Ride the Rockies Day Two: Winter Park to Steamboat Springs

Day two started out a little frozen, literally. I awoke to a frozen tent and a frozen bike.  It was cold, really cold and I didn’t want to get out of my sleeping bag.  I knew I had to get a jump on the day though. It was going to be a long one, over 90 miles to ride. The night before we got hit with a ton of rain and snow in the upper elevations.  The pass I had come down got three inches of snow, and the Winter Park Slopes looked like they could be skied on.

When I finally got out of the tent, I got a nice americano to warm me up, then I had to pack up the tent and get on the road.  It was a little difficult to get everything into the bag especially in the cold. The sun was coming out though and I had hopes that it would be a warm day.

Once I got rolling all fleet good.  It was brisk out, but I dressed warm.  The start was a nice downhill and I cruised to the first rest stop.  It came up fast to be honest, I wasn’t really ready to stop, but I figured it was good to get off the saddle every so often.

I continued riding and most of the ride was downhill, a nice change of pace after all of the climbing that I had done the day before.  I had found out that they closed the pass the day before and most people were not able to finish day one because of the snow.

Most of the ride was uneventful, just pedaled away, some rolling hill fairly easy all in all.  Then we got to the pass.  Rabbit Ears, I’ve driven it, didn’t think much of it in the car, but riding it, that’s another story. I have to admit I loved the climb, not too steep, very steady and a good challenge. I didn’t realize that Rabbit Ears wasn’t over once you got to the continental divide.  There were several miles at the summit with a east and west side.  It was cold up there, and I was excited to get down.

The best part of the entire day was the ride down Rabbit Ears into Steamboat Springs.  I averaged about 38MPH coming down, it was fun and there were beautiful views. Base camp was located at the Sheridan Resort in Steamboat, but my parent had joined me for this leg and got us a hotel room.  I met them and we went out and had a nice dinner.