The Trek

This year's journey started off full of surprises. The 211-mile loop brought me back to where I started, changed.

The lessons began before the ride. As I was packing to head up to Vail - almost as an afterthought - I brought my other bike. It is a Trek Madone. I had trained on it a lot last year but had barely ridden it since getting the Champagne-colored Masi. But I knew this year's ride had to be self-supported and I was leading the ride. My riding partner, much like me last year, was new to cycling. So new, in fact, he had been riding in running shoes up until about June! He was also coming from sea-level, so I knew there could be some challenges and it made me approach the ride from a more mature and responsible perspective. Good thing, because that made me take a bunch of extra gear with me to Vail, and a spare bike was among that gear. Without it, there would have been no ride.

This is because, just a few weeks before the ride I rode to the top of Mt. Blue Sky f/k/a Mt. Evans. The road to the 14,000 ft summit looked like it had been through a war, and I hit a pothole hard on the descent. I didn't think about it until I was giving my bike a final inspection two days before the ride, and I noticed a crack in the paint where the down tube met the head tube. I sent a photo to my awesome bike mechanic, Kirk Webster of Creekside Bikes. He called me to say it didn't look good. After chipping away some paint, I could see the metal below with what looked like a crack in it radiating outward and splintering like lightning. I was not taking any chances as I knew we would be going down some high mountain passes at high speeds with traffic. It was a hard thing to do, but I put the Masi aside and started to check the Trek to get it ready for the ride.

My frame pack would not fit and the Trek had clincher tires, unlike the Masi's tubulars. I subbed a saddle pack for the frame pack, and packed two old spare tubes I had brought along "just in case." I thought, "okay, the challenge has begun!" I also learned that bike shops in the mountains keep irregular hours and most are just rental shops without much merchandize. I was happy that my contingency planning had paid off for the moment.

Andy had planned to come into Vail from the East Coast the morning before the ride, but I convinced him to come a day earlier. That was fortunate too. The CrowdStrike disaster screwed up flights and he narrowly missed his connecting flight. His bag, however, missed the flight and contained his bike shoes and pedals. When he arrived we spent a day looking for pedals and shoes while staying in touch with the airlines. Fortunately, the bag came the next day. So we put his bike together and took a short warm up ride.

That night we checked the weather and made critical decisions about what to wear and bring. It would be cold in the morning and hot in the afternoon. We opted to bring trash bags as secondary windbreakers for the cold descent down Vail pass and we strapped our other windbreakers to the bike frame with Andy's Velcro straps (he works at Velco and those straps are awesome!) We loaded up our back pockets with food and a few essential items like a satellite beacon, boke took, a spare tube and sunblock and we were ready. We even learned that our friend and college teammate Young Park was going to do 211 floor exercises the next day to "suffer with us" and we promised to down 25 push-ups in Leadville at the start/finish line for the Leadville 100. We were giddy with anticipation.

We began in the dark, just before 4:00am the next morning. We used the 10-mile approach to Vail Pass to loosen up and get ready for the first climb. The ride had a bit of a surreal feeling at that time. Our shadows loomed large as we caught each other in our headlights. The roads were empty and only some occasional trucks coming down I-70 a hundred yards or so to our left broke the silence. We talked about pace and how we would deal with wind and riding on roads with no shoulders. We also remarked how "we're really doing this!"

We began the ascent up Vail Pass from the west. It was still cold and dark. Like it had been during all my training, my heart rate and breathing shot up early and without much effort, but as I warmed up they settled down. We took it steady and didn't push too hard. We even stopped for a leg stretch half-way up. Vail Pass has enough punchy steep parts to get you breathing hard before the top, but we got to the summit as the dusky morning got ready for a sunrise. We felt great, but it was in the low 30s and despite all the effort we were a bit cold.

So we donned our trash bags and put our jerseys over them and began an absolutely beautiful and incredibly fun descent into Copper. With no other souls on the path we flew down like we were on rails. It was so smooth and beautiful in the early morning light. Surely, it was a highlight of the ride. Better yet, we were right on time as we rolled up to the Conoco station in Copper for our first pit stop and refuel. Then we hit another snag.

