Month: May 2025

Fort Collins to Rustic Colorado today. A short 43 miles but 2200 feet of elevation gain and only 312 feet descent. We climbed to 7,165 ft. I haven’t really felt the altitude yet. The climbing is nothing compared to what we did in Ohio. Grades are generally 2-3% and the road is excellent, albeit with no shoulder. There was quite a bit of traffic- campers and folks doing white water rafting, but they all gave us bikers plenty of room and I never felt in any danger. The route follows the Cache la Poudre River up the Poudre valley. Why is it called that? In French it means “hiding the powder”. Apparently some French trappers hid their gunpowder somewhere along the river during a blizzard n the 1820s. This was a beautiful ride- after days and days of flatland prairie, to be in the Rocky Mountains is incredible. There was a huge fire in this canyon in 2020 and the hills are covered with charred pine tree trunks, but new growth is coming back. The road for the most part followed the river all the way along to Rustic. It is a fast moving river with plenty of rapids, a great location for white water rafting. We say several rafting and kayaking groups go by, including two people on standup paddle boards if you can stand that!! Stopped for another breakfast at the Mishakawa Amphitheatre just alongside the road at 23 miles in. There is actually an outdoor amphitheatre where they have concerts in the evening. It is a 30 minute drive from Fort Collins, so not too bad, although I wouldn’t want to go to a concert, drink a lot then have to come back down that winding road at midnight! I had an incredible breakfast there- biscuits and gravy, hashbrowns, eggs over easy, tomato juice and coffee, right on the river, in fact OVER the river on a veranda outside. Looking at that fast flowing river and the rapids brought to mind Heraclitus and his philosophy that life is constant change- “No man ever steps into the same river twice”. Chet, Mel, Terence, Theo and Tom caught up here and had coffee, then we were all off for the remaining 19 miles to our campsite at Rustic. The weather is interesting- beautiful in the morning and afternoon but in the late afternoon there is cloud build up and storms threaten. That happened yesterday in Fort Collins- we had a big thunderstorm in the afternoon. It is threatening here in Rustic at 3 PM as I type this blog, but so far no rain. In any case, we are prepared with rain flys on the tents and our rain gear at the ready!

Rest day!! What a great place to spend a day off- Fort Collins, home of the Colorado State University. We stayed at a Best Western, just a mile south of the Old Town area. Eminently walkable town with lots of restaurants, microbreweries, shops. A beautiful sunny day in the high 60s. I took care of a lot of stuff today- took my bike to the Trek bike shop for a thorough look over. They replaced the rear tire with a Schwalbe Marathon plus, replaced the chain and rear brake pads, replaced some frayed cables and did a complete cleaning. I got a new pair of SPD bike shoes that give much more room for my toes. I returned my old leaking sleeping pad at REI and got a full refund. I uploaded all my blog stuff using the hotel wireless and took care of all my financial business. Then I went downtown to the Art museum. They were having an exposition on masks, and they were all for sale through an online auction, to benefit the Fort Collins Modern Art Museum. I actually bid on a couple- one is a dung beetle and another is a face with honeybees on it. Not sure that my wife will approve, in which case if I get one of these they may have to hang in my office. But it will be for a good cause! I went to the Discovery Museum further North from old town- it was mainly for kids, but I learned some interesting things. One is that Fort Collins was a major center for Sugar Beet production back in the 1800s. There was a huge factory here. Nothing is left of the original fort that was built here in the early 1800s, but they have some small houses that were built around that time. They were moved to Library Park and you can see them there. Log cabins basically with mortar filling the cracks- rustic to say the least. I had a great lunch at a cafe on College Ave called Austin’s, then went to pick up my bike at Treks, rode it back to the hotel, took a dip in the hotel pool and hot tub prior to going for a massage at the Living Arts Massage and Wellness Center in Old Town. Matthew gave me a great deep tissue massage for an hour, from 5-6 PM. Felt great!!! Actually the riding has not given me any issues- my back, legs, shoulders all feel fine although there is some soreness in my quads. My butt gets some soreness after 40 miles or so, but getting off the bike for 10 minutes resolves that. In any case, the massage felt tremendous, and after 2000 miles of riding, I think I deserved it! Haha…

After the massage, I met up with Terence, Theo, Mel, Chet and Than at Lucky Joe’s Irish pub in Old Town, for fish and chips and some really good draft IPA- a local brewery: Odell Brewing Mountain Standard IPA. Slept like a baby!! Adventure Cycling planned this really well- a great rest stop prior to climbing into the Rockies tomorrow!

