My Two-wheeled Vacation

| 01 August 2009

Traveling by bicycle is the ultimate in green driving, so I decided to travel by two wheels instead of four for my vacation this year. I turned sixty in May. My original plan was to ride a bicycle across the US, but the economy put the kibosh on that, so I took one month off instead of three and rode across Southern Colorado and Utah. My friend, Nevin, and I flew into Pueblo Colorado and took a taxi to the bicycle shop we had previously shipped our bicycles and Burley trailers to. The bikes were assembled and ready to go, so we loaded up our camping gear and headed out. We were following Adventure Cycling's "Western Express" (adventurecycling.org) route traveling east to west. A more appropriate name for the mapped route might have been "Western Hills and Passes", as we ascended six nine thousand foot plus passes in Colorado alone, with one of them, Monarch Pass, topping eleven thousand feet! We had tried to get in shape by hauling our trailers to San Simeon and back over Highway 46, a 2000' foot climb from Highway 1, and riding to work and back from Atascadero a couple of days a week, but the reality of thin air and relentless, three, four, and five thousand foot climbs, one after another, sort of took the edge off our initial excitement.
Despite the grueling climbs, high altitude cycling has its advantages. In the transparent Colorado and Utah mountain air we could see vistas of peaks and chasms, meadows and plains with startling clarity. We suffered through rain and hail storms, accompanied by thunder and lightning, and were there to see the clouds part, revealing fourteen thousand foot peaks covered in fresh snow. The smell and taste of the air at such altitude was incredibly invigorating, especially after a drenching downpour followed by brilliant sun. One of the delights of travel at the moderate pace of a bicycle is the opportunity to really look at something. Like sailing on the ocean, objects and geological features appear on the horizon, slowly grow in size until you are upon them, and just as slowly shrink from view, giving the cyclist ample time to view and consider, unless, of course he happens to be going down the far side of an 11,000 foot pass, in which case hanging on for dear life takes precedence over leisurely viewing!
Another benefit of travel by bike is the camaraderie of mutual suffering. At one point we were standing by the side of the road in a torrential downpour, half way up a pass that seemed to go on forever, bathed in sweat from the effort of riding uphill in rain gear. I turned to Nevin with my hands apart as if to say "what the heck are we doing here?" He replied "It's an adventure, what did you expect!" I have driven some of the roads we rode and I can safely tell you that a scenic over look is a lot more dramatic and appreciated if you have to ride there on a bicycle and a lot more fun if you have a fellow sufferer to share it with.
We encountered a number of fellow touring cyclists, many of them from Europe, as well a young man from Korea who was on a solo tour from San Francisco to Virginia. Where are you coming from, how hot or cold was it, and how steep and long are the climbs were the first questions we asked of one another. Great camp sites and culinary delights were a close second. We learned of a bakery in Torrey, Utah that served fresh baked goods with coffee strong enough to melt a spoon, a restaurant/hotel in Boulder, Utah that was on an obscure list of 100 places you had to eat at before you died, and the Cozy Comfort RV Park in Dolores, Colorado, where the hostess got tipsy in the evening and enjoyed visiting her "guests" and the host collected and rode vintage Trials Motorcycles.
A ride with these elements guarantees that you will feel the full range of emotions available, from complete despair as you round a corner you thought was the crest and see that you still have another thousand feet to climb to the sublime joy you feel at a vista that makes it hard to breath, it is so beautiful. Bicycle touring has its draw backs, but the rewards are commensurate with the effort put forth. The harder it is, the greater the reward!