July 16th: Oak Creek- Glenwood Springs: 137km, 1019m climbed

Juli 17, 2022 Autor: Tim Goodall

This is the longest stage on our tour plan so we stocked up on food and drink. We were up early and after a small breakfast made up of an assortment of leftovers set off shortly after 8am. We had to ride a long hilly road to get over King Mountain before we dropped down to the Colorado River valley. A couple of times we thought we had finally reached the top only to drop down and climb back up. The last climb was a height gain of 128m and we thought it was never going to end. The ride down was a steeper and shorter than up and suddenly we were about to pass the Colorado River road. I stopped in time and had to shout the other two back so we could check the map and make sure we were taking the right dirt road. It was a wide road in good condition and, after a sharp drop, the road paralleled the railway and the river. We had to follow this road for 56km to reach Dotsero on the I70 motorway and pick up the bike trail to Glenwood Springs. We were cycling through a fantastic landscape and had to make frequent photo stops. At one point the road left the river and rail tracks and climbed over 100m to get round an outcropping before going back down to the river. By this time we were getting surrounded by thunder clouds and it was rumbling all around us and, just as John and I reached the next bridge over the river (Mark was further ahead and out of sight), the rain started so we clambered down a rocky slope and sheltered under the bridge. We drank and ate muesli bars until it cleared up and then set off to find Mark. We rounded the next bend and saw a post office building with a veranda and would have been much more comfortable there if the rain had started half a minute later. Mark had passed this spot just before the rain started and had to shelter in somebody’s garden. We carried on through unbelievable scenery until we finally arrived at the motorway.

We went into a garden centre and settled down to a late lunch of pot noodles cooked up by John. The owner came over for a chat and even checked with a friend if our bike trail through Glenwood Canyon was open, which it was (supposedly). We rode 4km along the Frontage Road next to the motorway until it ended and the bike trail started. That was when we got a nasty surprise. There was a padlocked gate closing the bike trail and no hint of an alternative route. Oh dear, now what. We had already booked and paid several hundred dollars for the hotel so we needed to get to Glenwood.

There was no choice but to backtrack until we found a bit of fencing low enough and close enough to get on to the motorway and, after hoiking the bikes and ourselves over a barbed wire fence, we set off for the 24 km ride along the hard shoulder of the motorway through the spectacular scenery of Glenwood Canyon. There is always a lot of rubbish on the hard shoulder of US motorways so it was almost inevitable that somebody would get a puncture from the fine steel wire out of smashed up lorry tyres. John was the unlucky one, only 3 km short of our exit, so we had to spend about twenty minutes unloading his bike and changing the tube in his rear wheel. The culprit was a quarter inch piece of fine wire. To make matters worse, after pumping the tyre up, when he unscrewed the pump connector the centre of the valve came with it and the tyre deflated instantly. Fortunately, Mark had a small tool for screwing the valve back in nice and tight and the tyre stayed pumped up after the second go. Once back on the bikes we soon covered the last 3 km and were mightily pleased to get off the motorway and see our hotel only a short distance away.