Going from Briggsdale to Fort Collins Colorado, a short 44 mile jaunt with a measly 1000 ft of elevation gain. A nice cool day- NO RAIN! Not much of a breeze and a straight shot pretty much due West to Fort Collins. Not much along the route except a continuation of the Pawnee National Grassland. Beautiful prairie land. As we approached Fort Collins the clouds were lifting and we started to see the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Fort Collins is nestled in these foothills and will be the beginning of our journey into the mountains on Saturday. We stopped at AULT for coffee and pastries. AULT literally stands for “A Unique Little Town”. Well, it didn’t look too unique to us, the same small town with not much in it, but it did have a great coffee shop, Gray’s Cafe, where we were served by a very accommodating young lady, good coffee and an amazingly huge danish pastry which was deliciouso (as my wife Dayna would say). The ride was uneventful, although Tom’ son who had joined us just before AULT got a flat. Getting a lot of flats on this trip!

We got to Fort Collins and our Best Western Hotel where we will be staying for two nights, by 12:30. Check-in was a 1 PM, so several of us rode over to the Treks Bike shop 4 miles away to leave our bikes for a tuneup before we proceed into the mountains. I need a new rear tire, the current one is worn pretty bad after 2000 hard miles. I’m getting a Schwalbe Marathon+ which I’ve heard good things about. They need to replace the chain and rear brake pads and they will clean and lube the whole bike. After that I went to the nearby REI to return my Sea to Summit sleeping pad which was leaking. Got a full refund. I then took an Uber to get back to the hotel (yes, they have Uber in Fort Collins!!!). We are all going out to dinner tonight on Adventure Cycling and then tomorrow is a day off to hang out at Fort Collins- the most microbreweries here per capita of any town in the US! I get my own room for two nights which is nice as we are normally doubling up, but since several of our group had cancelled and ACA couldn’t change the reservations, several of us were treated to single rooms!

Everyone is doing good, we are all excited to get into the mountains. We had our first lecture on bears yesterday. They are being very cautious to make sure we don’t get eaten. No food in the tents, no clothes that have been near food in the tents, no Gatorade in the tents. Essentially all stuff that has come close to food will be kept in our trailer, essentially serving as a bear locker.

Below are the RidewithGPS stats:

Here is the link to the video for the day

Going from Sterling to Briggsdale Colorado today. 60 miles, not much between the two towns except the Pawnee National Grassland. Prairie as far as the eye can see. It was again a cloudy day, a bit warmer than yesterday. It was drizzling rain periodically but we missed any major storms. Yesterday at Sterling where we camped at the public park there, we had several nice people stop by to warn us of tornados and hail. There was a tornado warning in the early evening and it did look pretty dark out to the North. Looking on the radar there was some significant storms activity there, but it passed us by and we didn’t get any rain last evening. One lady said that there were 4 tornados recently in the area, so even though we are pretty far north, this is a tornado prone area with very unstable weather. We were told that the nearest tornado shelter was a church a mile and a half away. Our instructions were if we hear a siren, we all pile in to the van and head to the church! Of course the lady said tornados can appear quite suddenly, not giving enough time even to alert folks. I’m not sure I would take the van and try for a shelter a mile and a half away, maybe head to the bathroom facility which is a cinder block structure. Another fellow walking his dog came by and told us that crack heads frequent the park between midnight and 5 AM, so best lock up all our valuables. The bathroom facility toilet was missing a door and a toilet seat- maybe to discourage drug users?? What kind of place did Adventure Cycling put us in?? Ah, but there were no issues last night. No odd noises and all our bikes were still there when we woke up. I actually slept quite fitfully on my nice new sleeping pad that doesn’t leak!

The ride was good. I got a flat at 31.5 miles, just a quarter mile from where our support van was parked to provide water for the group at the halfway mark. Couldn’t find the source of the flat so I just changed the tube and it was fine. Simona had a flat on both front and rear tires! Our group has had a rash of flats over the course of the trip, but I guess that is par for the course. No big deal to change out a tube. Apparently there are goatheads in the area, small seed pods with nasty spines all over that get stuck in your tire and work their way through to the tube.

We stopped at a cafe where Arlen had parked the support van and had a nice lunch- I had a roast beef sandwich au jus. This place was in the middle of no where but had a nice bar area and the food was very good so it must attract the locals from miles around. We are camping in the gymnasium of the Briggsdale High School. Now that school is out the place was available for us to put our sleeping bags in the gymnasium and use the showers. Not much here in Briggsdale except the high school. There is a post office and a fire station, and there are some houses. It’s a fairly sizable high school so again they must attract kids from miles around. It’s lucky we are inside tonight as there are some storms forecast.

We passed through the Pawnee National Grassland park area. More really wide open spaces with nothing but prairie all around. We passed by some areas where cattle were grazing, a feed lot and some large cultivated areas, but mainly it looked like open prairie. The road was very busy- mostly trucks. Fortunately the shoulder was very wide and we could comfortably ride with trucks whizzing past at 70 mph.

