Copper Triangle++

Christine's mom came down today to visit with Christine and help out. This left me free to disappear for a while, so I hopped on my bike and did the Copper Triangle. Typically the Copper Triangle route starts at Copper Mountain, goes up to Leadville, then Minturn, then Vail, and back to Copper. I started in Vail instead of Copper.

The climb up Vail pass seemed more difficult than climbing up from the east side. The road between Copper and Leadville is pretty sucky. For the first several miles, there is little to no shoulder and plenty of traffic. I actually got buzzed pretty good by a truck and took note of the plate number on his trailer for a future call to Colorado State Patrol. (More on that a-hole later.)

In Leadville, I stopped at Rosie's Brew Pub for some food. I would have liked to down some beers, but I still had plenty of miles to ride. I settled on a couple small samplers. The waitress couldn't grasp why I would rather bring my bike inside instead of leaving it outside unlocked on the bike rack around the corner. Yes, I understand that some of the employees leave their bikes there without issue, but that's a chance I'm just not willing to take with my race bike (and my only form of transportation back to Vail).

From Leadville, I rode on Highway 24 to Minturn. The first 5-10 miles were terrible. There was construction where the road was completely torn up. Even the areas where there wasn't ongoing construction, the pavement was horrible. I'm glad I just put on a new set of heavy duty tires. (For what it's worth, I've been training on Specialized Armadillo tires this year. I put almost 2000-3000 miles on my first set before I had to change them. I'm a fan, because I'm not wearing out expensive race rubber all the time.)

At the top of Tennessee pass I ran into a couple of cyclists who having been touring around Colorado (and a bit of Wyoming) for the past week. Sounds fun. They had someone driving a support truck that pulled up while we were talking. They offered my some cookies and water, which would have been perfect if I hadn't just filled up in Leadville. I appreciated the offer though.

From there it was a pretty easy ride down to Minturn and back to Vail. There's one "bump" in the profile (Battle Mountain), but it wasn't too bad. Shortly after I passed Minturn, I came across the same truck that brushed me a few hours earlier. I couldn't believe my luck. I stopped and talked to the guy and told him how close he came to me. It's funny when you actually get to talk to these people because they never seem to remember driving like an a-hole. At least now I have the name of the trucking company, the license plate number of the trailer, and the license plate number of the truck.

My mileage was at about 80 miles when I got back to the hospital and Christine was headed up for some post surgery x-rays. While she did that, I decided to shoot for a 100 miles and started heading up Vail pass again. After 10 miles, I turned back and met Christine at the hospital with an odometer reading of 100.7 miles. I think that's my first century this year.

Fremont Pass


Tennessee Pass


Lunch break in Leadville