From Gunnison I rode to Salida, which is another very outdoorsy little town in Colorado and marked the halfway point in my trip timewise (thanks again Katie for picking me up when I needed it). After that, and another beautiful mountain pass, I dropped down into an area filled with world famous ski resorts, Breckenridge, Frisco, Vail and Aspen amongst them. Even in the summer they weren’t exactly quiet and were definitely still expensive. In Breckenridge I stayed at a little B&B/Hostel owned by an English couple, who’d moved to the area many years earlier for work and decided to stay. I also ran into a couple of really interesting guys who were hiking the continental divide. One of them with his two huskies, which sounded great fun.
When I was in Durango a few weeks earlier I’d promised a couple of the guys I met (Sean and Eric), who lived in Boulder, that I would do my best to go visit them. I was also really keen to go visit Brian who I’d met in San Francisco, who lived in Denver. To do this meant dropping down out of the mountains for a few days and onto the plains to the East (only just mind). The border between the two is so distinct, so final, that it’s an amazing view in either direction.
Apparently people don’t cycle from one to the other though. The main route down to Denver for cars is an interstate, which I wasn’t allowed to ride on and the only route that I could find descended through a pretty narrow canyon, which was a massive amount of fun, from a town called Black Hawk. Gambling used to be illegal everywhere in Colorado, but 20 years ago it was legalised in Black Hawk and the adjacent Central City, which were both old 19th century mining towns. Although this has regenerated the area, all these towns are is a series of casinos. Black Hawk actually has a population of just 118. Central City (the larger of the two) was actually quite cute, as laws have essentially kept the outside of most of the old buildings intact. Black Hawk was not. In fact the city has recently banned bikes on the basis that there isn’t enough space on the roads for cars, buses, trucks and bikes. If I’d been caught riding, I would have been fined $68! After riding about 80 miles that day, I had to spend 20 minutes walking the final one, which was kind of frustrating.
Most people at home will know that I’m not exactly a gambling man, so are probably wondering why I’d want to visit a place like this. Basically I thought it would make a change and it actually turned into one of the best evenings of my trip. I’d managed to get a last minute deal on a room in one of casinos and I think it was almost certainly the nicest room I’ve had in three months. I had set myself a budget of $100 that I was going to go gamble with that night. Then I discovered that the casino had a really nice steakhouse and, predictably, my plans changed somewhat. One fantastic meal and bottle of wine later, and with $90 of my budget handed over to the restaurant I thought I’d play some black jack, which was a very short experience. I sat down at the table and changed $5 of my remaining $10 and had it pointed out to me that the minimum bet was actually $10 (so the stack of chips the Japanese business man at the other end of the table must have been worth well over a grand). Anyway, so I only had one hand. First card Jack. Second card Ace. $15 won. Still, only enough money for two more hands, so I figured I should take my winnings and run.
The following morning I was expecting a 30 mile ride down into Denver. As I got onto the outskirts I was caught up by a local guy out for a ride. We rode along chatting for five minutes and he offered to take me on a bit of a loop further round to show me some of sites and get me as far as a bike path that would take me into the city centre. We even spent twenty minutes sat up on a ridge, whilst he dialled into a conference call (my brain hadn’t thought the phrase conference call in some time!). The highlight was probably the spectacular Red Rocks Amphitheatre, where a natural rock formation in Red Rocks Park has created an amazing (and apparently acoustically stunning) outdoor concert venue that has played host to the likes of The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, U2 and, this weekend the apparently huge locally and amazingly named, although I’d never heard of them, String Cheese Incident.
I’d managed to find a dirt cheap motel only about a mile from downtown Denver, so after a nice ride down some pretty bike paths, which were a lot nicer than wading through city traffic, and getting settled I headed into town to find something to eat. Having not been to a big city for a month, I promptly got very confused by the shear range of options available to me and ended up wandering round for an hour before choosing somewhere. I think it was at this moment when I realised I actually missed city life. Yes it’s nice to get out in the country, but, to live, wow it’s nice to have all this other stuff around.
The following evening I was meeting up with Brian to go watch a baseball game. I’d been trying to catch one ever since I got into the country and it just hadn’t worked out, so I was really looking forward to it. As expected we didn’t actually watch the baseball that closely. In fact we didn’t even go find our seats until about 2/3rds of the way through. Instead we just wandered around the outfield on an open walkway, ate a hot dog and drank a few beers. Once we did go sit down, there was a great view of the sunset over the mountains. It being Independence Day weekend, we were all given little American flags on our way into the stadium (Jess, I’m keeping it for your going away party) and they had a huge fireworks display.
