Today was a challenging day, at least as much for the descent as for the climb. The first half of the ride was an easy ride through wide open spaces of North Park. The second half was a climb to the pass with rolling hills followed by 2500 ft of a 7% downhill grade. Fortunately the weather cooperated with 38F in the morning and very little wind.

Sunrise keeps getting slightly later and today was 6:38am. I was on the road before 7am. I had on mittens and a wool hat as the weather reported at 33F. Fortunately, my bike thermometer didn’t record lower than 38F and it gradually warmed as the sun came up. The first 34 miles were though a region known as “North Park” with these wide open spaces. It was flat with a very gradual increase. There was very little wind – in contrast to several past trips I have taken through the area.

There were many of these little pumping rigs. There were also some trucks passing to service the rigs. I saw some log trucks but overall there wasn’t much traffic.

Cows along the way.

After 34 miles I came to the junction of US 40. This is Muddy Pass and the continental divide where water goes to either the Pacific or the Atlantic. Somehow the Muddy Pass sign was missing and later the Rabbit Ears Pass signs as well. I’ve seen them in the past, so not sure why they aren’t there anymore.

Muddy Pass is an interesting place because the road climbs from here going west – rather than descends. It climbs further up Rabbit Ears Pass. Rabbit Ears has a west pass and an east pass and several miles of rolling hills between. So unlike a more traditional pass where one climbs up one side of the pass and descends the other side. Here I had a small climb to Muddy Pass, a further climb to West Rabbit Ears, multiple miles of rolling followed by a climb to East Rabbit Ears and then a descent. Overall, the net elevation gain was ~1500ft from Walden to the highest point and then a descent of ~2900ft to Steamboat Springs.

This looks back towards North Park and CO 14.

Some of the terrain near top of the east summit of Rabbit Ears. It is small but those bumps on the right side are the ears.

Summit signs were missing so this was as good a sign as I could get for the pass.

Here is the east summit and the start of the descent. Overall, the grade is 6.8%, slightly steeper than other passes. I wasn’t looking forward to the descent since I am otherwise cautious and this meant a lot of braking to keep my speed down. Before getting here I had even figured out that if necessary I could walk my bike down. However, this wasn’t necessary. The new wheel with slightly wider rim and a new brake meant that everything felt like it braked well – even with weight of myself and gear. I was still going slow and stopped once or twice but without much difficulty found myself to the bottom.

Welcome to Steamboat Springs!

Today is September 11th and one of the banks had this display of flags out in the lawn.

I cycled to the downtown where I had reserved a motel. This is a nice little town. The ski area makes it a bit touristy and expensive but the downtown is nice to wander through. I’ve also finished what I expected was three tougher days of riding. From here I expect two easier days of riding before some challenging days again. I expect a motel tomorrow and then some days of camping.