In the past, I had stopped at this station to refuel on rides, but this had always been either at 7:30am or in the afternoon. I never realized - or thought to check - that it opened at 7am. We got there at around 6:15am. Nothing else was open anywhere and there was nothing we could do but freeze our butts off for 45 minutes waiting for the shop to open. We did what we could to keep moving and stay warm, but it was only so effective. We ended up needing another 20 minutes inside to get warm with coffee, so we lost an hour to poor planning. I was not happy about that, but it was still early in the ride and my planning had been conservative, so I thought we could make up some time later.

Warm-ish, we left the gas station and headed south up Highway 91 and Fremont Pass toward the mountain town of Leadville. That town, famous for the brutal endurance race, the Leadville 100, sits at over 10,000 feet, almost as high as Vail Pass. But the first part of the ride is along a beautiful path and we were making good time and feeling the pull of Leadville and our second mountain pass of the day. Andy was feeling the altitude a bit every time we got up over about 9000 ft, but he was hanging in like a soldier.

All was going decently well. Now and then I would pull a little ahead and have to slow down, but we were pretty tight together until I looked back after a steep section and saw Andy walking his bike. I stopped and looked. He walked it over only a sandy, gravelly bulge in the shoulder of the highway and motioned to me. I rolled back down to him about 70 feet, not sure what to expect. He yelled out, "I've got a flat!"

As I got closer, I saw his rear wheel coated in sealant that was coming out from the rim. It was a blowout. For a moment, the notion that the ride could be over floated in the air in front of me, but we were only 30 miles into a 211-mile ride and Andy had travelled from New Hampshire to do this. I just could not accept that thought, and neither could he. That said, neither of us initially had a clue what to do. So, I calmed down and tried to assess things.

"Looks like your tire came free from the wheel." I said. He had tubeless tires, so once the seal was broken the tire went entirely flat. He said he had hit a cut in the road at low speed and the tire just blew out. It sounded almost impossible to me at such a low speed, but there was the tire, flat and covered in sticky sealant. I have tubeless tires on my mountain bike and had seen my friend reset them in his home shop using an air compressor. Pumping enough air to reset the "bead" snaps the tire back into the frame and gets you going again. So, I took out one of three air cartridge had and gave that a try. But all the air just went out through the side of the tire and did not reset the bead. We moved the tire around to get the sides closer to the wheel rims and tried again with a second cartridge, but it failed again.

Now it began to feel a little desperate. We had one more cartridge left and over 180 miles to go. I had a very small hand pump, which I had never used to fully inflate a tire, and knew it could never provide the quick pressure the cartridges provided. It was looking bleak, but then Andy remembered something. "The guy who sold me the wheels said that if these tires go flat you can put a tube in them." He was right! I recalled that too. But this would mean removing the rear wheel, replacing the valve, and getting every last shard of sharp, sticky road gravel and sand out of the wheel rim and inside of the tire. This would be a bit messy and would take some time, but we had a plan to save the trip, so we got to work.

Andy had never changed a tire. I had never changed a tire on the road before, and I had only ever changed a rear tire once. The other time I changed a tire I popped the tube after getting it inside the tire because I pinched the tube under the tire's edge. I was going to be sure we did not do all this work in vain. After all, we only had two other tubs and one was probably the wrong size for both bikes. The remainder of the ride alone would be further than I'd ever ridden, and I wanted to have back-up tubes because I knew the ride would now take us into the night.

We must've pumped that hand pump 400 times, but we got the rear tire inflated enough to get back on the road and get ourselves to Leadville. While we were pumping I mentioned that I almost wanted something like this to happen to increase the challenge. I wanted to know we were ready for more than just the physical challenges of a long ride. This was was definitely a first and a challenge, but as we rolled away from the shoulder, I admired the rear tire, a bit underinflated and with a very slight wobble, but in working condition and rolling again!

