Day 43, Mother Nature's Apology

What a day of riding! We think the weather today was perhaps Mother Nature's way of apologizing to us for what she put us through yesterday. This morning it was brisk but clear blue skies with abounding sunshine and a noticeable absence of any clouds or more importantly, wind. It turns out that its actually pretty easy to ride on fairly flat lands when you haven't got hurricane force winds trying to knock you over or demoralize you so completely that you give up and nap on the warm pavement (hmm wouldn't know anything about that...)

We rode by the Blue Mesa Reservoirs this morning, which are manmade via the Gunnison River and stretch for miles through an enormous canyon with walls formed by volcanic ash. One of the rock formations is called Dillon Pinnacles, named after Molly and Doug, obviously. We then had some climbing after the reservoirs, made competely worth it by some of the glorious and fun descents afterwards. It was some of the most beautiful riding we've had.

Our lunch was in a town, if you can call it that, with 6 whole inhabitants, called Cimarron. We met three of these inhabitants, one of whom happens to be quite a famous rock climber called Jim Newberry. We heard his stories about first ascents in the precarious Black Canyon back in the days when most people had never heard of rock climbing.

We are in a city called Montrose tonight, which is not only very bike-friendly but also boasts an amazing view of the San Juan Mountains where we are headed tomorrow. Forgive the reference, but in order for our readers to understand, these mountains are the Coors Light Rockies exactly how they are in the ads. Can't go around them, gotta go over them, we really ARE tapping the Rockies, but with better beer!