So after a month of recuperation in Chicago we headed back to Denver to resume the ride. Our personal ER physician and shuttle driver, Dr. Pat Miller, picked us up at the airport and brought us back to Salida. I think our luck rubbed off on him, because his truck (Big Red) broke down on the way out of Denver. Now I don’t want to say this was our fault, but it had 250,000 miles on it and he never had much of a problem with it. Sorry Doc.

Upon arriving in Salida we went straight to Absolute Bikes to say hi to the awesome staff and pick up our gear. Of course Scot, mechanic extraordinaire, insisted we stay at his place and graciously offered to drive us up to the Monarch Crest Trail the next morning to get a warm- up ride in before heading up the infamous hill where I tumbled over my handlebars.

All in all things went well and we decided to hit the GDMBR that afternoon since we were so anxious to hit the trail. I made it up the hill (barely) and down the hill without incident.  We took the time to photograph the scene of the accident, but of course our camera malfunctioned.

Now the only thing to contend with was the weather. We’ve had rain almost every day in the two weeks we’ve been back. Some of it nasty enough to keep us in the tent for hours. As Chuck said, “I’ll gladly trade the mechanicals for weather.” I agreed. Famous last words.

Despite the rain we made it to some awesome Colorado towns, including Breckenridge, Frisco and Steamboat. The latter is where we met Bill Gamber the owner of BAP and Big Agnes Tents. While planning the trip Bill came through for us by going out of his way to ship us the Emerald Mountain SL3 Tent, which has proven to be one of our best pieces of gear. At the time he also offered us a beer and a shower when we rode through Steamboat. Boy did he get more than he bargained for.

It all started with him offering to let us camp in front the BAP store for two days while we took a rest day (that’s Bill in the middle). It was right downtown so we had access to everything we wanted, including the Hurricanes at SunPies. These were the main cause of the extra night in town.

After a good night’s rest we headed out of town for some gnarly trail. Even by the GD standards this was to be one of our harder days. We lived through it and found a nice campsite about 20 miles from the Wyoming border. We were finally going to make it out of Colorado. Not. The next morning I made it about .7 miles and I heard a rubbing sound from my rear tire. Usually an easy thing to deal with, but not this time. I fractured another joint; luckily this time it was on the bike, not me.

The frame near the rear dropout (where the wheel attaches) cracked in half. Once again Chuck had to ride back to the nearest town and save the day. Of course it couldn’t be easy. Steamboat was busy and there were no rental cars available. He went by BAP and Bill, THE NICEST GUY IN THE WORLD, insisted Chuck use his car to go pick me and the gear up. He also insisted we stay at his place for the night.

We felt so guilty about relying on him for so much we ended up checking into a hotel at 11PM and returned one very muddy car. Remember the rain?

The next morning we headed over to Steamboat Ski & Bike Kare to get the bad news on how long it would take to fix. I can’t imagine any bike shop keeping a rear triangle for a HiFi Pro in stock, which was true for Steamboat Ski & Bike Kare. Luckily we met Derek , the store manager. He said normally this would have to be sent back to Trek, but I happen to ride a HiFi Pro and we’ll take the part off my bike. Can you believe it? I couldn’t.

Not only that, they warrantied everything and got us out within a couple of hours. We really wanted to head back to Sunpies, but had no excuse for not hitting the trail. Which we did and of course it rained on us, but neither of us could have been happier. I’m also happy to say we’ve made it out of Colorado and into Wyoming. Stay tuned for more adventures …