Day 31 – Pueblo to Canon City

Everything I learned about cycling at high elevation I learned from the Internet… Which is to say I have no first hand experience and anecdotal stories ranging from “I was fine after a day” to “OMG I’VE BEEN HERE 2 WEEKS AND I CAN STILL BARELY BREATHE”. Fun. Anyhoo, we started our slow push in to the rockies today. Figuring discretion is the better part of valor I mapped us an easy 37 miles in to Canon City.

Wow did the landscape change today. Even leaving Pueblo today was different than arriving in town yesterday. The weather was great and we had much better visibility today. We rolled out at 8am, and could finally see the start of the mountains in front of us.

About 17 miles in to the ride, I found a route that didn’t involve Rt 50 for a while. Now, when I say I “found a route” I mean I saw there was a road on Google. Turns out, the first bit of it was… well not paved.

However JP was game so we did a little gravel grinding for 2-ish miles. The next few miles were “paved” to some degree but left something to be desired. However, the scenery was amazing. Rt 50 may be efficient, but it’s not necessarily scenic. The second half of the ride today was the most visually impressive ride we’ve had in weeks.

We finally got back on a real paved road and cruised in to Canon City. Small rollers and curves… again, something we haven’t seen in a while. It’s nice to be back in to doing some serious biking.

Once we got in to Canon City, we had a nice lunch and bought cowboy hats… Well, Bobby and I did. We walked in to a Western store, said we were yankees, knew nothing about cowboy hats, and wanted to buy two. The woman at the store was fantastic and we ended up with 2 really great hats… and much better educated about cowboy hats.

Then the whole crew went on the Royal Gorge train ride, a 24 mile train ride in to the Royal Gorge Canyon. We got tickets for the “Vista Dome” which is a train car with a curved glass roof. Made for great views (unsurprisingly).

Here’s Bobby with his new hat enjoying the view from the Vista Dome.

The poster in the bathroom said this section of rail had the most arresting view of any North American railway. I don’t normally trust the posters in the mens room, however this one seems to have nailed it.

We saw the Royal Gorge Bridge, the highest suspension bridge in the world at over 1k’ over the canyon floor. There used to be a park on the other side of the bridge, but unfortunately a serious fire destroyed the vast majority of it. They’re in the process of rebuilding and hope to have at least the bridge open later this summer.

This is a seriously big canyon.

And here’s the bridge from the other direction.

All in all, a very good day. Tomorrow promises to be a bit more serious from a riding perspective. We’re heading to Salida at 7k’ above sea level. There’s a relatively major climb heading out of Canon City, and then a slow climb all the way to Salida over the 60 mile duration of the ride. We’ll see how we feel by the end of that section. Thursday is our last riding day before the rest day, and it’s our first real mountain. We’ll head up and over Monarch Ridge at 11k’. I expect excitement.