Colorado Trail Day 3: Notes on riding into foreverland

Day 3: Silverton to Bolam Pass.

I did NOT get up early to start day 3. I lounged in bed ... counting calories, and recalling maps, contour lines, and the CT line running through it all.
I was also thinking about my girls, LW, EZ, and Cat... I just could not get their awesomeness out of my psyche. I was glad for their company ;)




The 6ish mile section of road out of Silverton and to Molas Pass was a nice way to warm up. The trucks were terrifying, and I actually got off the road and off my bike to watch a few of the big rigs fly by. It made me shudder every time.

Once onto the CT again, all of our spirits got spritely -- and we enjoyed our sweet morning singletrack dose. I was SOOOO happy to be back on dirt.

True to form, Ed took off like a bat out of hell. I could feel his flow and SS-bikepacking Mojo even from WAY behind him.



LW and I had just settled into a continuing of a warm up... when I realized that I had a solid flat tire. UGH!
So I unpacked ALL my gear.
I cleaned the Stans Snot Goop out of my tire. I booted it up, put in a tube, and got back to the business of blissing out on high country single track. 45 minutes. Dang.


Of course, Ed didn't know that I had a little mechanical. While LW and I tended to the tire, Ed was lured by the singletrack siren's song... and he just kept flying along.

If it hadn't taken me 45 minutes to fix the ffin' tire, we would not have been so far behind. But alas....




We finally caught up with Ed because he turned around to come back to look for us. Such a Sweetie.

After a few explanations, we all just kept rollin'...




and I had to take a lot of view breaks to compose my rather chaotic self;)


LW took a turn at the front, and spunn her way up into the heavens. Ed and I leap-frogged and caught a few pictures.







And then we caught back up to LW who had a smile the size of the sky beaming across her face.





We  made it to Bolam Pass... and set up camp.


I crashed early this night. I was tired. I put on some tunes and zoned out and completely disappeared from the planet.

Once again the day found me having to push hard just to barely keep up - but still so happy to be right where we were, doing what we were doing. Eat Drink Eat Drink. Ride Ride Ride. Ed and LW pulled strong turns off the front, and kept the motivation on a HIGH. There was nothing to do but ride and smile and know the trail ... the trail that seemed to just lead on and on and on into foreverland.

jj