Dillon Reservoir to Hartsel

Today was a pretty cool day! 

Well it starts with last night. Steve, the sobo rider I shared the campsite with was indeed from the UK (good job accent detector) and he brought beers! I started in Banff something like 26 days ago. That's quick!  He also brought beers. That's a mark of a good man. We hung out and had a good night. 

We got out today at about 7:30am. Today I only had planned to go 27 miles or so since I was getting used to the elevation and (very) worried). The first 13 or so was relatively easy into Breckenridge on a bike path but I did huff and puff a bit. I was already ahead of Steve and we got seperated there, but I had a great breakfast at a local diner and tons of coffee. This seemed to cure my altitude issues.

Then it was a 13 miles or so climb up steep, three cars at a time, narrow railroad grade to the highest continental divide crossing on the GDMBR (not the highest pass though) at somewhere around 11,400 feet. The cool thing is, I had no notable issues with the elevation!  I also refound Steve at the top! 

The planned stop for the day was only 5 miles downhill and it was only 12:30 so I quickly ruled that out. We had a sweet 10 mile downhill into Como which is a very small old railroad town and we got there at 1:30. Also too early to stop and there was really nothing there but a post office worker who gave me home made cookies and some cute dogs.

So we pushed on to Hartsel, 30 miles over rolling hills and my planned stop for the following day. It was a great ride! Overcast and ringed by mountains and storms. I had 10 miles of tailwind (storm behind), 10 miles of swirling sidewinds (storms around), and 10 miles of headwind (storm ahead), arriving at Hartsel (dry, somehow) around 4:40 with 5:40 on bike, and 66 miles. We are also at 8,800 feet.

This place is pretty cool. It's a very small town, only a few buildlings, but it sits on a confluence of the Trans Am coast to coast road route and the Divide (we've met similarly at other places, Rawlings, Grand Titons, maybe others).  As such there are five riders in town, Steve and I, two East Bound Trans Ammers, and a nobo Divider. We didn't really get a chance to hang with with the other three as we chose opposite places to eat (two resteraunts in town.)

It was an excellent day of riding and a great first day back. I feel great!