We got to Leadville and I set about ordering us some food while Andy went looking for a bike shop. Here's the thing, bike shops in Leadville are closed on Tuesdays. Andy walked up and down the main drag hoping to find a shop that could help. But just when it looked like hope was lost, he came across someone who saw him looking desperate and told him that the owner of Lead-velo had just walked into his shop. Andy went to the window and pleaded. Fortunately, the owner let him in and saved our trip, selling Andy two new tubes and two more cartridges. We ate at The Famous, which has great food and where one of the waitresses remembered me from when I rode to Leadville from Vail earlier this summer to test out the first part of the route. They filled our water bottles and wished us well. We hit Andy's rear tire with another cartridge to get good air pressure and even out the tire a bit and then zipped down Highway 91 toward the junction with Highway 82 just east of Twin Lakes.

The Highway 91 route after Leadville has little or no shoulder and the traffic was heavier than we would have preferred. But, there were no heavy winds and we managed to make good time despite being about 3 hours off pace now after the flat tire and bike shop search. Still, the sun was shining and we had developed a bit of a veteran feeling at this point. We had climbed two of our three mountain passes and endured a major mechanical, and we had been blessed with help from friendly people who helped us keep this ride from ending too soon.

When we got to the junction of Highway 82, Independence Pass started to feel like a reality. We had climbed in the thirty-degree cold through the high Alpine forest and just past timberline on the rugged, mined-out Fremont Pass, and now we had descended into the high desert in the mid-day heat. It was about 84 degrees and the sun was intense. We kept our leg and arm sleeves on for sun protection, but that made things warm. I eventually ditched the sleeves as we rode uphill to Twin Lakes. The miles from our flat to Twin Lakes were what I began to call thankless miles. There were some pretty sights, but mostly it was hot, rugged, and a little dangerous. Pulling up to Twin Lakes and seeing the gorgeous mountains and steep valleys ahead felt awesome.

We stopped at a roadside stand for some Palisade Peaches and re-upped on water. This was it. The biggest climb of the ride was ahead of us. The road to get to the base of the Independence Pass climb from Twin Lakes is just about 12 miles of slight uphill. There is no shoulder and the sight lines are bad, but traffic is pretty mellow. I thought we would probably get there in an hour, being conservative. But the heat and altitude were taking a toll on Andy. We would find out the day after the ride that he was starting to come down with COVID, so thinking back on it now, the dude was a total soldier.

We made our way up to the climb in fits and starts. Andy was in the hurt locker and we had not even started the climb. But, looking back, this was the best spot for this to happen. We were at the most remote spot in the ride. We had gone way too far to turn back, and would have to climb more to go in reverse than we would to go forward. There were no towns between Twin Lakes and Aspen, and it was about 4pm. The Pass was the ticket to freedom, so I stopped us at the base and let Andy rest for about 20 minutes while I explained the grades. The towering mountains around us looked awesome despite a slight forest fire haze that had been around us for most of the day.

I check with Andy to see if he was ready. "We're doing this!" he said. So I broke it down. If he could climb 300 vertical feet at a time, then rest, he could get up in about five stops. He nodded and we pushed off. At the first stop there was a little waterfall coming off the face of the rock wall that made up the right shoulder of the road and I soaked my cap and sleeves in it. It felt like heaven to start riding again with that evaporative cooling on my head and arms. Andy was squarely in the hurt locker at this point but just kept chunking away at the ride until we reached the top.

When he rolled up to the Independence Pass sign and we got a photo standing right where my dad and his riding partner had stood 45 years earlier it was a special moment. Thanks to the nice couple who stopped to take the photo for us. Like those who had shouted encouragement to us as we climbed, they reflected something good back to us as they saw us struggle and that was worth it.

The picture at the top was really meaningful to me. In some ways, having that moment was the main objective I'd been seeking to achieve since I cooked up the idea of doing my first ride in 2023. I thought about that old photo that is the cover for this newsletter, showing my dad in his yellow shirt with bars of horizontal color across the middle and his riding partner, standing in front of the sign where I now stood. I had actually used Google image to find a vintage merino wool riding jersey that looked a lot like it and I wore that for this ride to get the picture above.

The spirit with which my dad lived his life was alive up there. We both felt it. We were going for something big, and not letting obstacles blunt our determination or spirit. We were so happy to have conquered our third and final mountain pass while taking in all this natural beauty. I again thought about why I was doing this.

