biking the Colorado Trail

Suddenly, I have found myself with very little to do, which has lent itself nicely to the pursuit of die-hard activity. Finally today, I convinced Bobby he should join me. Actually, he would not have, if all of our units had not been in-house, leaving him none to paint or fix, but I'll still take the credit for it. He never tells me before hand that he is planning to take a day off, he probably thinks he will jinx it, so my first clue is, when he climbs out of bed, he pulls on his khaki shorts. He only wears shorts on his days off. Khaki shorts also give me an inclination of his plan for his day off- they are his preferred bike wear. It was exciting enought to bounce me right out from under my very comfortable sheets.

We drove up Keystone Gulch, a very popular mountain bike route, to the West Ridge Trailhead. Bobby kicks my butt when it comes to technical climbs. I spin out, weave back and forth, and if it gets steep enough, have even tipped over backwards. My legs have a colorful array of bruises and scrapes on them from bailing about eight times on the twenty mile ride. We had decided beforehand to merely ride the West Ridge loop, a six mile loop along an 11,000 ft ridge separating Keystone from Breckenridge. When we came to the junction of the Colorado Trail, only two miles from completing the loop, we found ourselves very reluctant to turn back downhill. After all, we had crawled all the way up here, why go down right away? The Colorado Trail wound down to Tiger Run, an outlying part of Breck. We looked at each other, asked each other if we ever thought we would come this way again, reallized my phone was nearly dead and neither of us had any method of payment, should we need to buy anything on the way, and that it would be kind of stupid to extend a six mile ride into a twenty mile one without telling anyone, but hey. At least there were two of us. We turned left onto the Colorado Trail, and before long, were in love with it. Sharp, challedging switchbacks, fast descents offset by uphills just long enough, the trail exceptionally well maintained. At one point, we stopped on a hillside which was bare except for sagebrush and wildflowers, took a deep breath of sage-scented air, and realized that the trail itself was the only sign of civilization one could see. It was just us and the mountains, and a breathtaking view of the Tenmile range.

I contend that one cannot truly experience the mountains if they have any sort of engine beneath them. Others contend that anything mechanical will ruin the experience. I agree to an extent, but with the aid of a lightweight mechanical apparatus known as the bicycle, one can cover much more area, at the cost of a little communion with nature. But ever since I sat down a few years ago with a coffee-table guidebook to the Colorado Trail (time stolen from the condo we were supposed to be cleaning) I have had "walk the Colorado Trail" somewhere at the top of my "things to do before I die" list, along with "get brave enough to eat shushi" and "enter a race". (I would like to say marathon, but I have heard somewhere that we should set reallistic goals. A 5 or 10k would probably be enough.) The Colorado Trail is a 400+ mile trail, winding through the Rockies connecting Denver and Durango. It is an especially beautiful trail, exceptional in the fact that it was built entirely by volunteers. Of course, one does not walk 400-some miles in a few days, so that will have to wait until, well, a lot of things happen. Like retirement maybe, or Mr.B. morphs into a pack-llama who says, "oh, what the hay... life's too short to work every day!"

Tonight, we are stiffening up. We had fun, but we may pay for it tomorrow. We had happy-hour specials at the mexican restaurant, food but no drinks. As exhausted as we were, alcohol seemed like a really bad idea.