Here’s some notes, for whenever I’m able to write something more prosey (ha!)
5:00am – got up, got ready. Did not have a good night sleep.
5:40am – road out the door. On the map, I’m starting right where the, "N" in Denver is – right in the middle. I’m riding counter-clockwise. There’s a plan to this –
I left before the sun rose, and started on a bikepath. I have little weeny lights, but they’re fine for a bikepath.
At around an hour or so, I got to see the sun rise from the East. Pretty incredible. I’m still going North East, but have transitioned to Riverdale road. Once the sun was up, I turned in Brighton onto 160th – the sun being on my bike.
160th is a pretty boring, flat road and I hadn’t ridden on it before. The shoulder on most of the road is quite enormous – good biking road. Highlight was when I got to Lafayette – there were hot air balloons! They passed right above me! Yeah!
I noticed there was something else in the air – it looked like a plastic bag or something, but just really BIG and really HIGH-
I realized what it was – parachutist! Someone had jumped out of one of the hot air balloons! Then I noticed 2 or 3 others! Wild! This is in the middle of a town, mind. I guess you can get away with all sorts of crazy shit at 8:00am if you have a hot air balloon 🙂
9:45-ish – in Boulder at Baseline and 30th, right where I used to live. Called the ladyfriend, whom lives near that address currently to see if she was home. No answer (sad face). I took a hearty piss on her apartment building though – hard to do! There’s so many windows!
Road up to NCAR and had my first big break and eat some. NCAR Is basically the North West corner of the path. Good view. Good hill, too.
Next was to go back east on South Boulder road to McCasslin, McCasslin South until it turns into Indiana and continue to take Indiana until Coal Creek Canyon Road. I took that West till I reached Highway 93, which at that point, has a good shoulder to it and I took that road South to Golden, and then to Red Rocks where I climbed that hill for another break.
Funny to see all these other cyclists up there, huffing and puffing, talking shit. It was still pretty early in the day for me. I finally had a chance to take off most of my long underwear and stuff them in my handelbar bag. The handlebar bag kept getting heavier and heavier as the day progessed. I basically had an entire alternative wardrobe in there, as well as all my food, my camera, my phone, my wallet, extra batteries, alt. pair of gloves, etc. My bike was weighing over 30lbs – not the most nimblest thing in the world.
After going down Red Rocks, I got onto E-470 to what I thought was Wadsworth, but I made a miscalculation and ended up on Kipling. I saw another cyclist turn West onto a road I’ve never been on, but I thought, what they hey, you know?
That road turned out to be Deer Creek Canyon road, which was quite picturesque. The speed limit was only 25mph and there were many cyclist on the road (swarms!), so I thought this to be a safe bet to ride. I had a conversation with someone:
Me: "Hey! Where does this go?"
Them: "All the way!"
Me: "All the way where!?"
Them: "To the top!"
Me: "How far is that?!"
Them: "About 8 – 10 miles"
Cripes.
One of the longest climbs I can think of ever doing, and already after doing 100+k of riding. But, I switched to a low gear and just grinded up the damn thing. No view, but hell of a ride back down.
On the top, everyone was changing into warmer gear, and I followed suite. I guess that’s a good way to illustrate how long and fast the decent down was. The top of the hill is basically the South Western point of the path on the map.
Took that road basically back East and finally got on to Wadsworth. Took that South to the start of Douglas county and then back up to Chatfield Reservoir and then back on the E-470 trail East.
By this time (haha! Smart Justin!) the sun’s to the west and I’m traveling East. It was nice never to have the sun right in my eyes, basically.
E-470 is a boring path (after Deek Creek Road, everything is, really) through suburbia, but it’s a good ride after the hill sections that started all the way in Boulder – the worst of that is quite behind me.
Around this time, I ran completely out of energy. I had been eating quite regularly. I had gone through 10+ energy bars – Clif Bars, Lara Bars (local!) and actually, 2 Metrix Meal Replacement (lotsa protein) bars – I wasn’t sure about those, but they were a good call. I also had two waterbottles filled with Gatorade. But still, I felt, very very weak.
Made a deal with myself.
When I found a decent place to stop, I’ll get dinner. Kind of a risk. I thought, if I stop now, I may cramp up and be stuck in Suburbia. Or, it may energize me enough to be OK.
Found a Claim Jumper.
Thought that was sort of a smallish chain. No dice. It’s a huge cheesy-theme restaurant.
I went in anyways, all dirty, wearing a cycling jersey and shorts.
I ordered a strawberry milkshake, a cup of coffee and a tuna sandwich.
I ate all that, while watching kick boxing. So awesome.
Managed to lose my wallet in the bathroom (duh! So tired!) and find it again. Which gave me time to flirt absolutely mindlessly with the front greeter girls.
I left a big, "thanks for dealing with the smelly, insane-acting cyclist guy" tip.
Got on the bike, and felt much better. Still quite weak – but good enough to keep going. I think it was the fat content of everything – it’s the one thing nothing in my food I brought really had (Or minimal). Not sure what to do about this next time, except… PB+J’s? Nut-based trail mix? Or just stop again at a really good sandwhich shop? Whatever it was, it did the trick.
Got to Parker Road – that’s the South East corner of the trail on the map and the E-470 trail just sort of… stopped! I was under the impression that it kept going till the airport, but I was wrong.
Hell, at this point, I was starting to hallucinate, so what do I know?
Anyways, that trail turned into the Cherry Creek Bike Path, which goes north all the way I need and passes about 4 blocks to where I live! So that was convenient.
Except,
except there were parts that weren’t completed on the trail! I would ride along (night had fallen, by this point) and then,
and then no trail!
So I just road the dirt road, bushwhacking it. One time, I lost the trail completely and just navigated using side streets of neighborhoods, which are usually all maze-like and not good for headway, but it did the job this time. S. Parker Road wasn’t something I wanted to jump on at this hour.
Afterwards, I crossed a street after losing the trail and on the other side, got onto what I thought was the trail, but it was again, sort of, under construction.
That sort of ended and found myself on well-manicured grass.
And then,
and then there was a flag, in the middle of the grass.
"Ah.", I thought to myself, "I am on a golf course".
I’ve failed to map out the immense pain in the ass this all was, as night, at about 250k+ of kilometerage, with dinky little lights, but you get the idea.
Eventually found myself into the Cherry Creek Reservoir area and that area I know like the back of my hand, which was good, since I was getting cold, I was very tired and the hallucinations. Next time, I should sleep more the day before.
Took that path – back on a bike path – it’s night, so I thought it be the safest thing… almost like I planned ahead.
Anyways – I got to about downing – a sweet 3 miles away from the homestead and I realized, I hadn’t gotten enough distance to make 300k.
So what do I do? I go back South, towards Washington Park, and get on Pearl to Stella’s coffeehouse and get a double expresso shot and then south some more to Evans, west to pick up the South Platte trail (yes, the same one I started on) North back towards home.
Just to ice the cake, I then went *west* on 15th to 29th and went past my friend’s old house on Gray street. I didn’t know if they moved yet, but the lights were off (sad face)
took 26th back *east* and home.
By that time, it was 12:30am on a Saturday, so everything is hopping and bopping.
Got home and felt really weak, but tried to eat some food. Was sort of hyperventilating, which I wasn’t really comfortable about, but didn’t feel like I was going to black out or anything.
And that’s basically, my ride.
I think if anything, if I do something like this again, it’ll be with a different bike – it wasn’t the most comfortable ride for such a distance. The gearing totally SUCKED for this – my lowest gear is something insane and my highest gear was even more insane – nothing I could really use. Hopefully, with the new bike build, this will all be addressed.