Here are the RidewithGPS stats:

Here is the link to today’s video

It continues to be really cool, cloudy and rainy. When we started out at Holyoke it was in the low 50s and it got into the low 60s by the time we got to Sterling. Clouds all day with some spattering of rain, but in Sterling in the afternoon the sun has come out! And promise of more sun to come. But the cloudy days are great for riding- no need to worry about sun block. As we get higher in altitude one has to be attentive to that when the sun comes out. We are currently at 3,950 ft at Sterling. We stopped at Haxton at a nice coffee shop for coffee and pastry, 18 miles into the ride, then at Fleming for a lunch break at 29 miles. Easy going, but when you stop riding you really cool down fast! I was anxious to get back on the bike just to warm up! Again, giant grain elevators at every “major” town. I stopped by the one at Fleming to inquire what they have stored in it. The guy said that they have wheat and millet. Wheat for the feedlots to feed the cattle and millet for bird seed. We have seen a lot of trucks on Rt 6 carrying grain from these grain elevators.

The pace was good today, averaging 15.9 mph. I had to move fast to keep warm, but it was easy with a bit of a tailwind and really flat terrain. The road we followed was Rt 6- it is fairly heavily traveled and there were a lot of trucks, but we had a super wide shoulder that in general was in very good shape, so the ride was not at all dangerous. We are gradually moving up in altitude, but the key word is “gradually”. As we got closer to Sterling and the South Platte river, the land got really flat- as far as the eye could see. What a change from the East Coast!/

Here are the RidewithGPS stats:

Here is link to today’s video

These relieved my toe issue. At Fort Collins I bought a new pair of regular SPD bike shoes that have more room in the toe area so I will be trying these out on our next ride this Saturday.

Imperial Nebraska to Holyoke Colorado- a short day today, only 38 miles and a paltry 102 ft of elevation gain. It was a bit drizzly and cool, but with a little tailwind it was a good riding day. The countryside looks beautiful in the gray mist- it has gotten real flat- the precursor to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains which we will be entering the end of the week. Because it was a short ride, Chet and I who were the cooks for last night’s dinner and today’s breakfast and lunch, decided we could make scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes. After all, we had just a couple hours of riding today. So we started later as well- breakfast and 7:30.

We stopped only at one place, the Nebraska/Colorado border at 27 miles into the ride. There were no towns between Imperial and Holyoke. Staying tonight at a Catholic Church- another night where we don’t have to set up tents, particularly nice given the wet weather! Unfortunately no showers, but given the easy riding the past couple of days, no big deal.

Here are the RidewithGPS stats:

Here is the link to today’s video

Everyone is looking forward to the mountains coming up- saving the best part of the trip for last- the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, the Rockies. We are all stoked!

A day off in McCook Nebraska! Nice getting up leisurely at 7 AM and getting breakfast served at the hotel. Had a great nights sleep on a cozy bed after a delicious pork ribs dinner at the Taste of Texas BBQ restaurant. Feel again like a normal human being! Several of us set out at 9 to explore the town. The houses to the North of the town were very nice- we saw George Norris’s house, a former Senator of Nebraska, and the beautiful park facing his house. I ate a runza at the Embers Bakery on the main drag.

A runza is a pastry filled with meat and cabbage, apparently a Nebraska thing. Not a ton of flavor but it was OK, just like the Russian pirozhkis that the Russians would serve us in the mornings along with coffee when we had meetings out in Moscow. the High Prairies museum opened at 11 and we visited that. Interesting memorabilia from the early 1900s, an old printing press, photos of train wrecks, old washing machines, stoves, a setup of an entire old pharmacy with the wooden floors, stacks of chemicals in bottles and mortar/pistels. There were interesting maps of the rail lines which were built up, an amazing network covering the whole Plains area from Chicago to Denver. Rail transportation really dominated that era. We visited an interesting Art Museum called the Art Bank, in what used to be a bank building- a very eclectic collection of art from various locals and regional artists. Quite cool. We wandered down to the rail line and the huge grain silos owned by the Frenchman Valley Coop alongside the tracks that dominate the landscape for miles around. The coop has the capacity for 40 million bushels of grain!

Had lunch at a Mexican restaurant in town, with a really good pitcher of margaritas. Taking it easy for the rest of the afternoon, maybe a little nap, before dinner at the Coppermill Steakhouse tonight. Ahhhhh, it is good to have a day off!

A short day today! After a nice stay at the United Methodist Church in Arapahoe, a leisurely ride in cool cloudy weather to McCook Nebraska. There was not much in Arapahoe. We stopped by the Long Dogs distillery which was nearby and had a nice chat with the owner. I bought a bottle of his vodka made from grapes- nice flavor. I may prepare some bloody Marys for my next turn cooking! Had a long talk with the pastor at the church where we stayed- he sat with us while we were having our potluck dinner last night. He is a very talkative fellow and we learned all about his life history and how he came to be a preacher here in the boonies. Basically this church became part of the new Global Methodist Church, a more conservative version of the United Methodist Church, and they needed a preacher who was part of this new church. Makes sense that these churches out in the wilderness away from big cities would tend to be more conservative.

