Colorado Hi

[Dan]

Hello everyone.
Michelle and I  are in Durango Co now. (4 month RV trip) Nice place. Plenty of road and  mt biking, hiking and fishing. (I'm going out shortly to catch some trout for dinner. Almost too easy)
We have climbed three 10,000' passes on the road bikes so far. More to come.
We will be doing the MT Evans hill climb on 7/21. Only 27 miles but 7000' elevation gain up to 14,000'. http://www.bicyclerace.com/ Ossur prosthetics is sponsoring me so I have some pressure to actually make it. I'm shooting to beat 4 hours. But survival is more like it. Not sure I can even breathe on an 8% grade at 14,000"!!
Michelle is shooting to reach the podium. I think she has a chance to win her age division.
We will be attemting to summit (hike) a number of 14ers as soon as the snow up there melts. Our 1st attempt will lilely be Mt Berstadt when we get to Brickenridge in a few weeks.
Later.
Dan & Michelle

[karlos]

Dan & Michelle - Good luck on Mt. Evans. The climb from Evergreen to Mt. Evans was one of the coolest things I've ever done. It was 1980 and we even passed cars on the last ~20 switchbacks as their carburetors were gasping (everyone has fuel injection these days). When I and a friend rode it, after catching our breath at the top (took a LONG time), we headed down and my friend, Pete, after about 50 yds had his crank completely shear off. Why it didn't break on the climb up, we'll never know. But that solo descent was just as exhilarating as the climb.

We really want Michelle's podium picture on the Photo Gallery, so send it to us - Dan's, too!

[Karl Rudnick]

I'm not sure what I'd rather see this Saturday, TDF Stage 13 time trial (followed by the epic Plateau de Beille on Sunday) or Dan and Michelle climbing Mt. Evans. You two will have a big rooting section back here in San Diego. We'll be checking out the results at http://www.bicyclerace.com
"Allez, allez, allez, ...!"

[Dan]

Thanks for the nice thoughts, Karl.
But don't look at my time. I checked last years results. The participants are serious racers. I figure its going to take me 4.5 hrs to climb the 7000'. That would have put me about a half hour behind a couple of 70 year olds last year.
Ah, but an old (very old) friend of mind recently wrote,"forget the time and enjoy the climb." I'll try to remember that.
I think Michelle will be competitive. She has been riding hard since we arrived in Colorado a couple of months ago. I think she has climbed 10-12 passes of 10,000' or more so far. I've never seen her climb so well.
We have been in Brekenridge (9200') for the last 3 weeks. Great cycling here. The views are the best. They have a dedicated bike path from Breck to Vail over the Vail pass.
Awesome place. But 8 months of winter here. Now, if we could put our San Diego climate here.......
Dan

[karlos]

Wow  - Check out the results at http://www.bicyclerace.com/2007_results/mt-evans-citizens.htm
Michelle podiumed (2nd) at 2:58:36 and Dan's 3:36:13 was way better than his 4.5 hr goal.

Congratulations, you two!

If you've got any photos please post to the photo gallery.