Pueblo, CO to Lamar, Co

Today was the day we  hope for good weather and a tailwind as we left Pueblo, CO and headed to the Kansas border.  We got the nice weather but a crosswind to go with it. 
We were on track to do a real good 100 mile ride:  50 miles is 2hrs 14minutes, 65 miles in 3hrs and then my luck ran out;  my lower back muscles started cramping and the crosswinds started.  It was a tough 35 miles but did complete it.  Don finished in 5hrs and 7 minutes and I was 5hrs and 13 minutes.  NOT my best 100 miler but conditions have to better to get under 5 hrs!

Not really an exciting day for scenery...it was just grasslands and railroad cars the whole 100 miles.  This is what  I fear it will be like in Kansas--corn, corn, corn, cows, corn.


Here is a description of the TransAmerica Route from Pueblo, CO to Yorktown, VA:
Pueblo offers bike shops and great places to eat; it also serves as the halfway point of the TransAm Trail (time to celebrate!). It's a good place to stock up -- it's the largest city you'll pass through until Carbondale, Illinois.

Things start to dry out as you get into the eastern part of Colorado and cross into western Kansas. Carrying extra water is a good idea here -- this is hot, barren country. Right around Haswell, Colorado, you'll see your last hazy glimpse of the Rocky Mountains. Overnights at city parks in Kansas are usually accompanied by cool dips in the city swimming pools. You might have to do some early morning and early evening riding to escape the midday heat. Don't miss the pies at Cookie's in Golden City, Missouri! The flat-as-a-pool-table terrain of the Great Plains will change quickly into the roller-coaster riding of Missouri. You'll find Missouri offers Civil War history, terrific canoeing (at Eminence), and an excellent swimming hole (Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park).

The route crosses the Mississippi River at Chester, Illinois, and heads into Carbondale, another fun college town. A ferry takes you across the Ohio River into Kentucky, where you'll enjoy the evening fireflies at your campsites. Kentucky offers rolling white-fenced farms and woodlands until reaching Berea, the gateway to the Appalachian Mountains. A loop south of the route will take you to see Mammoth Caves National Park, the longest cave system in the world. Past Berea, you'll spend some time ascending and descending the mountains of the Appalachians, and riding part of the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia. The mountains turn to rolling hills and then flat riding through lush plantations and farmlands. The last stretch of the route is rich in the history of the American Revolution, with Colonial Williamsburg as the highlight. Yorktown, situated on the Chesapeake Bay, is the route's end.

Terrain
Some stretches of the western portion of the route follow large river valleys and can be generally flat, but expect some climbing almost every day between Astoria, Oregon, and Pueblo, Colorado. The passes throughout the Rocky Mountains are generally long but not terribly steep. The descents from these passes are, of course, a blast. Most of Kansas is beautifully flat. Missouri through the Ozarks and eastern Kentucky through the Appalachians offers short, steep climbs. The Virginia portion of the route, surprisingly, has more total elevation gain than any other state.

Logistics
Camping choices will vary across the country between small private campgrounds, city parks, state and national parks, national forests, and the occasional back yard. The northern Oregon coast is a heavily traveled tourist route and is flush with camping and service opportunities. From Oregon eastward through Kansas, you'll find services limited mainly to the towns along the route. Carrying extra water in the West is a good plan. Camping options improve once you're in the Rockies, but you should still expect some long stretches between accommodations and services. Options will increase near tourist areas such as Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Kansas is legendary for its hospitality. Camping in city parks is the norm through Kansas and Missouri. Food, water, and overnight accommodations are abundant from Missouri to Virginia.

Colorado Springs, CO

Today was a scheduled day off as we let our legs recupperate from the mountains of the "Western Express" part of the ride.   This section was much harder than we expected becuase we were trying to do 100 miles  a day and that is just not feasable in these mountains.  If we were not on a time schedule, we could have easily done each and every mile of this section but in shorter amounts (40 miles per day average).  Still doing 1200 miles in the 17 days was very rewarding and the plus was we got to see many more sites than expected.

Today, we  spent the day in Colorado Springs at the Air Force Academy, Olympic Training Center, Garden of the Gods and the Broadmoor Hotel.  All interesting and vastly different tourist sites.  Pictures to follow in the next few days.

I have a college friend who lives out here and was hoping to see him but it did not pan out due to his work and family schedule.   Pretty disappointed about that becuase it is not to often we get to see one another, but I will be back here next year with the kids..so we will catch up then.

