24 July 2009 :: Grand Lake to Glenwood Springs (321 miles)

  • 321 miles and at least 100 miles of that was on dirt roads varying from well maintained to roads with one foot deep ruts.
  • Got up at 5:30am to go over (and back) the Rocky Mountain National Park again without traffic. It really is an amazing park with the kind of spectacular views you'd expect at ~12,000 ft. I was one of the first people up on the mountain and the wildlife was out playing on the roads without looking both ways before crossing. Got a few good photos of the elk and other things with antlers attached to their heads.
  • By 10:00am I'd already returned from the Rocky Mountain National Park, packed and checked out of the room I'd stayed the night - mind you lodging in Grand Lake was a little over priced in my view.
  • The only disappointment of the early morning run was that the video I'd taken going from the top of the pass down did not save and so I don't have the footage I thought I'd captured :( All is not lost since I did capture some video on one of my other cameras.
  • It is said crappy stuff happens in threes and apparently the 24th July was going to be one such day. It started out with just something minor, loosing my earbuds that connect me to Jill who lives inside my GPS. I figured I could do without Jill nagging me all day so I set out on the. I'd sketched out a route that followed the headwaters of the Colorado River and then further West through to Meeker.
  • Somewhere on a dirt road between Yampa and Meeker I missed a turn off because Jill, my girlfriend that lives inside the GPS was not nagging me - missing the turn did not bother me so much but missing Ripple Creek Pass was an upset.
  • My trusty Nikon Coolpix S560 mounted to the front of my bike has started to play up and looks like it has already come to the end of its life after just ~3300 miles - it's something else I'm going to have to look at when I get some time (umm, when will that be?) - anyway, crappy thing #2 for the day.
  • I ended up on some pretty wild off-road tracks with ruts deep enough to throw me off my bike easily if I hit them wrong - this was all fine but then I noticed the bike feeling sloppy and I knew what that meant.
  • My first puncture - of all the places it could happen it had to happen on a 70 mile piece of dirt, 30 miles in, between nowhere and nowhere - in the end I lucky enough to be able to slow the leak down such that I could pump the tyre up (with a handheld bicycle pump mind you) once every 30 minutes or so and continue - #3 for the day.
  • I made it to Meeker and was feeling knackered and even though my rear tyre was slowly deflating I decided I was going to make for Glenwood Springs where a hot spring pool sounded too good to pass up on.
  • Headed down to Glenwood Springs Hot Springs for a late swim session - it was worth the extra effort to get there.

Pictures of what I was able to get with the now malfunctioning bike camera.













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