Tandem on the Colorado Trail

It's been a long time since I found the time and effort to post anything here. Not since spring break back in April. So what's been going on?  We lost a lot of time to an unproductive house hunt; I made two work-related trips to Wisconsin in May and one to Utah in June; Cindy had bus competitions in May and June; Abbey and Cindy ran a half marathon in early June; Quinn got a computer and became assimilated; there was school, of course, which wrapped up at the end of May; and Abbey went to Drum Major Academy (boot camp). And at the end of May we moved out of rental house into a different rental house a few block down the hill. So we've been busy. We've had some fun, and a few good rides, but this spring and summer have just about gotten away.

But this weekend Cindy and I have had an unusual experience: Quinn and Grandma flew to Texas for the week, and Abbey went up to Greeley for Band Leadership Training. We have a weekend to ourselves for the first time in 16 years. So we went mountain biking, of course.

Since it was just the two of us, we thought a tandem ride would be the way to go. We rode up the Waterton Canyon road to Lenny's Rest and then continued west (down and up) until we reached the highest point on the trail along the south side of Strontia Springs Reservoir. Click here to see our route on Garmin Connect.

We were looking for something we might not do with the kids. This was definitely that. It was undoubtedly the hardest ride we've done on the tandem. Not the six miles up or down the easy road in Waterton Canyon; just all the rest of it. That stretch of Colorado Trail was not "built by mountain bikers for mountain bikers." It was rough and rocky and steep, with many, many very tight switchbacks that we could not handle on the tandem. It was wet and slick and thickly vegetated. We pushed and dragged the tandem through many steep rocky trail segments. I can't count how many times we had to dismount, drag, and remount. It was really hard work, we were battered and scratched and bruised and exhausted. It was really challenging and fun. I cannot think of a better way to have spent our day together!