After an awesome afternoon and evening in Breckenridge on July 14th with Mark, Marcus, Nadaleen, and Liz we woke up the next morning, cooked a tasty breakfast, watched the end of the Tour de France and hit the road. The road we hit just happened to lead to Boreas Pass, the highest continental divide crossing of our trip! During the climb we were constantly being passed by people on bikes that looked significantly faster than ours. At the top we found out that they were warming up for the Rocky Mountain Endurance 100 mile race. We also found an aid station there and they gave us a menagerie of tasty treats including some delicious Orange Creamsicle Heed that left us dreaming of ice cream for days. The rest of the day was spent riding through areas filled with named roads leading nowhere, part of planned subdivisions that never were built. We found a nice side of the trail, stopped early and relaxed for the evening.
The next day after a steep climb we dropped into the awesome town of Salida. Naturally our lunch stop included beer! Amica's provided us with not only homemade beer but also some amazing pizza that kept us going for the long day ahead. Before starting up the 4000 foot climb to the top of Marshall Pass we met Tom from Durango riding a section of the divide. After finally getting off the road and back onto dirt the climb, despite taking what felt like a number of weeks wasn't too bad thanks largely to the shady Aspens. 3.5 hours later at the top we found a sweet free cabin, the first since Canada, the Continental Divide Trail, and the Colorado Trail. We descended a long sweet descent to almost the small town of Sargents and slept on the side of the trail.
The next day we made some awesome new friends! Just before lunch we met Bunny, Stacy, and Sarah, three friends who have been riding sections of the CO portion of the divide for the past couple years. We leapfrogged for a while and then met up for the climb to the top of the pass. At the top we said goodbye to the girls and rode off to climb another pass.
Lunch the next day was at the Peace of Art Cafe. It was delicious and we also restocked at the attached store filled with various pieces of art and cloth and organic food. We learned an important lesson that night, rice pasta is frankly not good. This was made significantly more disappointing by the fact that we had just climbed up Indiana Pass, the highest point on the GDMBR, and gotten to the top at well after dark. Camping at almost 12000 feet was cold but we got through the night no worse for the wear. Also earlier in the Joshua got his first flat making it almost 2000 miles flat free!
The next day started with a ride through the Summitville Mine cleanup superfund site. We planned on resupplying in Horca. Unfortunately their food supply was quite limited and we ended up with hotdogs and cans of baked beans and chili for the next few dinners. Towards the end of the day we were caught by John from Toronto on a Surly Karate Monkey. John started about 10 days after us in Banff and had finally caught us. After that we had an awesome surprise. Wheelmen alum Steven Kilbert had left us directions to a cache he placed. After a bit of hunting we found it and it made our very limited resupply seem okay. Among other tasty treats we got some Happy Camper IPA, a New Mexico brew. Thanks a ton Steve! Two other exciting things happened today; we passed the 2000 mile mark, and crossed into our last state, New Mexico! Also Jasper got his second flat and put on his new tire.
Other than a second flat for Joshua to even the score not much happened on the 20th. That being said our first day in New Mexico was very pretty. Unlike the NM that we expected, it looked, smelled, and even sounded like we were riding through Tahoe!
The next morning Joshua woke up to find much to his horror that his crank bolt was missing. After searching high and low and traveling a few miles back up the ride we concluded that this bolt had sailed and was not to be found. Luckily there was enough grime in Joshua's cranks that they magically stayed on all day. Lunch was in El Rito which was a ranger station and a restaurant. There used to be a gas station and grocery store but they closed, oh small towns. As we left El Rito we apparently rode from Tahoe to Mexico. The trees stopped, cactuses started, the houses were all of the sudden adobe, even the signs were in Spanish. We made it to the next town, Abiquiu, Georgia O'Keeffe's home town where we bought ice cream, cherries, and other food for the next day. Leaving town meant beginning what was billed as the hardest climb of the trip with 4000 feet vertical over 26 miles. After about two miles the climb reached a screeching standstill as a thunderstorm started. Rain began dumping in bucketfuls from the sky, balls of ice were shot down like tiny bullets with the thunder so loud we were wishing for earplugs. We found a lovely tree to seek shelter under and experienced the power of nature for the next two hours from that spot. Naturally, shows like this are best enjoyed with a brew so we finished the last two happy campers Steven had left us in the cache. The storm ended mostly and we slowly made our way up the hill first walking and then as the roads dried riding until we made camp 8 miles into the climb. After Indian food for dinner we laid down and fell asleep as 180 degrees of thunderstorms around us illuminated the sky.
The next morning we spent the first three and a half hours of our day riding up and up and up and up. Lunch came mercifully at the top of the climb. With hopes of outrunning the ugly looking clouds we started down the trail toward Cuba, NM where we would be having our final rest day. The trail was not in our favor and after 6 miles of some of the roughest, rockiest trail yet that would have made for an excellent chocolate milk commercial we began climbing again. As the trail rolled up and down the rain inevitably came. Luckily after a bit of a downpour and some hail we were on the bikes again. We hit the paved descent into Cuba and like bats out of hell flew down the smooth, fast 2500 feet in ten miles twisting and winding our way into town. We arrived in town with goofily large grins on our faces and got a motel room. Showers brought us back to looking like humans again save for our grizzly beards and we had a delicious dinner at El Bruno's, complete with the area specialty of sopapillas, fried dough with honey. We then ventured back to the motel and settled in for some much needed rest.
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