The fireworks were a great idea, but before they could set them off they had to empty some of the stands onto the outfield. A process that, thanks to making people walk the entire length of the stadium twice in roped off cordons, took a really long time. Worth it though.
Brian and I had missed last orders at the bar in the stadium. Basically they serve until the end of the 7th inning, but, thanks for a pitiful performance from the Colorado Rockies batters in the second half of the 7th, we didn’t make it to the front of the queue in time. After the game we headed off to a nearby bar with one of Brian’s friends, Shaunna, and her boyfriend Andrew.
The next morning I rode over towards Boulder to meet Sean and Eric, where we had another mountain bike ride planned. I ended up slightly late as the ride wasn’t quite the nice flat cruise I’d been led to believe and the temperatures down on the plains were quite a bit higher than I’d been used to up in the mountains.
We’d planned about a 20 mile route going out from and returning to Eric’s house, but midway through the guys made the excellent suggestion that we finish up at one of the local micro breweries for a couple of beers. Eric’s lovely wife was good enough to come down and pick us up, so we could grab a shower before going out for dinner and hitting the town. For anyone interested, Boulder definitely had the best (and largest amount of) breweries of anywhere I’ve been on the trip.
The Sunday was Independence Day and I was lucky enough to join Sean, his girlfriend Laura and two rather excitable but (worryingly) adorable little dogs in spending it at a beautiful house on a lake with a keg, bbq, several of Sean’s old work colleagues and their families. Horrible way to spend a day. In fact it was made even more spectacular when a huge thunderstorm rolled through late in the afternoon. Although it drove us inside and put paid to most of the big fireworks displays around, I couldn’t help but stand out on the decking staring up into the sky. I didn’t have my camera with me, but quite a few others were taking photos. I’m trying to get some of those.
The next two houses down were defying the rain and launching their fireworks anyway, so Sean and I positioned ourselves right between the two and got happily damp as guys did their best not to kill themselves in setting them off. Eventually out came the tequila with each shot followed by a round of head butts. Participated in somewhat more enthusiastically by some than others, which I’d imagine was fairly highly correlated with the degree to which a person’s head hurt the following day.
I woke up pretty early the next morning and walked out into the lounge to get a drink just as the sun was coming up over the lake and reflecting off the beautiful dark wood floors. We stayed the following morning for a boat trip, swim in the lake and a quick lunch before driving back to Boulder. I’d planned to leave that evening for a short ride back up into the mountains, but we seemed to manage to find ways to use up time (leaving slightly late, deciding to get an appointment at the Apple store in Boulder to try and get my IPod fixed, missing said appointment and getting a later one, getting some food in a restaurant whilst waiting for appointment, demonstrating to girl in Apple store that I wasn’t being dumb and that the thing really was stuck in a never before seen loop. Ok, so that’s mostly IPod related). By the time we’d finished it was nearly 6pm and far too late to set off, so instead we had another drink and then it gave Sean and Laura the opportunity to show me a bit more of Boulder. Didn’t quite manage to get to bed as early as we planned though.
I didn’t really want to leave when it got to Tuesday morning, but I was sent on my way again with a great breakfast in my stomach and a very interesting book from Laura.
As for now, I was nearing the end of the cycling part of my trip, but it appears it may have ended sooner than planned, which is a real shame. Last week one of my tires essentially gave up the ghost. I had been carrying three spare inner tubes with me and I had to use all of them in just over 24 hours. This got me as far as the biggest town in the area, Dillon with a population of about 2,000, which is apparently the hometown of Eric Daniels, who is the Chief Exec for the bank I work at (or so says Wikipedia).
It was a nice little town, but didn’t have the spares I needed and I ended up getting a bus for 200 miles to the last big place on the route, Missoula, population about 65,000, where I was easily able to get it fixed, but immediately caught a stomach bug that has completely knocked me out for the last few days. The lady who runs the motel is taking care of me and has been to pick me up some stuff from the supermarket and brought me breakfast yesterday. I’m a little better now than I was a couple of days ago (in the sense that I can leave my room), but I’m nowhere near a fit state to ride and I can’t really afford to lose any more time here, so tomorrow morning I’m getting back on the buses again to somewhere near Glacier National Park. If I can recover in another couple of days, I’ll be able to ride through the park, which I’m desperate to do, but otherwise it’s a bus tour. Either way, by next weekend I’ll have taken the train back to the West Coast. Rather a depressing week all in all, but please don’t feel sorry for me. It’s all part of the adventure and is making for some interesting stories.
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