A Few Miles Too Far

With the wedding set to begin around 5 pm, I figured I had the entire morning for another long ride. Around 7 am I filled up my two little water bottles in the hotel bathroom, sprayed on some sunscreen, and headed off to pick up the C-470 bike path. I'd ridden much of it the day before, but this time I hoped to follow it all the way around to Golden. I didn't exactly know how the bike paths all connected, but guessed I'd figure it out when I got there. I was already five miles down the road when I realized I'd forgotten the map back at the hotel. Adventure!!

It was warmer than Friday and things were already starting to heat up pretty well as I went past the reservoir where the bike path curved to the north. Eventually I came to the Bear Creek area where the bike path merged into a tangle of park bike paths. After a few wrong turns I finally got past most of the park and found myself on the west side of C-470 at Bear Creek Road. Looking to the west, I could see the road disappearing up into the mountains. Across the street a few riders were hanging around obviously waiting for the rest of their group to arrive. As I weighed my options a couple of riders went past. So clearly this was a good road for riding. I quickly changed my plans and headed off up the road. As I started climbing I could see a rider up ahead, so naturally I picked up my pace a bit to catch up. We were climbing steadily at about 12 mph and for this rider from New Orleans, it was like being on crack. I knew I was going to have to turn around soon, but I really, really didn't want to stop. I pulled up alongside the other rider who was a guy around my age riding a vintage 80's Tommassini with Campi Delta brakes. He looked like he did this ride every day. As I stepped up the pace he latched on and we continued climbing for a four or five more miles. I was thinking "I'm really going to pay for this on the ride home." Finally, when we reached the town of Kittredge at around , I eased up and apologized for having to turn back. I was already looking at a 75+ mile ride by the time I got back to the hotel. The ride back down the mountain to C-470 was a blast. The speed limit for many sections was around 30 mph, which I was considerably slower than I was going. At one point I was coming up on a Jeep and when the driver saw me she slowed down, eased over, and waved me through. After a few miles at 40+ mph weaving around the bends in the road I was actually starting to feel a little dizzy.

So back down on the bike path I got lost again in Bear Creek park, logging some bonus miles before finding my way back onto the correct path. Now it was really starting to get hot. With fifteen miles left to go I was already rationing my water and my legs were beginning to feel heavy. I was getting rather dehydrated by then and all I could think about were the ice cold cans of Coke floating around in the bottom of the ice chest back at the hotel. The last five miles or so were pretty ugly. A couple of miles from the hotel I called The Wife because I didn't have the room key. Turned out she wasn't at the hotel, so when I spotted a grocery store with vending machines out front I hit the brakes and fed a dollar into the machine for a cold coke. I would have paid two dollars at that point!

Right now I'm at a rather ragged Comfort Inn somewhere north of Dallas and south of Oklahoma City. We'll finish up the rest of the drive tomorrow if the Dallas rush hour doesn't kill us!