I've been reading blogs and journals about bicycle touring and travel for the last several months and I've read how kind, curious and accommodating people tend to be to bicycle tourers. Today we took our first fully loaded training ride from Glenwood Springs to Redstone, with a stop in Carbondale for Mountain Fair, and from all I have read our training ride was akin to a classic day on tour.
As expected packing up the bikes took about twice as long as we gave ourselves. And where it usually takes us an hour to get to Carbondale, today it took us almost and hour and a half. With my bike weighing in at approximately 90 pounds and Dave's at 120 pounds we knew it would be a slow day.
While leaving Mountain Fair, a guy ran up to us and asked if we were planning on taking CO 133, which we were; and he preceded to tell us that there was a mud slide at MM60 and the road was closed. But knowing we weren't moving very fast we thought maybe it would be open by the time we arrived so we figured we'd keep going. A few minutes back on the bikes and it began raining a little harder then the few drops we'd been having, and as we made our way down the road, unlike our speed the rain picked up intensity.
Watching as cars, that had just moments earlier passed us, now coming in the other direction we wondered indeed if we would be able to get through the slide area. No sooner then we thought it, a police car pulled up alongside us to inform us as such, and that it would be a 2-3 hour wait. We asked where the slide was in relation to Redstone and he replied, right before, and drove away. Dave and I looked at each other and both thought that if the slide is after the hot springs we could go soak whilst waiting for them to open the road. So we kept rolling; but when we reached the line of cars several miles before the hot springs, our plan was thwarted. We learned, though, that they had one lane open, so it shouldn't be too long a wait. After 15 minutes or so, we were rolling again.
When we did reach the hot springs a couple miles later it was too crowded for our taste and already being 6:00 we figured we'd better get on to the campground another couple of miles away. A little stiff and tired we made it to the Redstone campground to learn that they charged $23.00 a night to camp. Thrown by the price, which we didn't even have after getting lunch at Mountain Fair, we stood discussing our options. These were to either pedal back or up about 5 miles to one of the other, only slightly cheaper, campgrounds or go in search of some form of dispersed camping. Well, we must have been standing there a while as a small RV had already been around the loop twice, when they came up to us and asked if we were planning on staying. When we said we were debating because of the price, they nodded in agreement and offered to split a site with us. With the other options not very appealing we humbly accepted their offer. And when I mentioned needing to get change from the camp host the gentleman in the couple said not to worry about it. Dave and I were both amazed at the attention we garnered throughout the day but this was indeed the apex of the day.And as we sat our bruised butts down to eat dinner, the sky cleared up and we got a glimpse at the sunset and the sliver moon. We didn't travel far in miles, but we had rain and mud slides and the kindness of strangers, and I couldn't have had a better ride.
