Day 40 Week 6, Thursday 29 May 2025

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: