"Today was a record I hope to never break" --Matt "Truck" Thrall

130 miles today! Talk about a pain in the ass. Literally. Yesterday we made it over Cottonwood Pass after a grueling 20 mile climb and a somewhat unappreciated payoff in the way of a 15 mile dirt downhill, and eventually (after 76 total miles)wound our way into Crested Butte. Today, however, 130 miles. Did I mention the taint pain? I guess so. The picture is Matt, "Truck" Thrall after we found our way to Hutch's Ourayle House Brewery. The contrast between 100 degrees in angry-big-truck-Montrose, and the beautiful box canyon town of Ouray was that of apples and oranges. Make that worm-ridden apples, and fresh-picked oranges. I'm too tired to blog, but will add more about Crested Butte's Brick Oven Pizzeria, the beer selection, and their kick-ass bike team on the next post. Cheers!

Buena Vista to Crested Butte via Cottonwood Pass at 12,160 Feet

Community Cycles--Folks that Deserve Emulation

We kicked off the ride with a wonderful party at Avery last night with some great beer, a fantastic carbo-load pasta feast,and a top notch raffle with some high end donations from the Garmin/Slipstream team, The Kitchen Upstairs, The Sink, Deuter packs, and the Boulder Rock Club among others.

The beneficiary, however, was the highlight, and that was Boulder's Community Cycles. Your Boulder hippie-type/bike culture sort of dude, Peter, was on hand to tall us a bit: Community Cycles provides re-cycled bikes and a welcoming space to learn about bicycle repair, maintenance and operation through outreach and advocacy activities. They serve a wide range of people in the Boulder community, but focus on at-risk youth, low-income individuals and work release program inmates from the county jail as well as college students and others who are interested in commuting via bicycle. In addition, Community Cycles supports schools, businesses or other organizations interested in establishing a bike fleet program. The Earn-a-Bike program lets kids volunteer at the shop for 10 hours and they walk away with a bike of their own.

These are folks that deserve emulation.

Adam's Dumb Idea (and my dumber response)

The phone rang at Ska and it was Adam Avery of Avery Brewing in Boulder, Colorado.

"We had this crazy idea that we should ride our bikes from our brewery to yours and we're hoping you could do a fundraiser and maybe tap a special keg when we arrive," Avery said.

We always open our home to our fellow brewers, and I was about to reply that 'of course, we'd love to' when something ridiculous spewed out of my mouth instead. "We want to ride, too."

That was a couple of months ago, and honestly, I thought that by the time the third week of July rolled around, I would be in shape, or better yet, the idea would simply have faded away. Well, the idea didn't fade away, and now the portentous day is here. Although I'm in better shape than I was, I can't stop thinking that we're about to ride 426 miles over 9 of Colorado's high mountain passes, and I'm a fatty. Somehow, with few words, my friend Jon Bailey at the Durango Cyclery put a much better spin on it. "Dude, you're riding your bike all day and then drinking beer."

Adam's dumb idea evolved into a collaborative beer, the Wheelsucker Wheat Mountainous 7.2%. Bavarian-style Hefeweizen, and a charity fundraiser at a different Colorado brewery each night of the ride. The beauty here is the beer part, the beast is of course, the bike. If we were doing a ride like this with non-brewing road bikers at least we would have a professionally hung-over leg up on them. Not the case, the Avery boys are good. Note the photo above--this was taken July 1st when they came down to Ska to brew the Wheelsucker. Ska Head Brewer Thomas Larsen simply dilly dally's while the Avery crew (Adam, Orli, and Breeze) work their asses off.

So with that Arlo Grammatica (Ska's Barroom Hero) and I are off to spend the week picking up all manner of road bike guy fashion tips from the Avery boys, and maybe a couple of brewing tips as well...