Today we rode from Steamboat Springs, Colorado, US to Radium, Colorado, US. Sunny weather with clouds, and thunderstorms. Road conditions included gravel roads for most of the day (few kilometer of paved roads). Highlights of the day include seeing some of the rock formations.
Riding statistics: on Friday August 26, 2022, the 26th day on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route route, it took 11:02h (07:32h moving time), between 07:18 and 18:20, to cover 101 km (62 miles), including 1539 m (5049 ft) elevation gain, with an average speed of 13 km/h (8 mph). During today's ride the average temperature was 19 °C (68 °F) with a minimum of 8 °C (46 °F) and a maximum of 32 °C (94 °F).
Totals: So far, it took 7 days, 16 hours, 28 minutes and 22 seconds of cycling time to cover 2713 km (1686 miles), including 31386 m (102977 ft) elevation gain, with an average speed of 15 km/h (9.3 mph).
Leaving Steamboat Springs
6am again. Thanks to the guys from the Orange Peel bike shop we can start today as any other day. Waking up, making ourselves and bikes ready, and leave the KOA campground. We cycled through main street which was a really great ride with all the different shops and outdoor like setup. The town is big on skiing in winter and other outdoor sports in summer. We saw the ski areas (even including ski jumping) when cycling through town. Our first stop was at a Safeway. We needed to do some groceries for today, and possibly tomorrow because our planned stop for tonight only had a convenience store. After all the weeks I missed having bread. So I bought myself a french baguette and a package of salami. I had that for breakfast, lunch (and a piece with Nutella of course), and partly dinner.
Lynx Pass
When we were almost out of Steamboat Springs we saw Tiego, which we first met in the Brush Mountain Lodge. The day thereafter we saw him several times and now our paths crossed again. The remainder of the day we rode together with the three of us. The main pass of today was Lynx Pass. However, besides Lynx pass there as a lot more climbing of different hills. So today was again (like yesterday) less about total mileage but also about elevation. Around 1:30pm we decided it was time for lunch. We did that just after climbing a large hill, and we were chased by a thunderstorm. We had eaten our lunch and it started to rain. First a few and small drops but it got worse and worse. After a few minutes it was pouring, and we just started to ride on. We parked our bikes against some trees and sought shelter as well under some trees. That was OK for a short while, but then the rain got through the trees and we still got lots of drops on ourselves. I quickly went to my bike and grepped the footprint of my tent (the ground sheet below the tent). I kept it with my rain gear so I could get it easily. We held the footprint above our heads and that was much better. The others were happy that I thought about that. After about 20 minutes it almost stopped and we decided to move on. We rode about 400 meters and saw something that looked like a small house. When we got close it turned out to be a small chalet with two restrooms. We could have had shelter over here, there was even a small porch where we could have sat on. Oh well, you can know it all and we continued our ride.
Radium
We still had quite a distance to cover before we were on our planned destination. Fortunately no more rain. We did however had to cross a stream. I would guess 5 meters wide and 30 cm deep. I’ve seen people doing it on flip flops or barefoot, but that was on warm days. I had not interest in doing that today. So, I just decided to bike it. It worked out perfectly. My feet got a bit wet, but I still had my overshoes on so that was not a big issue. My bike was also much cleaner now, much of the mud from the rain has been washed away. Anna also decided to ride, but she just came a meter short and had to step off in the water. Fortunately not a big issue either because she kept her feet warm with peddling and all was OK. Tiego did not want to ride it because he thought it would be bad for the bike. So he decided to go barefoot and sent us already on the road. After half an hour we were reunited again and we moved on. We still had some serious short but steep hills to climb before we were in Radium. However, in a beatiful rocky scenery. The rocks all had different colors. Red rock which is beautiful combined with pine trees. But also other colors because of natural resources such as red, green, blue, grey, and yellow. After a long downhill and a last climb we arrived in Radium. Again an intersection with a few homes and a campground. We also were looking for a convenience store but could not see one. After asking around we found a person that sold some stuff (mainly water & snacks). We are encouraged not to filter water in this area. The name of this place has a real historic meaning and therefor you should not drink the water over here. After buying some water and snacks we went to the campground. It was full. Two options, ask others if we could join on their spot, or cycle on and find a dispersed site somewhere where we could pitch our tent. The camp host suggested a few people we could ask. And yes, three kind guys allowed us on their very large camp spot. We pitched our tents, went back and thanked them again and offered to pay for the camp spot (which they did not want, it was only $5), ate our dinner (mine was last piece of baguette with salami, and a nice noodle meal). When hung our food and went to bed.
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