Day 26, Tour 10 Fort Collins, CO to Laramie, WY
A rainbow, which you might not be able to see, near Laramie
I was in Western Kansas for a week, visiting old friends, making new friends, and
celebrating the 30th anniversary of a NPR station I helped create. Then I got a ride, with one of my co-celebrants ;-}, to Louisville, CO. I visited an 88 year old friend there and
then rode up to Fort Collins. I rode exactly the same route three years ago so, if you want to see what that ride looks like, go to
my tour07 pages.
Visiting with friends in Fort Collins produced an unexpected result. Fort Collins is big city for recumbents and my friend Al took
me to Rocky Mountain Recumbents, not far from Al's house. They had a lot of neat bikes and I got to ride few, including a used Giro 20.
Today, on my way out of town, I bought that bike ;-}!
Leaving Fort Collins
Thump-thump on 287 bypass
The turn for Poudre Canyon which I've ridden to Walden,CO a couple of times
A beautiful farm on US 287 near Pouder Canyon
After buying my new (too me) recumbent, which will be shipped to my home, Al and I rode to the north edge of Fort Collins and I
headed north towards Laramie, Wyoming. It is a hard ride - about 4300 feet of climbing with almost all of it in a 20 mile stretch
that just keeps going up.
What most of my riding day looked like
My bicycle at my first rest stop
I had some issues with the ride. I crashed, fairly gently, on a gravel covered shoulder when my front wheel dug into the gravel.
I had to stop four times to rest and eat. Since there were no services available after the first 20 miles of this ride, all I could do was
snack. Fortunately I brought enough food and water for the entire ride. I found the long grind quite tiring. Later I figured out that
the climbing was equivalent to the ride from Asheville to the road up Mt Mitchell. No wonder I was tired!
.
Virginia Dale
The last place in Colorado that used to have services
Look down in the valley to see the road going up the other side
I still had another ten miles of climbing after this
High Lonesome is a good name for this country
Leaving Colorado
Entering Wyoming
The last Colorado landmark on the trip, Virginia Dale, used to have a cafe. Now it has one building, the closed cafe ;-{. The same is
true at the Wyoming border. Climbing continues from roughly 20 mile north of Fort Collins to five miles past the Wyoming border. It
took a long time to cover that 20 miles, but then things got a LOT faster as the road descended, at first rapidly, and them much more
slowly, towards Laramie. That part of the ride had a good tail wind. It probably took about one fourth the time as the middle twenty
miles and was MUCH easier riding.
In Wyoming, still climbing but the scenery is different
Five miles into Wyoming, the climbing ends
A flat, tail wind assisted ride to Laramie
I was cruising between 15 and 25 mph
In Laramie, I found a relatively inexpensive motel and a good place to have my second meal of the day. It was about twelve hours since
I had eaten breakfast. I went back to that restaurant for breakfast this morning. I should have know not to get grits, but the rest of
my Southern Breakfast was quite good;-}.
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