The home stretch started with a remarkable 30 miles in South Park. Somehow this section seemed better than yesterday...very likely because the bugs were not as bad, the temps were cool, and our legs were fresh. More than once I thought we were approaching the end of the Park, but it just kept surviving and stretching beyond each vista. The mountains were closer though, so it was increasingly scenic. All told we cycled 60 miles along dirt roads in South Park.
One thing that was fascinating is that many roads intersected the dirt road we were riding (CO 53) and there were street signs at all these intersections...described on my map as 'hopeful subdivision roads'. If you look at this area on Google maps there is an amazing grid of streets...it looks like a city. Believe me, the streets might be there, but there is no city...we saw maybe 20 houses in the 30 miles we rode here.
Click here to open a Google map showing this area south of Hartsel
The blue line on this map shows the main road...zoom in and hit the satellite button to see these roads are not exactly crowded with homes, as further evidenced by the picture below.
Evidently, if you build it they do not always come.
After lunch, at long last, we cycled up into !!TREES!!...Aspen and healthy pine trees...it felt good. I gave a salute to South Park and we started our final tough climb. The first part of the climb was gentle, but the final 2 miles had some of the steepest sections we encountered during the week.
There were cattle all over the place (by far the most common animal that we saw during the ride) but concentrated even more heavily here. I'm afraid that the nice soft dirt we were riding on was dried up manure...there were lots of fresh samples too. The cows were mad at us, and gave us lots of annoyed moos.
Richie powered right up the climb. He never once was forced to walk his bike. He gets the king of the mountain award. I'm very proud of him...he handled everything with a great attitude, and rode very strong all week.
At the top of the climb we were rewarded with another long (and bumpy) downhill all the way into Salida. We had a group high-five, and while the route beckons on southward to New Mexico (and Mexico), our ride was done.
Sappy time...
Major thanks to Paula, Jed, and Kirsten for supporting us throughout our training and cheering us on from home. We appreciate you putting up *without* us for over two weeks. We miss you and are really looking forward to coming home. (As an aside I learned today that Kirsten was moved up to level 7 gymnastics, something she worked very hard for all summer. Proud Daddy!)
Thanks too to Grandman, aka SagMan. Richie was always very happy to see him along the way (me and Mom too) and without his help we simply would not have been able to ride.
Finally, thanks to Mom and Richie. This is a major undertaking, and doing it at age 14, and, uh, age Medicare-eligible, is awesome. Maybe even wicked awesome! We will all have grand memories of this ride.
Link to the final day photo album below (2nd album below):
Click here to open Day 8 album in a new window
Link to Grandman's pics of the ride:
Click View Elevation button to open full size interactive Day 8 map
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