Monday, June 20, 2011

2011 BTC - Day 2 - Making Lemonade

What an interesting day. The route for the day was Estes Park to Granby, over Trail Ridge Road. I've always meant to ride Trail Ridge, so I was really looking forward to this.

There was a lot of uncertainty through the evening and into the morning as the whether the road would be open or not. An official announcement was made sometime around 8am. People would ride up to the second aid station, and if the road wasn't passable, they'd ride back to Estes and get bussed over to Granby. 

The chance for rain in Estes Park was nearly 100%, and that translates into snowfall on the pass. At the end of the day, we'd like to primarily have fun on this trip. It is vacation afterall. To paraphrase the neo-philosopher Livia, the fun-to-suck ratio should be way on the fun side. So Christine and I came up with another plan. 

The potential of riding partway up Trailridge, getting wet and cold, and then having to sit in a bus for a few hours sounded sucky. Instead, we hopped on our bikes and rode from Estes to our house in Fort Collins. It's mostly downhill and we enjoyed a really nice ride through the Big Thompson canyon, with minimal moisture until we got near home. 

At home, we cleaned up, did some laundry, and went to REI to buy some warm stuff for a friend. Then we packed up the car with a cooler full of beer, some clean and warm clothes, our bikes and we drove to meet the bike tour in Granby. 

As expected, Trail Ridge got closed and nearly everyone had to get shuttled to Granby. Some people made it through the pass before it was closed but it didn't sound very fun. We totally made a good choice today and had a great time. 

Tomorrow is another day, and it looks to be clearer than today. I'm looking forward to it. 

(I'm blogging via my mobile phone, so I expect there'll be lots of typos. Try not to think any less of me than you already do.)

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