I woke up to a cold morning, the first real cold morning of my trip. The Schroeders and Halvorsons take Sundays off, so Tyler and myself joined together to push ahead. They found my little watermellon suprise before we left and took some picture of the watermellon in the trailer and me next to it.
The route from Fairplay to Alma wasn't too bad but the last 6 miles up to Hoosier Pass was just one long uphill that kept going, while we had to suffer through the high altitude and the heavy weekender traffic of campers and RVs.
But eventually we made it! And it felt great. This was a huge milestone for myself and most cross country cyclists, as Hoosier Pass is the highest point on the TransAmerica trail.
After hanging out at the top for a while and taking pictures of us and our bikes, it was time to decend! The northern side of the pass was full of switchbacks that kept me constantly on my brakes. Tyler was a little more abitious and at one point passed an RV on the left side because it wasn't going fast enough.
About 10 miles down the north side the skies opened up and it started raining, then hailing! Tyler and I ducked under the overhang of a garage as the hail came pouring down. Appearently there was a charity ride going on today too, as we saw a few groups of riders braving the hail to keep on going. Eventually it let up enough where it was only sprinkling and we made our way to Breckenridge. In Breckenridge we stopped and ate some lunch at the Breckenridge Brewery to celebrate our achievement.
After our lunch we headed out of Breckenridge via the bike paths and before we knew it, we were in a group of cyclists for the charity ride. For the next several miles we basically sat in a pack of cyclists racing down the trail, all these guys on race bikes and us two guys on loaded touring bikes!
Since we would enjoy a good amount of decent today, we decided to push it to Kremmling. As we cycled the sky grew darker and darker and a thunderstorm presued us as we headed north. We were doing a good job staying directly ahead of it, until Tyler hit a rock and got a flat tire. He had just gotten the tube out and the sky opened up on us. I put on my rain shell and gave Tyler my windbreaker as he didn't have anything other than his riding shirts and a sweatshirt. As small hail landed on us, Tyler told me he didn't have any spare tubes and it was going to be a little hard to patch his tube in a thunderstorm. I tossed him one of my spares so we could get a move on.
We eventually rolled into Kremmling kind of late and Tyler and I shared a "cyclist hostel" room at an old hotel. The owners let us store our bikes in the garage and showed us to our room. These rooms had two beds and had to share a common bathroom, dorm-style. We both showered and I went out on my bike in search of a laundromat as I was on the 3rd day of both of my riding clothes sets and I really wanted to wash them. I finally found the laundromat but it was to close soon at 9pm, but the owner who came to lock up let me stay there and wash my clothes! Afterwards I went hunting for some food but everywhere but the gas station was closed. I grabbed a pizza for Tyler and I and made my way back to the hotel where we ate and then both passed out.
Start: Fairplay, CO
End: Kremmling, CO
Distance: 81.81 miles
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