Below are the RidewithGPS stats for the ride today:

We stopped at a coffee shop in Cambridge for coffee after 15 miles, then stopped for lunch at Indianola at 28 miles. Taking our time today with such a short ride. Passed several cattle feedlots- what a smell, and sad to see all those cows packed together like that- but then I start thinking of the steak I am going to have tomorrow night….

We are slowly but surely gaining altitude as we head towards the western continental divide. At McCook we are now at 2,500 ft. We are all looking forward to tomorrow’s day off and exploring what there is to explore here in McCook, but in particular, having a good steak dinner at the Coppermill Steakhouse!

I got my replacement sleeping pad, it was mailed to the hotel and made it safely. It seems to be holding air which is good news! I also got shipped replacement SPD sandals. The ones I brought for riding in the rain fell apart weeks ago so I needed a new pair. These fit good and I will try wearing them in place of my current SPD shoes because my big toes for some reason have started to hurt something fierce after 40 miles. Did the shoes shrink? Are me feet swelling more than usual? Who knows, but I will try wearing these sandals to see if they reduce the pressure on my toes!

Here is the video for the day

Today Franklin to Arapahoe Nebraska. WIDE OPEN SPACES! Think of the Dixie Chicks song- couldn’t download that but I got another Chicks song for my video- see the link below. We have WiFi today- staying at a Methodist Church in Arapahoe. Very nice of them – they are even cooking us dinner and making breakfast for us tomorrow morning! Great ride today- only 60 miles with favorable winds, not much up and down- we are really on the Great Plains now. Incredible views while riding- what a joy being out in the wide open like this- wow. We stopped at Alma for a coffee break 22 miles in. At the Dragonfly coffee house and bakery. Had a double espresso and a delicious caramel nut sticky bun freshly baked! The town is on a man-made lake- Harlon County Lake, which was built to control flooding of the Republican River. It wiped out the town here in 1935. The Indians had warned settlers of the “Big water”, they didn’t understand what it meant at the time so they built a town right there on the river because the soil was very fertile and good for farming. The Indians also called the river “the Manure River” because of all the buffalo pooping in it. This Republican River valley was home to one of the largest buffalo herds on the prairie. Alas- we haven’t seem a single buffalo yet. I understand maybe when we get to Wyoming we will see some herds.

Below are the RidewithGPS stats for today:

Link to today’s video

Going from Mankato Kansas to Franklin Nebraska. Another State in the bag! 66 miles and 1856 ft of elevation gain. Averaged 13 mph, the wind was MUCH better! Still a headwind, but relatively mild, 5-10 mph coming from the West/Northwest. A beautiful sunny day, starting off in the 50s and climbing to the 70s in the afternoon. Deb and I didn’t take the normal route as the other members of the group because we wanted to visit the geographic center of the 48 states which was off route by 20 miles or so. It is located 2 miles North of Lebanon Kansas. It was cool- no one was there except two guys changing the flags on the monument. Apparently the Kansas winds wreak havoc on flags! We experienced that first hand yesterday! It was a beautiful ride. After entering Nebraska about 10 miles North of the geographic center monument, there was a historical marker, marking a section of the prairie that was kept basically as it was since the white man made an appearance out here. It was beautiful flat, gently rolling prairie land for as far as the eye could see, 360 degrees. One can only imagine what it looked like when there were millions of buffalo roaming the prairies. It was really quite breathtaking. It is nice riding a bike out here- not much traffic although there are some big trucks that roll by at 70 mph, fortunately giving us bikers plenty of room as we ride on the road to the right, there not being any shoulder. Occasionally you will get the odd truck that zooms by with feet to spare, but that is rare, people are pretty respectful of bikers and giving them plenty of room when they are riding on the road. I ate lunch at Red Cloud, back on the original route, at a great little place called the Bowling Alley Bar and Grill (it is actually a bowling alley) and had a fish and chips. Caught up with the rest of the group a short way after Red Cloud and rode in to camp together with them. Another nice city park where we get to use the showers attached to the pool. Pools are not open until Memorial Day, hopefully after next week we will be able to not only use the showers, but the pool as well. Hot water had unfortunately not been turned on, so had a cold shower- but it felt great!!

Chet continues to have issues with flats- he had another flat 10 miles into the ride. And Tom took a fall when he bumped wheels with Terence, but is OK with minor scratches. Terence has recovered from his stomach ailment and did the whole ride today. The group continues to get stronger as we get into the ride. A month already has gone by! Hard to believe we are in Nebraska already- seems like just recently we were in DC starting out. Wow.

Here are the RidewithGPS stats: