Distance: 59.5 mi, Climbed: 1,522 ft
Completed: 2,606.2 mi, 120,127 ft
Spectacular. Stunning. Epic. Choose your favorite superlative. The scenery today was amazing.
Joanna and I took a few rest days in Breckenridge to enjoy the town and give the legs a chance to recover after all the recent climbing. Last night, we went into town to cheer on the US Men’s National Team in their World Cup match against Belgium. Though the result isn’t what we had wanted, we enjoyed meeting Dom and Nikki at the sports bar. There was an instant connection when Nikki found out that her father grew up very near to Joanna’s hometown. Dom and Nikki met back in college in Denver ten years ago. He has put his professional mountain-bike racing days behind him, and they are getting married next month. We wish them a long life together filled with love and happiness.
Joanna’s hands are feeling better so she is back on the bike today. But first, she needs to drop our rental car off in Silverthorne. Fortunately, Silverthorne is right on the route. I rode the first eighteen miles to Silverthorne myself, picked Joanna up, and we rode the rest of the day together.
The first few miles were on the Blue River RecPath. Now Colorado knows how to build a bike path. The path meandered alongside the river with mountain views all around and wildflowers along its edge. The path was organic and followed the terrain. Lots of little ups and downs. This was the far cry from the tree tunnels that I often experience in rail-to-trail paths back east. Biker heaven.
As the path neared Frisco, I pedaled along Dillon Reservoir. The lake framed with a misty mountain backdrop was breathtaking.
I took a slight detour to see the Frisco Bay Marina. I was surprised to see the marina was almost completely dry. There was not enough snow this winter so the reservoir is twenty feet below its normal level. There was a long dirt pier going down to the current lake level for boating and fishing access.
On one side, there was the marina with just a few inches of water below the docks.
On the other side, there was a large dry lake bed.
Shortly after passing the lake, I arrived in Silverthorne and picked up Joanna. We headed out of town, and within a few minutes, we came to a closed section of the bike path. Just as we were trying to figure out the best way to detour, a cyclist on a mountain bike rode by. Joanna called out, “Hey, Sam! Great to see you!”
On our rest day yesterday, Joanna had taken her bicycle to Cripple Creek Bike & Backcountry store. After battling many flats caused by Kentucky thorns, her rear tire had developed a gash that was simply too large for sealant and bacon strips to repair. A few weeks ago, we gave up on running it tubeless and installed an inner tube. Thankfully, she hasn’t had a flat since. Still, Joanna wanted to replace the damaged tire and convert the wheel back to tubeless.
As it turns out, Sam was the technician who had installed Joanna’s new tire. He was out test-riding another customer’s bike when we happened to cross paths. Such perfect timing! The one person Joanna knew in Silverthorne was the very person riding by at exactly the moment we needed help. Sam gave us directions around the trail closure, and we were back on our way. Thanks, Sam!
The trail continued out of town and paralleled the Blue River.
But unfortunately, all good things come to end, and a few miles outside of Silverthorne, we were back on a rural highway with fast cars and a good shoulder. Still, we were treated with beautiful mountain and river views along the way. We even saw a couple of yaks. If I had to ride on a highway, this was pretty good.
After several miles on the highway with a good shoulder, the shoulder disappeared, and we were back in traffic. Fortunately, it did not last for long. We soon turned off the highway onto a quiet rural road with forests on either side.
About fifteen minutes after we left the highway, we began to hear thunder, and the skies started to darken. We were not expecting rain because the forecast was for a 0% chance of rain. We have been learning on this trip that 0% never really means no chance of rain. I could now see on the radar that the bulk of this storm with lightning was likely to pass just to our south, but we would likely get hit with light rain. We thought seriously about knocking on doors in the small community we just passed to find shelter, but we decided to trek along. In the end, we only had a bit of light rain.
As we gained altitude, the trees slowly gave way to sweeping views of the McDonald Flats, the Blue River, and the Green Mountain Reservoir. Each hill and turn provided an even more stunning view. This was biking at its best. We had ridden forty miles at this point, and I’m not sure my legs had noticed.
Our ride through the hills would end at the Green Mountain Reservoir dam. Sadly, we could see that the reservoir waters did not even reach the spillway gates. The buoys that normally warn of approaching the spillway were sitting on the dry lake bed.
Across the dam, we can see a road cut into a magnificent rock face and realized that is where we were about to ride. We crossed the bridge and rode with a massive rock face on our left and a huge cliff on our right.
We had said hello to fellow sightseers Nancy and Bob when we saw them at the dam. They got in their car and left while Joanna and I were still marveling at the absence of water. Soon after, we started biking again and saw Nancy and Bob on the side of the road hurriedly signaling to us to come over to them. Worried that there was a problem, we quickly biked over only to be told to look up the mountain. What a surprise! We saw a half dozen mountain goats sitting on a ledge. We watched as the goats came down from one precarious position to another equally precarious position. Their ability to maneuver on the mountain is spectacular. I could have watched them for hours.
We had a few more last views of the reservoir before rejoining the main road and heading into Kremmling for the night.
The ride into town afforded even more mountain views. We had ridden sixty miles. But today, we rode into town sad the day was ending.