I did this ride for many reasons, and one was to raise money for Mending Faces to help children get life-changing cleft lip and palate surgeries like I got thanks to my mom and dad. His journey through that process, being a father, raising four children successfully, and living out his last years with dementia was full of amazing highs and some thankless miles. I did this to reconnect with my old teammate, Andy Collins, who was sharing with me a desire to push himself to new heights physically and with positive thinking. I did it to continue something that I want to keep doing every year. I did it to get better on the bike, and at planning self-supported rides. I did it to enjoy Colorado and life.

The descent into Aspen from Independence Pass was amazing. What was really nice to see is that people continued to support us by slowing down, giving us wide berth, and stopping to make sure we were okay when we stopped once on the ride down to shed some layers. We got to Aspen and stopped at City Market to refuel.

The ride down the Roaring Fork Valley toward Glenwood was the highlight of the trip. A gorgeous orange sunset slowly burned and faded. We met up with my friend Brian Pearson, with whom I'd done a training ride to Aspen a week earlier, and he helped cut the wind and get us down to Glenwood where he had phoned ahead to his wife Christina to warm up some frozen floutas. I can't say enough good things about these two people. Who else would welcome two road weary cyclists into their house at 9pm on a school night, while their baby was sleeping, and feed them and stock them up with extra lights and supplies for the trip ahead? Well, that's what they did and it was just awesome. Our faith in humanity was at full charge.

We pulled it together and departed from Brian and Christina's house, travelling through Glenwood Canyon in the dark. My light died, but thankfully the one Brian and Christina gave me as a back-up did fine. Going through the canyon at night was strange. We could hear the immense roar of the Colorado River to our right, but could not see it at all. We could hear the road of semi trucks to our left and overhead and sometimes we could see them. But much of the time we could only see a cone of light ahead filled with a concrete path and concrete structures through which we wound. The canyon by day is really pretty and you don't really notice that you are on a thin ribbon of path weaving its way through the little space left after building a divided highway through a tight canyon carved by the mighty Colorado. In the dark, it was more like a spooky video game. I heard a few noises from the brush on the right that made me pedal faster. I also thought I saw a baby bear run across the path at one point. Fortunately, we got through the canyon unscathed.

When we reached the end of the canyon we were at the point where last year's ride ended for me. I looked at my Garmin and saw that we had gone 167 miles, which was exactly how far I had gone last year to get to the same point. It was a crazy coincidence, and it inspired be to push on, because now, like Andy, I was in new territory. Every pedal stroke took me farther than I'd ever biked before. And it must have been the floutas, but I suddenly had this amazing second wind. I was hammering away all the way to Eagle, even through the 5 miles or so of choppy asphalt where the streets had been stripped. I'm still feeling that a little bit. It was 2am.

All the gas stations and stores were closed and we were out of water. We found a motel that was open and went inside. When the guy asked us where we had come from I started to explain, "well, we started in Vail and went to Copper, then to Leadville, then to Twin Lakes, then to Aspen..." and he just started clapping! It was awesome. He then told us to grab as much apple juice as we wanted from the juice machine and offered us some fresh fruit. He even went outside to show us where to connect to the trail. It was great to see how this ride made total strangers happy and helpful and brought out the best in them.

We rested in Eagle until the sun rose and then closed the loop to Vail. There's a bit of a time warp feeling that you get when rolling into the place where you left. Everything looked the same. Folks were probably finishing up their nightshift after having gone home from the prior day's night shift when we departed. Others were checking in or out of their hotels. Folks on the roads were heading to drop their kids off at school or go to work. For the first time it felt like we were back in the real world after a day suspended in a different reality. The only things we had been thinking about were our bikes, the road, the weather, the terrain, the sun, the moon, food, water and the reasons why we were doing this.

I thought about my dad, my mom, my wife and kids, my athletic career, the challenges I was facing this year, and the dream of growing this ride into a larger fundraiser. Andy and I talked about making it a relay ride, or a multi-day ride to increase its appeal. But, we also wanted to have an option to go straight through. We thought about having stops in the towns and having local restaurants with tents and food for riders. Brian even had the great idea of starting and ending in Glenwood, so that the ride to the finish was all downhill.

I will keep thinking about this and ways to use this ride to continue to interconnect people.