As much as I favor mountain biking over road biking, when there’s hills to be climbed and mountains to cruise you can count me in. Once again I set my sights on the Blue River Century a 109-mile ride that goes over 3 (and a half) mountain passes and climbs close to 9,000 vertical feet over the course of the day. It’s also a cancer research fundraiser and happens to be my favorite road event in Colorado.
This year I was able to sucker convince my buddy Kyle to join in the ride, which stood to be his first century ever (talk about getting thrown into the fire!) But he’s a runner, I’m a mountain biker so logically we should be just fine on the roadies, right?
As luck would have it, we had just about the perfect day for the ride — cool in the morning, sunny in the mid-day, overcast in the early afternoon but no storms or rain. After a 4 AM wake up call in Boulder it was off to Keystone to line up and get ready to ride.
Riders getting ready to head out of Keystone for the 3rd Annual Blue River Century
As the sun began to illuminate the Gore and Tenmile Range Peaks, the packs of riders began to space out. The initial climb up Ute pass was gorgeous and culminated with the fine breakfast feast awaiting at aid station 1.
Beautiful views and a single cottonball cloud in the sky over the Gore Range at aid station 1 on Ute Pass.
Rolling along, I realized that I may like road biking more than I admit — I found myself wishing I could upgrade my wheelset and pedals, a sure sign of abandoning my anti-roadie ways. I just wanted to go faster and lighter. Uh oh, I don’t need another expensive outdoors hobby!!
The third aid station up Fremont Pass at Clinton Reservoir.
Kyle and I were both setting a strong but not over assertive pace, and the miles went by one by one. As opposed to last year’s ride where I was mostly solo, having a pal to chat with really made the day go by faster. After 92 miles and about 7 hours of riding, we were back at Keystone ready for the 8 mile mega-grind to the top of Loveland Pass.
Aid station 4 back at Keystone! Only 2,000 vertical feet and 16 miles left!
Oddly the hardest push was the 6 miles from Keystone to Arapahoe Basin, which left a little over 2 miles to the summit of 11,990 ft. Loveland Pass. And no storms or snow this year, yay! The last two miles are steep and switchbacked but seemed to cruise a bit faster. With a final push, we were at mile 101 at the summit with only a speedy descent back to Keystone ahead of us.
We've done it!! Yahoo! And this year, no snow or ice!
The victory cruise into Keystone was a blast and when the day was done, I was neither too sore nor too tired; however, the 3 hour drive to Boulder made my eyes burn with the heat of a thousand suns. I did have the advantage of a great welcoming committee in Fremont and Mystic, who I was watching for the night.
My biggest fans.
Can’t wait for next year’s ride!
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