September 6, 2021
Day 5
It was a beautiful morning in the Dillon Lake area. The bike paths here are second to none. The signage is much better than other trails we have ridden, such as in Denver. Nothing wrong with Denver trails, but Summit County has the best signage, hands down.
Downtown Frisco is a gem. We found a really good bakery/ cafe on the boardwalk section of town. The first person Paul asked, pointed directly at the Butterhorn Bakery and Cafe, and said that’s the place to go. With full stomachs, we headed to Breckenridge, in hopes of finding a fuel canister for Paul. The first bike shop we came to directed us to several possibilities, and sure enough, Mountain Outfitters came through. The Bull Barn was an accurately placed public restroom with an interesting twist on names, and again showed the cleanliness and well maintained facilities in this area.
Now it was time to climb. Hoosier Pass, basically took us 5 hours to conquer. The traffic was continuous, mostly courteous, and noisy at times. On one hairpin switchback, the horns and claps from youthful observers watching two crazy old guys ride up an 11,539 foot pass was uplifting. A young hiking couple gladly took our picture after the summit. Team V’s namesake, Vicki, had texted early in the day telling us to find our inner child and have fun. We did! We flew down the mountain to Alma and arrived within minutes. For almost 6 miles not a single car passed! We were moving as fast as them. Paul found the ice cream sign in Alma, and we sat with the youthful hippies and listen to some strange amped up version of the theme song from The King & I, licking down some soft serve.
Back on the bikes, we found a bike path beside the road that took us all the way to Fairplay, to The Hand Hotel, and to some really comfortable lounge chairs. The WiFi password for the Hand is “haunted hotel”. Between Paul’s gassing of our room, and Marc’s deafness, we slept like babies with the window open and the ceiling fan on high.
Tomorrow we had a decision to make, as Paul’s new MSR stove would not light with the piezo. We found that if we deviated from the Trans Am, and headed to Buena Vista, we could exchange Paul’s stove. That means we would not be rejoining the Great Divide Teail until we reached Poncha Springs. Hartsel would be bypassed. The plan was set.
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Today's ride: 36 miles (58 km)
Total: 174 miles (280 km)
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