Welcome to Colorful Colorado

The West Coast was quite a stretch. It was hilly, cold and rainy. But the whole time we thought of it as a warm up ride for the Rocky Mountains.

We’re going to ride our bicycles over the Rocky Mountains.

Saying that out loud to ourselves put the stamp of affirmation on what we were about to take on. We knew that on the other side of the “hill”… was home.

Leaving Phoenix, we were able to do something that we had envisioned would happen a lot more. We had our first rider actually ride WITH us. It was our host Mike! Mike and Dawn had a great place in Chandler, AZ with a trail basically right out the back door. Mike led us on the trail for a few miles as we rode out of the suburbs and into the heat of Arizona. Thanks Mike for paving the road for all future riders. Now, come join us when we pass through your city. We’re friendly and we have a TON of Clif bars to share with you 🙂

We still planned to use our newly formed slingshot approach to combat the hot hills of Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado all the way home. We wanted to keep a level head and a safe approach as we continued on through the dry desert air of the Rocky Mountains.

Just north of Mesa, AZ we joined up with Highway 87 and took it out of town and up the ridge of a pretty enormous plateau. However, we had no idea that it was as enormous of a plateau as it was until we got to the top of it. Mesa sat at a cool elevation of 1,243 ft, while the town of Payson, approximately 75 miles away, rose to nearly 5,000 ft! Quite a climb!

From Payson, we still had some ups and downs but nothing quite like the start. Instead, our heads were in the sky as we began to enter the national forests of northern Arizona. We opened up with Dumb National Forest (Tonto National Forest – but tonto is a Spanish word… for dumb). The forest was not dumb. Whoever named it it is dumb!

Our campsite was a stone’s throw away from here in Sitgreaves National Forest. Rex took the name too literally, sitting and grieving here after a glorious ride as he waited for the sag vehicle.

OK well he wasn’t that good at grieving. The blanket of forests provided a comfortable setting as Rex eeked out a smile. Atta boy Rex! 🙂

After some map issues we met up, found a promising campsite and set up for the night. So many good campsites around here!

Heading out of northern Arizona our next stop would be just across the border in New Mexico at Zuni-Pueblo. The road became unwinding and long and looked a lot like this for as far as the human eye could see:

Once we had reached the plateau we no longer had protection from the sun. The road was encompassed by desolate land for miles and miles. It was much better than the desert of California and Arizona though. We were at a higher elevation and there was usually a slight breeze. It was hot, don’t get me wrong, but we weren’t worried about getting heat stroke this time around. We felt good about our chances!

Riding through small town after small town we ended up finishing at Zuni-Pueblo, a Native American Reservation. It was pretty small and quite empty. A few wandering individuals, a couple gas stations and a community center “filled” the town. The community center was our highlight.

We rode through the town looking for a campground, park, empty field, parking lot or county road that we could camp on. We found nothing of the sort. What we DID find was a community center that had a neatly tucked away parking lot behind it with space to park our truck and trailer and a small patch of grass to set up our tents. We felt this was suitable for a night’s stay and to set up camp. We wanted to make sure we were out of sight of any of the townspeople so as not to disturb them. A 10-hour camp site isn’t much to worry about and we wanted to keep it that way. We had started to become pretty efficient at set-up and breakdown of camp.

As dawn broke the next morning, we hustled and bustled to break camp and be out of there and back on the road as quickly as possible. Putting our wheels to the road by 6:45 AM, we had our earliest start of the trip thus far. This was our first makeshift campsite that we had stumbled upon thus far on our excursion, and as we left the town of Zuni-Pueblo, we knew this wouldn’t be our last.

We wanted to get an early start because we had a special treat coming up at our next stop in Albuquerque. Thanks to a friendly face in Lawrence, Kansas; Sally was incredibly gracious and donated a couple gift cards for hotel night stays to the Biking for Baseball organization to use at our own discretion. For us to be able to get out of the elements, into air conditioning with a shower and a good night’s sleep could not and never will be overstated. Needless to say, we were pretty jazzed about getting to Albuquerque as we made it in by mid-afternoon.

On the way to Albuquerque we had our first taste of major highway riding. From the town of Grants and all the way to Albuquerque, there is one road that takes you the shortest distance, is completely paved and has a giant shoulder. Well, that road happens to be I-40. Surprisingly, this was a fantastic option for us. Heading out of Grants, we took the on-ramp, merged onto I-40 (on the shoulder, so half-merging), and didn’t get off until Albuquerque!

Note: It is really fascinating to be taking the on-ramp on a bicycle on to a major highway. Take that a step further when you are joined by a semi-truck. There’s a spark of adrenaline that rushes through you as you feel the challenge of getting on a road filled with mechanical beasts as you ride your self-powered bicycle on a highway that stretches for 100’s of miles.

