September 2, 2021
Day 1
For two flatlanders, starting a tour in Steamboat Springs had its good and bad.
The good: great town, plenty of restaurants, good grocery stores, and places to find a cold beer.
The bad: Half the restaurants were closed because of “lack of interest”, the “COVID Blues”, a “shortage of employees”, or all of the above. What kind of business lists those excuses on a handwritten sheet of paper, and tapes them to the front door?
Rain was needed in this area, and good moisture followed us to Steamboat, as is a tradition of ours. We awoke Day 1 to a slight drizzle, which had been preceded by heavier rains. The skies were extremely cloudy, and the temperatures really comfortable. We saw several cyclists at the Rabbit Ears Motel breakfast room, and would see them again several hours later as they scooted by us on the way up to Lynx Pass. Freshies Restaurant provided a more substantial breakfast that the continental table at Rabbit Ears could not match. Our first mile found a bike path detour, which seems to be fairly typical for us while riding unfamiliar roads. Not using GPS computers, we soon failed to negotiate a county road turn, and thus enabled the “golden rule” of the GDMBR: Stop at all intersections to check GAIA GPS on our phones. This would be the only navigational snag of the entire trip, and cost us merely a mile of climbing.
We soon learned that some roads were to be solid mud and water, others would be paved and exceptionally smooth, some were “mag’d” and smooth (magnesium), while yet still others were groomed for magnesium, but remained in a lifted froth, waiting for traffic to beat them down and hard pack them. The latter proved to slow us down immensely, and is not something a cyclist from the Texas Panhandle would ever encounter. Most of the bike tracks ahead of us indicated that the riders chose to ride up the mountain on the wrong side of the road. After reading about the Tour Divide rider fatally injured riding on the wrong side several years earlier, we decided middle of the road is as far as we would go.
Finally arriving at Lynx Pass Campground, we felt that half way to Kremmling on the first day would be a good start. It’s a beautiful campsite, with a nice picnic table, well kept pit toilets, and quiet (and hungry) cattle for neighbors. As we relaxed after setting up tents, and fixing a meal, up rolled a young 23 year old rider from New York City. Rhys asked if he could camp with us, and of course we invited him to push a few cow patties aside and join us. Rhys became an instant fan of ours, when he stated that he had started in Steamboat, and was tired and unwilling to ride any further! You could double his age, then add 21 years to that, and come up with our average age. This young man has his whole future ahead of him, and was encouraged by his parents to ride the Great Divide before “life” got in the way.
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Today's ride: 39 miles (63 km)
Total: 39 miles (63 km)
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