Our First Bike Tour--Fall 2011

The planned route

Well, we got ambitious...and perhaps a little crazy after we moved to Boulder, Colorado. We wanted to see and do everything! We felt invincible, motivated by the beautiful new environment and active locals!

We had been wanting to do a bike tour for a while, Drew had some vacation time he needed to use up, and we live just at the base of the rocky mountains...literally :). So we looked up a route for a professional bike tour done up through Rocky Mountain National Park, trimmed it down to about half the distance, and added more time as we would be pulling all of our camping gear and our little man....

What to bring...!? Our first challenge was packing. Being September we had to plan/pack for cold camping whether.

This first packing arrangement of the BOB trailer--it went through several on the trip--didn't last more than a block. Becky couldn't balance it (too top heavy!). We thought perhaps our trip wasn't going to work but Drew offered to put and pull even more of the gear in the Chariot and Becky finally got more courage and balance. We were off!

Our first stop. We left from our house in North Boulder and headed south out of town. The highway borders beautiful fields that reminded us of our Idaho rides. Rode 11 miles (felt like 50) to the turn off Coal Creek Rd. Alvin was sure a happy little rider!

After a late start (around 11 am) and crawling speeds up the hills--actually it was more like one long hill--up Coal Creek Road. We found out the hard way why this road was NOT included in the bike tour we had copied our route from! The 23 miles felt like 100 miles. Every part of our bodies and poor knees scram at us to stop but stopping made it almost impossible to get going again as we were always on a hill with heavy trailers. It was getting late and dark quick and although the campground we planned on reaching was "only" a few more miles we knew we it might as well have been 50. Just then we saw a fire truck pull up into the wilderness fire station. We went to ask where we could pull off and camp around there. The firewoman said we could probably park right around the corner of the station. It was owned by a private owner but he wouldn't mind. Answer to prayers!

Home sweet home--night #1

Hot water in a nalgene bottle in your sleeping bag = good night sleep!

Becky--about 7 weeks pregnant on the ride. No sickness the whole ride and convinced it is the "exercise cure"...or else just too tired and sore everywhere else to notice! Regardless it served as great motivation to keep exercising during this pregnancy.

The next day we were grateful we had stopped where we had to camp as it was a lot further ride then it seemed on the map to our planned camp site. We made it to Nederland--a small mountain town 20 miles west of Boulder--where we would start up the peak to peak highway. This was planned to be our longest day of riding--about 40 miles up a very mountainous road. We were headed towards unknown, unpopulated, mountainous territory and knew there was no way we were going to make it by nightfall...and there were dark clouds gathering. We road a few miles on this beautiful highway and were grateful for some downhill! Alvin was starting to get tired of sitting and hungry. We stopped here and evaluated our situation. It was difficult. We wanted so badly to keep going, but we knew that it was best to turn around and head home. We headed back (this time up the hill) to Nederland.
We'll come back and ride this highway someday for sure!

Our little bear cub found a friend! He was glad to get out and stretch his legs and get some grub at the local "granola" grocery in Nederland.

Now, life wasn't all that bad for Alvin he slept great in his trailer :). On the way home Alvin conked out while we rode down Boulder Canyon road. It was fast with a lot of curves and little to no shoulder. Definitely getting life insurance before we ever do that road again (which is unlikely). About half way down we decided to calm our nerves a little with some normal touristy sightseeing...

Boulder Falls

Reached the Boulder Creek path. Very relieved to get off of the busy highway!

Arrived home, put our bikes in the house, our gear in the car and headed to our camp site in Rocky Mountain National Park--after one quick stop at Whole Foods for some mac n' cheese with peas for dinner. It is strange what biking a lot with do to your cravings!
Oh, if you are curious 'organic' mac n' cheese tastes just like regular. And if you ask for marshmallows at Whole Foods you will only get strange looks!

Alvin had a blast exploring and climbing

So, what did we do the rest of the week? Went to Denver to test ride tandem bikes at
De Vince Bicycles! We can't wait to get one someday.
We have a long "to do differently next time" list, of course (distances on hill = three times the effort and time of riding on flat roads!).
It's hard (especially when our knees finally got feeling normal) not to look back and think,
'we could have/should have kept going! We could have made it.' But we learned some great lessons and, most importantly, made some wonderful family memories.
Things don't always turn out the way you plan but can still turn out great if we learn to move on, adapt, and have fun!