What happened on days 3,4 and 5??

Day 3: Craig to Rifle

On paper it looked like a reasonable day - no huge climbs, not too long, but a day in the valleys - kinda nice (or so I thought)


We woke up at 5am to get on the road by 5:30 to get the girls to Craig by 6:30am. It hurts getting up that early, it's just not right I tell you. But we did and the drive in the valley to Craig was beautiful. I unloaded the girls, their bikes and was suddenly struck by the fact that my fingers were not working. They had frozen solid - it was only 38 degrees in Craig. The girls did not approve.


It was ugly, but I was getting back into my warm car and driving to Meeker - ah......

There are huge numbers of deer out here:

Not once, but several times along the highway - so it was slow going to Meeker.

It had warmed up some by the time I finally arrived in Meeker and I unpacked the bike, pumped up tires, got GU, water and I was ready to go.....

About 6 miles out of town, I was working on getting up a hill, finding it darn difficult and had fleeting thoughts that this is so hard, I must have a flat . . . I did. So like a well prepared girl, I got the flat fixed in no time at all, but then I started worrying that I didn't have yet another spare. What to do? I rode on for about a mile before I couldn't stand it any more and turned around, riding back to the car to get another tube - I'm sure doing those extra 12/13 miles was just the trick to not have any more flats that day.

I continued on into Rifle, still one of the first people on the road - pretty much going it alone. occasionally I would pass someone, and I would be passed. But then the reward of a long day in the saddle: a 17 mile down hill.

I started working pretty hard at about 25 miles from Rifle, the wind had picked up and I wasn't going anywhere fast. I was putting out an avg of 210 Watts and going 15 miles an hour - that's just not funny.

I was waiting for that down hill dang it! I was rewarded with the down hill - and wind gusts of over 40 mph, and huge oil trucks whizzing by at 65-75 mph. I started feeling like all the swearing I did when I got the flat was coming back to haunt me. 17 miles down hill took forever, and darn near took the will right out of me. I was toasted, burnt and fried, all on one crispy 90+ degree day. Yup, I was baked!

Day 4: Rifle to Glenwood Springs

I actually had a rational thought: If I hurt waking up, I'll hurt even more riding today. There was also a nasty little fire between Rifle and Glenwood Springs to contend with, so instead of riding that leg, I took a recovery day, and rode about 12 miles - up toward Aspen - easy, nothing big - with a little climb, just to keep me working a bit.

Since I was not going to play "fire-fighter-girl" I went to the caverns and saw this:

Very cool geological formations and darn cool in that cave -

And that brings us to day 5 - Aspen:

In 1971 I visited Aspen on a family vacation. John Denver was blasting on 8-track and all seemed well in the world. It was strange to come back to visit his memorial - and I admit to getting a little choked up when I saw the words to one of my favorite songs on his memorial: The Eagle and The Hawk and it started playing in my head - those were good days, back then.

Also went to the Maroon Bells - it was pretty amazing to see.

Tomorrow is the epic day: up and over Independence Pass - 12,000+ feet - with something like 4700 feet of vertical climbing - Joe has been giving me crap about kicking my butt, so now I have no choice but to get it in gear and rip it up tomorrow.

Over and out.