We made it to Albuquerque quickly, relaxed in the hotel, caught some NBA playoffs, worked through press releases, web updates, event planning and rested our weary bodies in a comfortable bed for a night. What a relief for a night! Thanks Sally!

Of course, it will always be difficult getting up that next morning when the alarm starts buzzing at 6 AM. You lie there covered in mounds of sheets, a down pillow smothering your face and curtains drawn to keep the room cool and damp, thinking about the heaven you are in. But alas, the road called us once again! Let’s go!

Heading out of Albuquerque it was time to point our wheels north for the first time on our excursion cross-country, and on a road we were familiar with… I-25!

Whoa whoa whoa! TWO major highways! That’s crazy!

Yeah, well maybe. But also, maybe not! I-25 actually IS a bike route out of Albuquerque heading towards Santa Fe. Once again, we had so much room on the shoulder we could have done jumping jacks side-by-side all the way to Santa Fe. Granted, that would have been a big waste of energy and time, and would have only helped us illustrate the point that there was a lot of room on the shoulder. We thought better of our energy use, stayed on our bicycles and crushed it all the way to Santa Fe. But seriously, we couldn’t help but think how awesome the road was from Albuquerque to Santa Fe. And yes, it’s too hot for probably 4 months of the year, but for the other 8, it could be perfect for a commute!

We couldn’t help but wonder… someday.

Trivia Time! What is the highest, elevation-wise, capital in the country?

A. Denver

B. Santa Fe

C. Salt Lake City

D. Baton Rouge

Hopefully you didn’t look too far down on this blog and at least tried a guess. But the answer, is Santa Fe! Over 7,000 feet high! Denver, is a meager 5,280. Pftfbftbftbt! Only a mile high. Santa Fe towers over Denver like Xtra-Large towers over Mother Huckleberry.

Enough of this major highway business and excitement, it was time to jump onto a familiar road to us Coloradans, Highway 285! Home was getting closer!

As we continued north we also came under a great realization. We were heading into the National Forest Treasureland (not an actual name, but it was a treasure to the B4B team). And what do National Forests mean???… free camping! And free camping is how we save funds so that we can continue to put on crazy awesome baseball clinics for youth mentoring programs across the country! We feel like free camping and B4B go together like spaghetti and meatballs. Posting up in a National Forest in the Tres Piedras region of northern New Mexico was awesome! Check out our campsite!

After a great rest, we were getting giddy wit it as were about to cross the border to Colorado!

This is where we thought it was going to become increasingly difficult. But we don’t know if it was that we had set high expectations or that we were more conditioned since the West Coast, but we felt surprisingly good about the whole climb through Colorado. Yeah there were passes and there were climbs, but for every climb, there was a nice downhill. And for every climb, every downhill and every flat stretch for miles and miles… there was sheer beauty.

Instead of worrying about the terrain or the heat, we kept our heads on a swivel as we marveled at how B-E-A-UTIFUL Colorado is. Well there you go Colorado, being all colorful again.

Ameri-CUH!

The ride through Colorado went by way too fast for us. We passed through such pretty country all the way up Highway 285, the mountains beckoned us to stay for another day or two, bath in their lakes and gaze at their stars. It was hard to turn Mother Nature down. Especially for four dudes who only hang out with… other dudes. She’s so pretty!

This ride on Highway 285 from Tres Piedras to Denver is a must for every cyclist in Colorado. If you don’t live in Colorado, you should come to Colorado and do this ride. If you don’t live in the U.S., you should come to Colorado and do this ride. Just do this ride. And let us know, cause we’ll do it with you. Wow it was gorgeous. To be able to do it by bicycle, provides a whole new level of appreciation. Riding your bike THROUGH the Rocky Mountains. Think about it, believe in it, and do it. Basically, we loved it and want to go back already 🙂

But alas, we only had one camping night in Colorado and we were fortunate enough to camp under Mt. Princeton, a 14,000+ foot high mountain, just outside Buena Vista. We even had Chalk Creek flowing right through our campsite.

On the last leg, our K-State alumni, Chase and Tim met a fellow alumnus on the road and shared epic stories just outside Fairplay, CO. Kurt and Zoe are riding a recumbent bike across the country. They have a fun and interesting blog that is worth a read. After realizing their shared alumni connections, the three joined up for a salute to their alma mater.

The rest of our ride felt like we were on a constant rush of adrenaline. Denver is our home base and it was also a sort of benchmark for us. It meant we had made it through a quarter of our 11,000+ mile journey. At times on this trip we might have thought that making it back to Denver was going to happen a lot sooner than what we had planned for. But we had made it back! And on our bicycles! After seeing MLB games in each city and playing baseball with kids at each stop along the way! We were doing it! We crossed hurdle after hurdle and were feeling strong. Biking for Baseball was kicking more than ever and we were ecstatic to come back home and share it with all of our supporters that had been with us since the start. High-five to everyone, everywhere!