Sunday - Wednesday, August 29th - September 1st

Sunday was a short ride of about 17 miles from Silverthorn to Breckenridge, all on the bike path but worth doing as we went around Dillion Reservoir. Robert and Joe joined us for the entire ride, sure was a pleasure to have them along. I was still elated from Robert's surprise visit on a dirt road coming out of Radium, that memory will be with me for the rest of my life.

John and I needed a second rest day and took it in Breckenridge to let the bodies rest and to catch up on a lot of emails and other things. Spent all of Monday walking the town looking for various list items to get done. Got most of them checked off.

Tuesday we had a big climb up Boreas Pass, about 2,000 feet of vertical to 11,500 feet. Ended up this was one of our easiest climbs of the trip. The dirt road was originally a narrow gauge railroad bed built from 1880 to 1884 for mining and transportation from Como to Breckenridge and Leadville and beyond. The grade was gradual and we were not huffing and puffing to get up, wish all our climbs were like that. The views are something else, Mount Silverheels over 13,000 feet with multiple colors of green, red, and silver was spectacular. The descent was also long and gradual dropping us in Como, a town waiting to be reclaimed from abandonment 80 plus years ago. With nothing open we moved on. The rest of the ride was through rolling hills in a long wide open valley. The wind picked up and blew us sideways for a couple of hours. We stopped behind a hill for the usual lunch of gorp and jerky. Reached Hartsel, our planned stopping point by 4pm, a little early for terminating the day. Had buffalo burgers and a little ice cream and decided to keep going, there was no place to stay there anyway. While in the cafe a minister from San Antonio came in with his daughter and niece, struck up a conversation about what we were up to. Before he left we held hands in the middle of the cafe (we were the only customers) and he said a prayer for us. Really is amazing the people you meet on a trip like this.

Ended up pedaling another 14 miles to a place next to the road, with stubby grass, a lot of rocky soil and private land, we found some area to camp. John pitched his tent about 20 feet from the road. I put mine in the ditch on a small patch of grass hoping it wouldn't rain and that traffic would be minimal, had luck on both counts. Another reason for moving along that evening was I had a conference call at 3:30pm the next day, with only 35 miles to ride that was not going to be an issue, 50 miles would have been a little tight.

Wednesday we were out of our campsite by 8am with Salida as our destination. Made great time until we hit a watershed divide summit, which we have grown to view skeptically. The last couple of watershed divides have been bigger obstacles than the maps indicate and this one was no exception - a long climb with a sharp steep finale and at 9,800 feet. The descent to Salida provided us with a breathtaking view of the Sawatch Range with many peaks over 14,000 feet it is gorgeous. You have to look at the pictures to get the beauty of these mountains. Made it to Salida by 12:30pm, got a room and put the bikes in for final maintenance since there are no bike shops between Salida, CO and Mexico. My brakes and back tire had worn down to a point that the next 900 miles would exceed their usefulness. Also had to get a final resolution on my water filter pump which hadn't worked since A&M Reservoir way back in southern Wyoming. Had to buy a new one and ship the broken one back. We are going to need a pump for New Mexico as the water will be a bigger issue to filter. At Salida we have 62% of ride behind us and only a few hard climbs left. By the way, Salilda is an eclectic little town with a lot of art galleries, cafes and shops, worth a visit if you are in the neighborhood.


Paste the following link into your browser to see photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/113862939710452121802/DropBox?authkey=Gv1sRgCKXlxP_J1Ib2Dw#

http://americasheroes.wufoo.com/forms/ride-the-divide-for-wounded-warriors/

http://trackleaders.com/divide