Lots of photos

Pictures from the trip!

Santa Fe

Making arrangements and enjoying Santa Fe before flying out on Monday. Photos and such:

Nachos with pork belly. Because America. And the divide.

Naked bikes! Weird!

In the box. Much easier than last time.

Jennie putting the finishing touches on her bike.

That's it. Bikeless in Santa Fe. They're being shipped.

To celebrate. Nice tequila. When in Rome.. (Or close to Rome)

The final push

Stayed in Chama last night. Weird campground.

We rode the 60 miles to Abiquiu before noon and didn't feel like stopping so we kept going. (No rain!!)

110 miles in the desert heat and now we're in Santa Fe! A fitting end to this trip.

This motel is terrible but looking forward to some rest, food, and beers.

Us. Bright sun. Tired. Relieved.

Camel rock?

Echo amphitheater.

Off route in New Mexico

From Del Norte we rode 12 or so miles up the road between thunderstorms to get to a cabin available for cyclists. It was not what we expected! I have a lot more pictures but this is the only one on my phone. It was an amazing place with everything homemade and a lot of metal work.

From there it was up Indiana pass to the highest elevation on the route! 11910! It was a high point literally and figuratively for the day. Shortly after we got caught in yet another storm. Fortunately we rolled up to a cabin full of atv'ers and they let us take shelter and fed us! We got rained on more on the way down to Platoro and were so cold that we just stopped riding there. Oh and we hit more mud that rendered our drive trains inoperable. Had to wash them in a stream best we could before continuing.

We decided after this ride, one of several in succession, that we were done. We were going to ride the route to Abiquiui or Cuba but the map warns of bad mud in rain and our nerves are shot from all the thunderstorms. We've been riding early to avoid them but they've been hitting before noon the past few days. We've been starting our days not looking forward to riding but dreading when the storms would hit and how vulnerable we'd be.

So we're riding roads to Santa Fe from here. We'll get there a bit early so we're hoping to ride some single track somewhere nearby once we get there.

Riding up out of the valley (Conejos canyon) we rode down from Platoro. Pretty but one of the worst roads we've been on.

Made it to NM today also. Rode the great divide route all the way through CO except for the last few miles where we diverted to the road.

Del Norte, CO

Saw a rattlesnake this morning. It rattled at me. A first!

Also saw big horn sheep!

Also saw rocks and sand! 

It was a very pretty ride. Sitting in Three Barrels brewery in Del Norte waiting for a hailstorm to pass before setting off another 10 miles up the road.

Beer rest day. Salida, CO

A rest day focused on beer, not a rest day from beer.

We rolled into Salida around mid day Friday and went straight to the bike shop. Despite a previous diagnosis and "repair" that didn't work, the bike mechanic at sub culture bike shop found my headset to be quite the train wreck. He was super nice and got us out of there in a few hours and with way less monetary damage than he rightfully could of. Feels nice now.

While the bike was being serviced we ate pizza and had beer at moonlight pizza. Their white ipa was tasty and a saison mixed with hard apple cider was surprisingly nice!

Then it was off to Amica brewing where I had another saison that was great. Best in a while. 

While picking up the bike, Murph arrived. We guided on the Lehigh river about 8 years ago and I hadn't seen him since. Murph was always one of my favorite people so it was great that his plans for going to the salida beer festival coincided with our trip!! We had a great time catching up.

The festival was Saturday and was fantastic. Lots of solid saisons, session pales, a few notable sours, and one or two stand out IPAs. Best beer festival I've been too hands down, and I was introduced to the pretzel necklace, which I'm sure will now be standard equipment.

Murph was also at the festival with a dozen or more friends from CO. It was great to meet them all!

Short ride today due to logistics. Up and over Marshall pass, just under 11k. At the top we got caught in a gnarly thunderstorm with a bunch of other people and all crowded into an outhouse. That makes two outhouse shelters for this trip. 

Nice descent to Sargents where we ate and watched pea size hail fall. Sleeping here tonight and then off to who knows where tomorrow. 7 days of riding left.

Notable animal sightings recently: coyote and porcupine. 

Hartsel ranch and moonlight.

Not sure I've seen a cactus blooming before. From our campsite for two nights in salida.

Me, Murph, pretzel necklaces.

Hartsel

In Hartsel, CO today after about 70 miles. It was a nice bike path cruise from Silverthorne to Breckenridge and then a nicely graded, very scenic climb up to Boreas pass, 11,482 ft! 

Got poured on on the way down but then it was pretty cool for the rest of the ride to Hartsel. On pace for beer in Salida tomorrow!

On the road out of Breckenridge

Pass beer (a la summit beer) felt surprisingly good climbing up there.

2 lunches, 1 dinner, 2 days of snacks