One of the greatest things about living in Colorado, is that almost no matter what type of activity you do in the mountains, you almost always walk away with a feeling of inspiration. The combination of altitude, spectacular scenery with whatever sport you are doing will hopefully leave you with good memories and probably in better shape than when you started.

On this particular day over Labor Day weekend, my friend and I were not exactly sure what to expect on our ride to the mountains, but we were ready for an adventure.

Greg Krause and I have been training together on an off for a few years now. As a professional triathlete, new dad, and strong cyclist, I try to train with him on the bike as much as I can. I feel that training with fast people is a great way for me to get better, not to mention, passes the time.

The plan was to ride from our house in the Highlands Ranch/Littleton, CO area northwest through the mountains and end in Winter Park. We were guessing it would take us around 8 hours so we planned to leave very early Sunday morning. After a night of minimal sleep, my alarm went off at 3:30AM and I was out the door half-hour later. Yes, I began riding at 4AM, in the dark.

Since there is a large state park in-between where Greg and I live, we decided to each leave our houses at 4 and meet in the park at an overlook at 4:15. So here I am with my head and tail lights in place on my Quintana Roo Seduza descending into Chatfield Park, tugging at my brakes most of the way because I can barely see what’s in front of me.

Soon enough, I got into the park and to the overlook where I see another biker, with a stylin’ reflector jacket on, climbing up the hill. “Greg, is that you?” I said. “Yup,” he said “Are you ready?” We were on our way.

I have to admit, it was a spectacular morning for a ride. No clouds, no wind, and when ever I would look up into the sky, the stars just seemed to go on forever. We started out going north on the C-470 trail parallel to the highway & foothills so we would have a little more light from the street lights.

I was a little apprehensive going on the roads because the night before I had heard on the news that the most dangerous time to be out at night was between 3-5AM because of drunk drivers. Here we were at 4 AM on our bikes on a Sunday morning, nice and safe…ya right. I’m sure our wives were worried.

At around 5:30, we got through Morrison and headed up right by Red Rocks Amphitheatre, one of the more famous outdoor theatres in the nation. Right after we passed through Morrison, we descended into Golden, and it was about then that we were 2 hours into our ride and the sun was barely coming up. We were soon on Indiana Street headed towards Boulder, where we had a view of the entire city of Denver, all lit up by a luminous peach color of the sun.

It was quite incredible. We chatted about how lucky we were to see things like this from our bikes and gabbed a little bit about I’m looking forward to being a father. He was giving me some advice about how to train and be a dad, but I know it’ll be a little different for me as my wife is expecting twins.

It was a nice stretch of road into Boulder and the sun was warming us up enough to take off our jackets & arm warmers. After three hours of riding, we finally rode through Boulder and headed up route 36 towards Lyons, one of the final towns before Estes Park. We traded off drafting a little and before we knew it 4 hours had passed and we arrived in Lyons at around 8AM.

As most of our ride until now was climbing, it was in Lyons when the “real” climbing began. Lyons lies at an elevation of 5,362 feet. We stopped at a gas station to fuel up and began the long steady climb to Estes. We had a nice talk along the way, talking about races, the weather, how his daughter Taylor is coming along, and what I have to expect. It was a really nice time.

5 ½ hours soon passed and we arrived into Estes Park, elevation 7,522 feet. Unfortunately the only wildlife we saw up to this point were a few cows grazing in a pasture, but we were hoping to see the famed Elk that are commonly seen all over Estes Park, but no such luck.

By now we were at hour 6 and headed out of Estes Park and into the highlight of our trip, Rocky Mountain National Park. This was the main reason I wanted to do this ride. There is a famous road in the park that connects Estes Park to Grand Lake named Trail Ridge Road and climbs to over 12,000 feet.

I had heard that this road was a great road to drive, but even better to ride over, and it certainly did not disappoint! It was a pricey $10 per person to get into the park, and that was just on a bike! It was worth it though. The park is very untouched. It allows all that drive, ride, or hike through it truly see the beauty that Colorado has to offer.

As we looked at our Timex Bodylink watches we figured that getting to Winter Park was going to take a lot longer than 8 hours. Meanwhile, Nikki, my pregnant wife, was supposed to meet us there and pick us up at 12:30. Well, let’s just say that didn’t exactly happen.

On Trail Ridge Road there was no cell phone service, so we just began our climb and I planned to call Nikki in Grand Lake. About 20 minutes in, I got a flat, which was actually OK because we hadn’t really stopped all day. As I changed my flat, I also realized that I only brought 650cc tubes, and not any 700’s. Luckily, Greg had a patch kit and I got it changed. While I was changing it, he introduced me to “fruit leather” which was kind of a modern day fruit roll-up. It certainly hit the spot.

It was when we resumed our climb that I started to feel the fatigue in my legs. I was happy it was at that time because I was getting tired. The day before I had ridden 100 miles and ran for 1 hour in my preparation for Ironman. We had tourists from all over in their cars cheering us on and even taking pictures of us out their windows, as it is not very common that people ride their bikes on this particular road.

Our goal on this climb was to get to the summit on the road which capped off at 12,183 feet. We passed tree line and were pushing each other pretty hard. There were many switchbacks so after each one I as thinking we were close, but they kept going on forever. Finally, we saw the top and the visitors center.

We pushed a little harder and cruised into the visitors center where there were wall-to-wall people eating doughnuts, chips, pretzels, and candy bars. I was good with PowerBars and the fruit leather, while Greg got a $4 hot chocolate which tasted so good! After our break, we got in some of the most awesome views of the park and Longs Peak, and started our decent into Grand Lake.

It was a great 20 min coast downhill and before we knew it we arrived into Grand Lake. I called Nikki at 1:30 and told her to meet us in Grand Lake instead of Winter Park. She was worried, but bless her heart to drive all the way up there to met us. We saw her dive up and Greg and I called it a day! Total mileage: 136 and over 10,000 ft. of climbing.

We both had our running shoes in the car, but even though we were late to meet Nikki, I had to see if she would care if we went on a brick run. Well, let’s just say that 9 hours was enough that day and we soon headed back to Denver with our legs tired, stomachs empty, but with memories of a great Colorado biking adventure!