Tomorrow, if the weather gods work with us, we plan on trying for a quick 100 miles.  They say the easterly winds and slow decline in elevation into Kansas can make for a fun ride.  Hopefully we will get that chance tomorrow.

Coalpile, CO to Pueblo, CO  (1589 miles completed)

Today was an easy ride. We rode mostly downhill from Coalpile to the Royal Gorge; took time out to play tourist and then road from Canon City to the outskirts of Pueblo.  We would have ridden further but a nasty little storm showed up and we had to dive into the van to escape the rain. 

Tomorrow is a day off and we will be in Colorado Springs seeing the sites and visiting with one my college friends; then on Monday, we are heading for Kansas.

Gunnison, CO to Coalpile, CO

Today was the day that Don and I have been preparing for...the climb up Monarch Pass which is just outside of Gunnison Colorado.  The pass is only 11,300 ft but we are always nervous having a 10 mile climb to get to that height. 
What I thought would be a tough climb was actually not that tough.  It is becuase of the 15 previous days of riding in the mountains and high winds that have trained our legs to just keep grinding away on these hills.   What Don and I have learned is that we have very different cadence's when climing the mountains.  I have a faster pace than Don, so I always end up getting to the top in front of Don.  This really doesnt matter because its not a race and I end up getting cold becuase I wait for him at the top (for pictures).  What legs I have for the mountains, Don has for the straight aways, and it will be interesting to see how we measure up in Kansas:)

We rode 82 miles today and could have gone longer, but we realized that the only hotels/motels were back in Salida, CO (20 miles back), so it did not make sense to keep going when we were going to have to backtrack for the night.   Dinner was different.  We ate at Quincy's (a local small place) and all they serve is Prime Rib on the weekend.  Your only choice is the amount of P.R. and what you want for dessert.  I ordered the 20 ounce P.R thinking there would be a lot of fat  and I was wrong.  This slab of meat was huge and really good down to teh last bite:)  Included was a dinner salad with ranch, baked potatoe, fruit, and drink.  All for $16.95--that is not a mistake--it was that cheap.  A very good dinner that is making me sleepy. 

Tomorrow, we get to Peublo and will make a side visit to the Royal Gorge.

Ridgeway, Co to Gunnison, CO

Got an early start this morning, with the easy ride from Ridgeway to Montrose before we started the climb over two peaks on our way to Gunnison.  We were able to make the two peaks but on the way down the second peak, the skies once again, opened up and the rain and lightening started....I don't do lightening.  So in the van we went and rode in style to Gunnison.  This evening, we took it easy, by cleaning our bikes and taking care of any little issues we had so that we are ready for tomorrow.  The biggest mountain we will climb on this whole trip happens tomorrow with us scaling the 11,300 foot Monarch Pass.  After that it is a few days riding into Pueblo, CO and our day off for sightseeing in Colorado Springs. 

Delores,  CO to Ouray, CO

Started the day off early and got on the bikes at 6:45am to make the climb up and over Lizard Head Pass and down through Telluride, Co, Ridgeway, CO to Ouray, CO.

As we neared the top of Lizard Head Pass the dark clouds came in, thunder rolled around the mountain tops and we picked up our pace to get over the pass and down into Telluride.  We almost made it before the skies opened up and the weather turned bad.   It became quite cold and our downhill wet ride incorporated very cold temps and freezing hands.  Not good when you are doing 40mph downhill on skinny tires:)

Telluride is a nice ski town with a lot of rich people.   The main street is set up nice with many little niche stores but what really stands out in this town are the beautiful houses on the mountainside.  I fell in love with a few houses but the lowest started at 1.2 million dollars.  A little too much for my salary. 

The weather never let up and we decided to ride in the van the rest of the way down to Ridgeway, CO.  Thankfully it was the right choice as we saw a few vehicles having a hard time navigating their way down the mountain in the rain.  Tourists, mountain roads, rain and rubbernecking are not good combinations.  Once in Ridgeway, we had the choice of heading to Montrose for lodging or showing off Ouray, CO to Sal and Rod.  Don and I had been through this little town two years ago on our training rides and fell in love with the little town. It is like Telluride but without the big money walking around.   Once in town, we stayed at the Antler's Motel where we met a the owner/operator, who is a teacher in Florida, during the school year, but comes up here with the family during the summer month's. 

I must tell you that I had the best BBQ Ribs EVER at the Billy Goat Bistro next to the hotel.  When you are as hungry as we are after a day of riding; most food is pretty good but this was three steps above the rest and I said as much on TripAdvisor.

