Hammer down and west bound we took off from Kansas across the prairies in search of distant mountains. A few hours in we had gained 4,000 ft and were charging across the plains of eastern Colorado when Jess mentioned that she wanted to see an antelope. No more than 30 seconds later I excitedly pointed and shouted “there, is there anything else I can do for you?” Pointing at a heard of antelope off in the distance. Other than that it was a pretty uneventful and boring slog punctuated only by the final appearance of mountains on the horizon as we neared Denver.
After arriving at Pete’s the plan was as to be expected… work on bikes, talk about bikes, eat good food, and ride bikes. Had it been winter, bikes would have been replaced with skis but seeing as it’s summer, bikes it is. We turned Pete’s apartment into a bike shop and were finally able to get all our pre-trip maintenance taken care of so we’d be ready for months of riding. After a dinner of yellow eyed rockfish (from our Alaskan adventure) and an evening of bike mechanicing we turned in for the evening.
We fueled up for our first full day in boulder with a fantastic breakfast of beer waffles complete with a stand off between Maine and New York maple syrup. We then headed up into the mountains to Nederland to ride. Pete tried to explain to us that he had picked a fairly easy but fun ride for our first day. But as we were sucking wind and dying only a few miles in we had a hard time believing him. “Easy?” I thought “Well really this shouldn’t be that hard, why am I dying? Oh right, we’re at 8,000 ft”. With Pete raring to go and excited to show us more we had to throw in the towel around 10 miles and head down into town for an ice cream cone and some relaxing in the sun. Heading back into Boulder we spent some time checking out the town then swung by the Southern Sun Brewpub for a proper “beer and burger” post ride feast.
Sunday morning we awoke ready to ride again. This time we stayed a bit closer to town and headed up to Botasso Preserve. The lower elevation and fast buff trails made for a much easier and faster ride than the day before. The trail was pretty crowded with other bikers and a few hikers but I think that aspect really gave us the full Boulder experience.
We were sad to move on from Boulder but needed to keep rolling. We soon learned we’d feel that way about just about every place we’d visit, there was just so much to see and so little time.
