Day 36 – Montrose to Mountain Village/Telluride

Well, the climb today was definitely difficult. We started out shortly after 7, heading south on US 550. Between a relatively stiff headwind and a continuous 1% grade, it was slow going. Big differences in effort made very little difference in our speed. Not fun.

We made our turn towards Telluride in Ridgeway CO. Ridgeway has about 20 roads, of which 2 seem to be paved. The rest are gravel. That said, they’ve got some really cool parks and a great bike trail.

We kicked down on to the trail instead of riding 550 through that stretch because there was no shoulder on 550 in to Ridgeway. Down on the trail there was this awesome statue of an Eagle… Part of it’s awesomeness is that it’s not near a damn thing.

I should point out we saw several hundred FJ Cruisers heading north on 550 today. Apparently there was an event south of us today and everyone was heading home. Even tho I’m a Jeep guy, there was some pretty impressive rigs.

The first big climb of the day started on the way out of Ridgeway. I’ll spare you the details, but JP and I both threw in the towel partway up (within a mile of each other, actually). I was feeling pretty good on the climb, and then things went badly super quick. Ugh. Climbing at elevation seems to really be tough for me. I’m definitely not happy about that.

We SAG’d up to the hotel… and holy cow. What a hotel. Out in this part of the country our stops for the night are largely governed by where we can find lodging. Today, the only place that made sense was Telluride. As it turns out, it’s a ski town… and a really nice one at that.

Even though it’s a ski town, there’s lots to do in the summer. The square near the hotel had a cool bungie jumping/trampoline thing. Bobby was clearly interested in it, and eventually gave it a shot.

His mohawk is super photogenic.

The hotel also has an arcade… and unlike most arcades, you just pay a flat fee for the day and the whole family can play for 24 hours. One of the cabinets had 60 different old school arcade games. Terran was hooked. He’s definitely my kid.

Later in the afternoon we decided to go down to town of Telluride. From the hotel, the best way to get to town in a 15 minute ride on a free gondola. They boys had never been on a gondola, let alone one that goes _down_ 2k’ in to a valley. The views were amazing, but it took Bobby a while to appreciate them.

Daxton even took a few minutes to stop and smell the flowers. As you can see, he REALLY gets in to smelling the flowers.

The hotel staff informed us that these mountains are the mountains that appear on the Coors Light can. I’m not sure if that’s a line they tell the gullible tourists, but I’ll buy it. mmmm…. beer.

And we were treated to a fantastic sunset. All in all, the afternoon helped smooth the feathers of the ride this morning.

Tomorrow we’re downhill to Dolores. Nothing like a 50 mile descent to get the ego back in shape. I expect tomorrow will be a better riding day.