Tomorrow, we start week three of our trip and we have ridden 1,00o miles so far in the 12 days of riding.  Pretty good for a couple of old farts:)

Blanding, Utah to Delores, CO

We took today off and went siteseeing.  We visited Monument Valley (Utah/Arizona) where many films including Forrest Gump, Back to the Future III and many John Wayne movies have been filmed.  Next we went to the Four Corners Monument (Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico all meet.  We were suprised, as were many others who showed up to see this monument that it was closed for reconstruction.  We could not even get close enough to have an idea of what it looked like becuase of the construction fencing.  Last, we drove up to Cortez, CO to the Mesa Verda National Park, to see the cliff dwellings made by the Pueblo indians.  It was an intersting lesson in how these indians came to the area and found relief in the caves/overhangs of the mountains and what they did to survive. 

Tomorrow, we start our trek through Colorado and towards the biggest climb of the Trip (Monarch Pass) just outside of Crested Butte, CO.   We ride mostly uphill tomorrow past Telluride, Ridgeway and Ouray, CO; on our way to Montrose.  We may stay in Ouray, CO  tomorrow night since Don knows some previous students who live out there and it is a beautiful little town. 

Torrey, Utah to Blanding, Utah

We started out right from the hotel and rode into Capital Reef National Park.  This was another gorgeous park and one were the Mormons first settled back in the 1800's.  There were many petroglyphs (indian drawings) that you could look at and try to figure out the story they were trying to tell.

The ride today was good.  Beautiful views and no real super hard mountains to climb.  The only concern we had at the end of the ride was that there was no town for another 50 miles (Blanding) so we had to hope in the van and drive to town for a hotel and dinner:(  We did get to see the Natural Bridges National Monument which consisted of three natural bridges carved our the canyons by the colorado river...

Tomorrow, we are changing up the itinerary a bit and heading south (no riding) and going to Monument Valley (the views shown in Forrest Gump, when he was running), the "Four Corners" where Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico state lines all meet and then up to Mesa Verda National Park.  We are looking forward to the rest day and allowing our bodies to recooperate while we site see.

Tropic, Utah to Torrey, Utah

This morning, we took the time to drive through Bryce Canyon National Park and saw some of the most beautiful scenery in America.  As much as I have traveled in my life, I have never seen anything like this--see pictures of week 2.

Once done with our tour, we hopped on the bikes and began the ride to Torrey, Utah (the entrance to Capital Reef National Park).  The ride threw a bit of everything at us from 16% grades, unbelievable views, dangerous roads to high winds coming down off the mountains.  We are defintely feeling stronger with each day's ride, but we are looking forward to a break in Colorado in a few days.  We had dinner at the Rim Rock resturant which came recommended to us becuase of the spectacular views.  We were not disappointed.  The 360 degree views were only outclassed by the food.

We met a few other riders today that are doing the cross country route that we are doing but they started in Yorktown, VA and are riding to San Francisco, CA.  They have been on the road for 8 weeks and have two more weeeks to finish.  That is the biggest difference in our situation.  We only have 44 days to start and complete this ride (6 weeks), and that is really pushing it but I have to get back to my job. 

If you look at the map page, you can see were we are at on a daily basis.  As of today, we are 1/2way through Utah and on our way to Colorado.  We should be in Colorado on Tuesday.

Happy 4th of July to everyone.

Cedar City, Utah to Tropic, Utah

The day started off with a new saddle on the bike and no wind.  Although tired, I was optimistic about the day and ready to get started until I saw the map.  Once again, as we put the tires on the ground, it was nothing but uphill for the next 19.8 miles.  Once on the bike, my knees told me that they had other plans for the day and they let me know that they were sore and in pain.  As the ride progressed to the three mile point, I actually thought I was going to have to stop riding becuase of the pain.  Well, the knees finally gave up sending me the pain signal and I was off and riding and feeling strong.  The moutain threw its best at us with its 8% inclines, switchbacks, and cold air but after three hours of riding at an average of 6.9mph we concurred the mountain and made it to Cedar Breaks National Park.  WOW!!  These were the views I was hoping to see on this trip and I was amazed at the landscape(Pictures on the Week 2 page).  Once in the park, we were up and down on the trailridge road until finally coming out of the park and heading down into Panguitch, Utah.  From there we rode into the Red Canyon Park on our way to Bryce Canyon National Park.  We did a total of 85 miles today and we felt great, saw beautiful views and ended the ride on a downhill with no wind!!

I got upto 51.4 mph on a long downhill--it was awesome and scary at the same time!

The only sad thing about today is that I am missing my family.  I did get to speak with them but it is not the same as giving them a hug and kiss each day:(