Pueblo West, Co to Silver Cliff, Co – 60 miles
Yesterday I woke up early at Shanna and Sean’s place. On the way out of town I swung by Cathy and Rod’s to say bye. I decided to top off my tires because I hadn’t put any air in them since I had the string of flats after rotating my tires in Newton, Kansas.
Sure enough when I was pumping up my back tire I got a flat. I think I finally figured out why I keep getting flats on the rear tire when I go to pump it up. Said goodbye to Rod and Karhy and took some photos.
On the way out of town I went around Pueblo Resevoir to avoid Hwy 50. There was a bike path, but it didn’t seem to get much use. At one point I was going down a decent hill and ran into mud covering the path going about 25. It was all I could do not to wreck. When I finally maneuvered out of it there was thick wet cement like mud stuck to my tires and brakes. I had to unload my bike and clean it all off because my tires wouldn’t even rotate.
Eventually a ranger stopped to see what I was doing. We talked for awhile while I cleaned the mud. Luckily he had a couple extra towels. He also directed traffic, so that no one would run me over. The whole fiasco cost me about an hour.
Once I was back on track I rode by the Pueblo Reaevoir Dam.
Then the road put me right back onto the route. Now I’m following the Adventure Cycling Western Express Route instead of the Trans Am. Once back on the road it quickly realized I probably wouldn’t make it to Salida, which was my tentative goal for the day. It was probably ambitious regardless of the mud. The first part of the ride was pretty flat with the occasional slowly sloped hill. I don’t remember when the climb started, but when it did, it didn’t stop.
The grade wasn’t super steep, but it was incredibly continuous. I think the altitude may have started getting too me as well because I was tiring out much quicker than usual. As I pulled into the first town, Wetmore, I ran into another cyclist. His name was Andreas and he was from Germany (onthebike.de). We ran into each other literally right there the Trans Am and Western Express part ways, so he turned right and I turned left.
It started to rain. I took frequent brakes and ate a lot of food. Finally the rain started to clear up and the sun came out. Shortly after I saw some mountain goats.
Eventually I got to the top of the hill, and the road started to flatten out which seemed odd. In the Appalachians you were always either climbing or descending and it was very much constantly up and down. The Rocky’s so far are significantly bigger, but change more slowly.
I stopped to look at the map to see where the next town was, because I was quickly running out of water. By now the views were spactacular. You could see snow capped peaks far off in the distance and all around were hills covered in trees.
The next town was 10-15 miles away, but luckily it was mostly downhill the whole way. When I got to Silver Cliff I stopped at the first place in town I saw to rest, rehydrate, and get my bearings. It was called Tony’s Mountain Pizza. I grabbed a seat at the bar and ordered some chilli. Started researching where to sleep because it was still 50 miles to Salida and it was already 5 PM, so there was no way I was going to make it there.
Eventually I struck up a conversation with some people passing by. I got my first cramp of the trip while they were talking to me – terrible timing. The couple at the table behind me over heard our conversation and after the other people left asked me if I needed a place to stay tonight. I said sure and after they finished their pizza we headed back to their place. Their names were Marilyn and Tim and their place was about 12 miles outside of town with spectacular views.
When we got there we relaxed a bit and chatted. Really great people and I had such a great time just hanging out and talking. Eventually we called it a night and I went to bed excited for a good breakfast in the morning.
