Thoughts of Colorado have only ever inspired images of mountains, ski resorts, and hoards of outdoorsy people in my mind. Therefore, I was pretty surprised and disappointed when we entered the northeast corner of Colorado and had to bike through a couple days of practically nothing. Our first night we made it to the very, very small town of Crook. We set up camp in a tiny park next to a gas station/hardware store. We thought about finding a town hall or police station to ask permission about camping (wanting to avoid another 1:30 am confrontation), but after some exploration we were pretty sure that the 80-year-old man working at the gas station was the only other person in the town. Since the other food options in the town seemed to exclusively be abandoned cafes, we loaded up on junky snack food from the gas station. The bugs in Crook were out of control (we had to avoid a literal wall of bugs that were hanging out in the shadow of a telephone pole) so we took shelter in our tent and called it an early night. Despite our efforts to avoid a middle of the night awakening, the harsh winds of eastern Colorado wouldn’t let us sleep in peace. We got up in the wee hours of the morning to relocate the tent to a safer spot, one where we felt we were in less danger of attracting falling tree branches.
The next morning, we headed out with a long 90 mile day ahead of us. We stopped at a very busy local café in Sterling, and then continued on to the town of Wiggins. In another small town along the way, I accidentally demonstrated my uncanny pole dancing ability (while still straddling my bike) to all 6 people in town, which happened to be a motorcycle gang and Mark. Still getting used to those clipless shoes…
We must’ve looked a little lost as we entered Wiggins, because the friendly people at the local liquor store called out to see if we needed any help. They offered us some nice cold water and we talked about our camping options with them. We found a nice park with a baseball field in the center of town and decided to camp there. We set up our tent in the spacious dugout and crashed.
In the morning we got an early start and found a nearby diner that was already open. After a filling breakfast, we headed out being SUPER excited to reach the first destination city of Colorado so far…BOULDER! It was still a pretty boring ride for most of the day, but it was amazing to turn a corner at one point and suddenly see the mountains rising up in the far distance. About midday, we stopped on a long stretch of road so that Mark could fix his second flat tire of the trip. While he did that, I attended to my recently sunburned back, which was starting to blister beyond control. Two shirts and spf 50 were no match for my damaged skin.
We continued on and came to a beautiful and curvy downhill bike path leading into Boulder. The views were incredible and the riding was swift and fun. We made it into town and rolled up at my friend Caleb’s place. Caleb and I used to work together at the New York State Geological Survey. Luckily for us, he and two college friends (Ryan and Tom) had recently moved to Boulder and were stoked to host us. They made us an amazing dinner and gave us some lovely couches to crash on. After some phone calls home (it was Father’s day after all) we called it a night.
The next day, we biked into town to meet up with our good friend Mike Chan for lunch. Mike treated us to a delicious meal at BRU, complete with homemade soda! After lunch Mark and I explored Boulder a bit, chatted with a few locals and fell in love with the Boulder Public Library. I found a place to repair my horribly cracked phone screen, which had recently gotten much worse in the Gothenburg debacle. Afterwards we met up with Mike for a ride to his house (yes, Mike owns a HOUSE) in Broomfield. (I know getting a ride might be considered cheating, but it was mostly South instead of West! Also we did all that extra riding to visit Chicago so I think you can just keep your opinions to yourself). When we got to Broomfield and settled in, we made a huge pot of easy mac and watched some Disney movies because we’re adults and we’re allowed to do that. After this night, we were looking forward to a whole week off in Boulder to spend time with Mike and explore the area!
