Eighty Miles of Cycling! It Doesn't Get Much Better Than This.

Today was all about the bike! Steve and I planned to ride a 60-70 mile route from Estes Park to Boulder via the town of Ward. The plan was to take Hwy 66 from the YMCA Camp down through Estes Park, and then turn off on Hwy 7 and climb past the Longs Peak trailhead and descend toward Lyons until we hit Highway 72. There, we’d turn off onto 72 and ride what we thought would be a generally downhill route to Ward, at which time we’d turn off onto a road called "Lefthand Canyon" and descend just east of Boulder. Unfortunately, our plan didn’t work out quite right.

We left Broadview fairly early in the morning, around 7:00 or so. I forgot to bring any of the disposable cameras, so I have no pictures of this ride, which is a darn shame. It was beautiful! We drove to the Y camp and unloaded our stuff back behind the Sweet Memorial building in the parking lot next to the pool. From there, Steve and I headed out of the camp and onto Hwy 66 to descend into Estes Park. Following our plan, we went through Estes Park and turned right onto Highway 7 toward the Longs Peak trailhead. This was pretty much a 6 or 7 mile climb with no real breaks. The grade wasn’t bad, but I don’t recall ever climbing for such a long distance straight. It wasn’t easy, but we warmed up nicely by the time we got to the trailhead and began our descent. The descent was a VERY welcome break. It lasted about 3-4 miles and felt great. At the bottom, we then had some rolling hills before we finally hit Highway 72.

At Highway 72, we turned right only to discover that what we THOUGHT would be a descent was really an 8-9 mile climb to Ward. Oh my goodness, that was a LONG hour! To make matters worse, when we got to Ward, we missed the turn-off for Lefthand Canyon. The road wasn’t marked and we just went right by it. We got a couple of miles outside of Ward before we decided to turn around and go back to look for it. Unfortunately, the 2-3 miles we went past the turn-off were all downhill, so we had to climb back up to Ward to find the right road. Since it wasn’t marked, we had to guess whether we were in the right place. Turns out, we were. But, by then, we were so tired from the extra climbing, we stopped for 30 minutes or so at a small general store in Ward. The sun had started to heat up the air, and at close to 12:00 PM, it was at least 90 degrees already. We refueled, topped off our water bottles, and then hopped back on the bikes for the descent on Lefthand Canyon Road.

Wow, what a ride that was!!! We must have averaged over 32 mph down that canyon road. We took turns leading the charge, and must’ve passed 10 other cyclists going down the road and more than twice that number coming up. I think the canyon road was more than 8 miles long, but it didn’t take us too long to get to the bottom. Once there, Steve pointed out the turn off that was part of Old Stage Hill, the big climb on the Boulder Peak triathlon course. We didn’t go that way, but we did end up a few miles east of Boulder on Highway 36. We then peddled into downtown Boulder and stopped to have lunch at Chili’s. By then, it was 1:00 PM and we’d already gone 65 miles! From our planning, we’d thought we would have only gone 35 to 40 miles by then. The missed turn off added at least 5-8 miles, and I think we misjudged the distance Ward was from the Highway 7/Highway 72 interchange. In any event, we were already pretty tired and were looking at hitting 100 miles if we tried to ride back up to the Y camp.

Although both of us wanted to try to do the whole 100 miles, it wasn’t going to happen. Tonight was Lisa’s and my turn to cook dinner, and I had to be back early to start helping out. If we’d ridden the whole 100 miles, Steve and I wouldn’t have made it back until at least 4:00 PM. Dinner was early tonight because Matt and Shauna were meeting a friend to play tennis at 7:00. So, Steve called Laura and she agreed to meet us in Lyons to pick us up and drive us back to Estes Park.

After lunch, we saddled up and headed out to Lyons, which was only about 17 miles from where we were in Boulder. The ride was pretty uneventful. It was mostly slightly downhill from Boulder, which surprised me. It was an easy ride, but about 2 ½ miles from where we were to meet Laura, my rear tire hit something and I got a flat. First time in about 600 miles on that tube! I changed it out okay (a little slow, but I wasn’t hurrying!) and we were on our way. We met Laura (and as it turns out, Lisa and the twins were with her) at the corner of Highway 7 and Highway 36 in Lyons. My odometer at that point read 80.56 miles! That’s by far my longest ride this year. We got there at 3:00 PM, so I was right about the time. If we’d tried to ride the additional 20 miles to Estes Park and the additional 2 more miles back to the Y camp, we’d never have made it in time for me to help out with dinner and Lisa might have been a little ticked by that! Although I’d have loved to do the full 100 miles, I think we made the right call!

Dinner tonight was good! Lisa and I had bought two large salmon fillets. She seasoned one with salt and pepper and the other with Italian dressing. We threw together a mixed salad and some long grain wild rice, and had a very nice meal. We even cooked up some chicken for Matt, since I learned after we got the salmon that he’s not a real fish guy! Lisa also whipped up a chocolate jello pudding oreo pie for dessert. It was YUMMY! Of course, more wine with dinner and after dinner!

Another fabulous day!