in Idaho Springs, I felt happy due to the adrenaline of the descent, as well as having finished the biggest climb if my life but I cannot honestly say I was 100% satisfied with the day. I suppose thats the definition of bittersweet?
Nap and Chipotle and the Job Market
I hadn’t taken a nap yet on this vacation. Thus far, I’d slept in and ate breakfast before starting my bike rides to avoid the morning chill. Since I woke up super early for Mount Evans I was home by 11:30. A nap was in order, and I took a blissful 2 hour siesta. It really hit the spot, and my legs thanked me. When I woke up it was lunch time and I bee-lined to the nearby Chipotle. Maybe this is a strange observation but the Chipotle in Parker off Cottonwood is staffed by well above average looking women. It was a fairly strange experience to see ladies I would consider to be almost model caliber good looking working in fast food. This is something you don’t see at all in Florida. Is there less of a stigma against working fast food in other places, or is this a sign of the weak job market where service jobs are the only jobs?
Cycling Day 4 Last Day =(
Monday I had to return my bike before noon so the plan was to do another moderate 30 mile ride local to Parker. I hopped onto the Cherry Creek Trail and ventured south this time. The ride south of 470 on the trail is a bit more scenic than the northward trail, excepting the area near the lake. If you’re in the area, I highly recommend doing both halves of the trail but the southern side is probably a tad nicer.
One criticism of the trail is necessary to point out. Since access to the trail is highly desireable, each neighborhood has a connecting trail to it. There are very rarely signs to tell you which fork to take to stay on the trail or to exit to some random neighborhood. My guess is that the trail was built and sign posts erected at the same time, and later the connectors were built but no new signs implemented. Instead of a 50 mile straight line it became a spider web and over the two days I spent on the trail I took many a wrong turn. I have a good sense of direction and pretty good instincts and it will still confusing as to when I should have zigged versus zagged. I brought this fact up to my sister, who lives next to the trail and jogs on it frequently, and she said that it's confusing even for locals. The management of the trail and parks do a great job, but this one area is a bit inadequate and I hope they do put some budget in place in the future to put up proper signage. For me, I didn’t mind doing a few extra miles due to wrong turns: it’s not an adventure unless you get lost at least once. But that doesn’t make it a worse user experience.
Bike City and Affirming Suspicions
After finishing the ride, I went back to bike city to return the bike. When I took it into the service department the wrench working there asked me how it was, I complained about the brakes and tires but ofcourse that’s not his call. I did point out the issue with the shifting and expressed that it makes the bike unsafe to ride. He put the bike on the stand and spun the cranks a few times while shifting and said he didn’t see any issues. I pointed out there is a difference turning the pedals with your hand and no resistance versus going uphill and pushing 350 watts. He shrugged his shoulders and walked it to the back. I suppose that lawsuit waiting to happen isn’t his problem. I suppose that’s the type of customer service and employee dedication you get in a ‘corporate’ atmosphere. Either way, it affirms my initial observation about the place and I am 100% sure if I return to the area I definite will not be renting from them again.
The Trip Home
Besides the 3am wake up, the trip home was amazing. Mom and I sat in the same row on Frontier this time, and the person in the aisle seat didn’t show up! The dream is real! I got to sit on the aisle without paying extra with and empty seat in the middle for the bonus leg room for us giants. Also, with the west to east jet stream our flight landed in Orlando almost an hour early, and I took about an hour nap at the start of the flight so the flight was probably the shortest “4 hour flight” of my life, with only 2 hours of conscious flight time.
Having been up since 3am and no food since 3:15am, and now being 2pm, I was super hungry. We stopped at Moe’s where I bought the only viable choice on the menu: the Billy Barou with tofu and corn salsa as the only toppings besides queso. Moe’s is quite medium compared to Chipotle in terms of burrito quality, but their queso and chips are tight, so the Billy Barou covers both so it’s the obviously superior menu choice. They also had the bad ass coca cola super fountain deal and it was excellent to get some Cherry Vanilla Coke Zero.
A good ending to a great trip!
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