Copper Mountain, CO (map it)
July 26-28, 2008
Friday, July 25: Road Trip
Mom arrived with my sister, Hali, and her 4 kids on Tuesday of this week. It was fun to have them in town and spend a few nights playing Rockband with the gang. Even though the video game only had room for 4 players at a time, the rest of us were entertained by their performances as well as Xochitl and Oscar running around trying to decide which kid to attack (in a friendly way, of course). Friday morning, I headed up to Heather's house (another sister) to pick up Mikell (her husband) and my mom. We loaded their bikes onto the Xterra and headed for Salem (just south of Spanish Fork). We met up with Tara (Jimmy's sister), Sonya (Tara's friend) and Wilma (my mother-in-law) at their house and began the caravan to Colorado. The drive went pretty smooth and we arrived at Copper Mountain about 6 hours later. It was overcast and the roads were wet, so we'd just missed a little rain storm.
David & Sandy and their kids (Jimmy's brother's family) had already arrived from Longmont, CO, so they showed us to our rooms in the condo. Sandy had reserved a very nice condo that was right next to the main registration building, so we didn't have to walk very far to register for the weekend's ride. Since the meal plans that we purchased from the tour didn't start until the next morning, we ordered pizza and got our bikes ready for the starting day. I wish I could say we got to be early so that we would be well rested for the big ride over Vail Pass, but with this being our 3rd year at Courage Classic, and never getting to bed before midnight, I knew that it would be impossible. :) There are just so many little things to put together, organize, think it through a thousand times, and keep asking yourself, “Do I have everything?!” Shortly before we arrived at Copper, I mentioned that I needed to remember to meet up with our team captain in the morning to pick up my jersey. It should have been mailed to me the week before, but for whatever reason, it was forgotten. So the team captain said she would have it for me at the starting line. As I mentioned that, mom had a puzzled look on her face and asked “...do I have MY jersey?” She thought about it for a minute and realized that she hadn't received it either. We tried to figure out where it might have ended up, and thought that it was probably sitting in Babb, MT, at the address that mom gave them when they asked for mailing addresses several weeks earlier. We didn't realize that they would mail them so close to the event date, and mom headed to Utah a few days early, so they must have crossed paths with the mailman. Doh! We tried to get a hold of the team captain to see if there were any extra jerseys or shorts that mom could use instead, but we just got her voicemail. Oh well. At least mom had the team training jersey that she could wear if all else failed. After all of that, I think we got to bed shortly after midnight, which is actually the earliest we've managed in the last 3 years. Hopefully we'll figure out how to speed up the whole process over then next few years. :)
Saturday, July 26: Leadville to Copper Mountain
We were up dark and early this morning. We drove the Xterra to Leadville with the plan to leave it there for the weekend. The last day's ride ends in Leadville, so we needed to leave a vehicle there the first day otherwise we'd end up with more vehicles than drivers at Copper (since most of us were riding our bikes from Copper). They served breakfast at the starting line and we looked around for our team captain. I was able to get my jersey from her, but she said she didn't have any extras, so mom was out of luck. But at least she had her training jersey so she could still wear the team colors! We put our helmets on and jumped on our bikes.
The first few miles were great—mostly downhill. There was a little road construction along the route, so we had to ride on muddy gravel for a bit. That was a little tricky, not to mention frustrating since I was getting my pretty bike all dirty!! ;) But after a few miles we were back on pavement. There was a good climb to the first rest stop, but, as always, what goes up must come down, so we had a wonderful ~10 mile descent down the other side.
We made it to lunch in fairly good time...but the big climb up Vail was still to come. Mikell and David ended up getting pretty far ahead of us, so Tara, Sandy, my mom and I stuck together. A couple of miles past the lunch stop, Sandy was not feeling well at all. She'd been battling a nasty cold and stomach ache, so she wasn't feeling 100% to begin with. Then lunch didn't sit well with her at all. She and Tara sent me and my mom ahead and said they'd take the sag wagon if they needed to. So, we pushed on. It was getting hotter and hotter as we made our way to the last rest stop before Vail Pass. We filled up on water and grabbed a couple of snacks. The next part of the route was on an old road turned bike path, then it branched off to a regular bike path for the rest of the day's ride. It was nice to get off the roads and not have to share with traffic anymore! As we climbed steadily along the path, we checked the time and noticed it was getting close to 3pm which is when the afternoon thunder showers usually roll through. We were hoping that we would make it back before they hit, but we weren't quite so lucky. Just as we approached the fork in the route where the narrower bike path begins, we started feeling rain drops which quickly turned into a full-on shower. We took cover under a tree-like bush, but it wasn't much better than being right out in the open. The rain drops were enormous and we were drenched in minutes. We saw a few lightening flashes, heard the thunder soon after, and joked about getting struck by lightening. Just then, there was a HUGE crack of thunder—I even squealed! (And I'm not a squealer!) Once that happened, we decided to just keep moving. We were already soaked, so it's not like we could get any wetter! We pushed on, barely able to see with rain running off the front of our helmets. At least it gave us a chance to get warmed up a bit. :) The rain died down as we went along and had pretty much stopped by the time we reached the rest stop, about an hour after the rain started. Just before we reached the rest stop, Tara called on my cell phone and said that she and Sandy were waiting for us just a little ways past the rest stop and would ride down into Copper with us (it's about 5 miles downhill). It was nice to know that we would have some company on the last leg! We grabbed some cookies at the rest stop and hurried to get back on our bikes as we could feel our muscles tightening up from the cold. The last few miles were the coldest I've ever been on a bike. Normally I enjoy going downhill, but the path had a lot of turns to watch out for, and it was still wet, so we had to ride our brakes the whole way down. That's not easy when your fingers are numb!! Finally, we rolled triumphantly into Copper Mountain where the rest of the group was waiting to cheer for us as we crossed the finish line. It was great!
