7-29-12

Martin: Baby Adrian.

 Me: I may be thumbs up in this photo but this was one of the worst days in the car and on the bike ever! On the drive from Ft. Collins to Leadville this morning I was car sick and dry heaving on the side of the road. :-( We arrived on main street Leadville, got out of the car and I laid on the sidewalk in the fresh air for a 1/2 hour before I started to feel better.

Our bike ride started out GREAT with sunny blue skies! We intended to pre-ride part of the Leadville race course. Dean (who drove up from Telluride to meet us) and Bob parked a car at one end of our route so we'd be able to drive back to Leadville with our bikes.

We had no problem biking up the 1st climb, St. Kevin's, but took a wrong turn at the top. We went 3 miles down hill out of the way when I was nearly killed by a car. Not kidding, it was the closest near miss head on collision possible (not sure how I didn't go down, over the cliff or into the windshield). :-( All of us were shaken up and thanked our guardian angel for my protection. We then gathered ourselves and kept biking (further out of the way) when the rain, sleet, and hail began. We put on our wind breakers (which aren't water proof) and at this time realized we were way off course.

We turned around and biked up hill to the correct route. We biked the 2nd climb up Sugar Loaf (not a bad climb and beautiful views)! Then it was down Pipeline which is a very tough decent. At this point we were still smiling. After Pipeline though, we took one wrong turn after another and the inadequate map we had was no help. 

6 hours into our ride and another thunderstorm came, this time with bolts of lightning. We were exhausted, out of water, hungry and having doubts about finding our car. Soaking wet and scared I flagged down a van and they offered us a ride. Those good Samaritans found our car with their phone GPS! So grateful!

Above photo was before the major storm hit (see it lurking in the background)

 

 3 muddy bikers got in our car and drove in the pouring rain back to Leadville.

After dropping off Dean, Bob and I drove another hour & 1/2 to Aspen. This is where we'll stay for a week. Recuperating is on the schedule here!

Aren't the Aspen trees gorgeous!