We headed back to the condo to take a nice hot shower before dinner. Then, we spoiled ourselves with a 60-minute massage. That's the only way to end a day of cycling!
Sunday, July 27 Copper Mountain, Ute Pass, Breckenridge
Today's route was a little nicer because we started and ended at Copper Mountain, but it was also the day of the century route, so I was dreading it a bit. ;) As one of my fundraising incentives, I promised to do the century route (that's 100 miles) if I raised over $500. I made it to $450 and one of my coworkers, SKye, made a second donation to make sure that I had to do the 100 miles. Gee, THANKS SKye! ;)
So, dark and early, at 6:45 am, we hit the road. David had a few other friends who were doing the century option, so we had a nice little group to form a "pace line." (That's what you see all the racers doing; riding a few inches behind each other and drafting off the lead rider.) It turned out to be a pretty good system, and the lead rider is in the front for only a couple of minutes, so you don't get burned out very fast.
We made great time out to the base of Ute Pass, which is the first big climb of the day. There was a rest stop right at the base, about 27 miles into the route, so we stopped there for a bit to fuel up for the ~7 mile climb to the summit. Not long after we started up the road, the guys had pulled ahead and Shannon (one of the guys' wife) and I trudged along. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the day was warming up nicely (or, not so nicely, depending on how you want to look at it). After a long haul, we made it to the summit. But, of course, that wasn't the end. There were still 3 more miles until the turnaround point of the Ute Pass leg. It was straight downhill to the turnaround, so that was great. But then we had to climb right back up it. Ugh! It was a nice feeling to make it back to the summit, then we had a nice long descent back the way we came. I even hit my record speed of 47 mph. Woohoo! (Don't tell my mom, though.) ;) It was great fun, but I did have a bit of a scare... When I was about a mile from the rest stop, as I was leaning forward over my handlebars to be more aerodynamic, I heard a short "pssh, pssh, pssh" sound coming from my front tire. I kept an eye on my tire to see if there was a rock or something sharp stuck in it, but I couldn't see anything. Then, my wheel started wobbling/shimmying. That's NOT good! So I stopped as soon as I could to see what was going on. As I got off my bike, I could see that my front tire was flat. Doh! So, I ended up walking my bike the last mile or so to the rest stop. I was feeling pretty silly, walking my bike as everyone was zooming by. But I got a big grin on my face when i saw my mom emerge from the rest stop crowd, waving her arms and taking pictures of me walking along. I didn't realize that their route came out that way too, so I was surprised to see her there. It was great! And, I can't really complain too much about getting a flat since that was my first flat tire ever. Not too shabby considering I've gone about 3,000 miles since I started riding! Anyway, David made quick work of changing my tire tube and we were ready to head out again.
We got back in our pace line and cruised 20 miles back on the main road to the next leg of the ride. We hooked up to a bike path for the next 15 miles to lunch. Our group got a little spread out along the way to lunch, but I was only a few minutes behind the guys, so I was pretty proud of myself for that. We ate lunch at Breckenridge High School and hopped back on the trail back to Copper Mountain. We were under a bit of a time crunch because the team picture was going to be taken at 4pm. Last year, we literally rolled in from the century, got off our bikes, and jumped in the picture. We didn't want to cut it that close again this year! With about 8 miles to go, we ran into "our other half" again (mom, Mikell, Tara, and Sandy) when their route intersected with ours. I was happy to see them again, and I got to ride the last few miles into Copper Mountain with my mom, so I was happy about that. :) We made it back with time to spare for the photo, enjoyed some dinner, and then went for massages once more. I could get used to that!
Monday, July 28, Copper Mountain to Leadville
After all of our fun riding over the last 2 days, we decided to take it a little easier today. In past years, we've done the Turquoise Lake option which adds about 10 miles, but it's a hard 10 miles with a lot of climbing. We wouldn't get done until pretty late in the day, the finish line BBQ would be pretty much over, and by the time we showered and got on the road to head home, it was already ~6pm with a 7 hour drive ahead of us. Yuck! So, we chose to skip the Turquoise Lake loop and finish a little earlier. We still had a long climb from Copper Mountain over Fremont Pass, but from there it was all down hill and flat into Leadville. It was great! David was gun ho to do the loop, so he went ahead and did it on his own. The rest of us, however, finished with about 30 miles under our seats and we were perfectly happy with that. The finish line party was still kicking and there was plenty of food. We took quick, cold showers there at the high school (which was an interesting experience, eh mom?), loaded up the bikes and headed home. It was another great year at Courage Classic!!
