Mountain Madness

Pueblo could be called the Bakersfield of Colorado, the coarse, often disrespected step child of the state. Everyone I'd talked to had warned me about the place. As I enjoyed cool riding and mild wind conditions on the way in from Ordway, I wondered what I would find. As I slipped onto Highway 50 and my final approach to the city, I observed another kind of town: prairie dog villages lining the road. The animals are basically like ground squirrels, squeaking and popping up and down out of their burrows. They've been known to create vast colonies and have often been poisoned by ranchers and used as target practice by varmint hunters. I found them quite amusing as they'd wiggle their stubby tails and dive headlong into holes in the ground. They would never let me get close enough for a picture, so you'll have to take my word for it.

On rolling into town, I found the descriptions I'd heard to be largely correct: rough, edgy, hoody. The downtown area was dead on this Sunday afternoon. I cut back and forth through the main district and enjoyed a couple of the sculptures on display, but it was not a place to linger. I headed for the park where I'd been told I could camp. After stocking up on food, I landed in the park and realized I had a problem: Sunday. No officials. I'd just have to stealth camp somewhere. On the far northern edge of the park, I found a dirt lot and baseball diamond. The other side of the field looked to be unregulated land. So I'd spend my night on a bluff overlooking the Arkansas river as it flooded over a dam. Not bad. I set up on the outside of the the fence enclosing the ball field. Mistake.

No tent, asleep under the dome of heaven, I was ripped into consciousness by the heavy machine gun splatter of large drops of water. Up, man! Quick! Go, go, GO! The sprinklers had come on, and, like an idiot, I had forgotten the camping axiom of cyclists in the West: If the grass is green, you are going to get hosed. Period. Fuming, sputtering, cursing, I grabbed my stuff and hurled it out of the soaking zone. Midnight. Thirty seven degrees and falling. Lovely. I reset my dampened pad and bag and crawled in. By morning, frost would cover all of my gear when I emerged into a 28 degree dawn. Hey, Mojo, let's get out of here.

The road to Canon City and my entrance to the Rockies was Highway 50 with wide shoulders and only moderate to light traffic. I was really hoping for a better night than Pueblo. I hit the lottery. After research and supplies, I headed out of town to gain access to a natural area and, the Holy Grail of wild campers, public land. I rode down a smooth double track, a bit steeply near the end, and pushed through a narrow gate--cyclists, equestrians, walkers only. In a moment, I was parked in a stand of bushy junipers surrounded by peaks, valleys, crags and views out over the town. Free at last! I did a happy dance and went about setting up camp. No tent, just bag out in the open--no sprinklers, cars, flood lights. Just me, the mountains and the stars. Blessed bivouac of the elite cyclo-tourist.

My freedom was at odds with much of the local population, however. Freemont county and the region around Canon City were home to thirteen state and federal penitentiaries, including a so-called SuperMax, a lock down for the worst of the worst. In one photograph I was able to include three prisons. This area had made the incarceration of criminals its financial foundation. I suspect crime is low in Canon City with so much evidence of where potential perps will land on every corner. The town even boasts of a prison museum, perhaps so would-be criminals can see how good convicts are treated today? I did not have time to view it as I needed to find a place to camp.

My long night passed quickly enough, spiced now and then by the yip yap howl of coyotes in the near distance. Sometime late, the wind picked up, and I burrowed more deeply into my bag. Out of the west. Hmmmm.... This didn't bode well for the next day's ride. I eventually crawled from my nylon cocoon into a blustery morning. I brewed up quickly and did a short hike into a nearby canyon, a cleft into the craggy walls to the west that led into a sandy arroyo decorated with large blocks of sandstone and flaming yellow cottonwoods. I so wanted to have Jodi and Django with me, the best of companions, to join me in exploration and exclamation. I took pictures and sauntered back to camp. I only had 45 miles to do--or did I?

I'd been too casual about reading the map. ANOTHER cyclist's axiom: Read the map. Read the map. Read the map--duh. On leaving Canon City, I found that I had almost 60 miles to do. Jeez. Oh, and the day began with an 1100 ft. climb to a pass not indicated on the map--even after I read it. A long, slow grind too late in the morning meant I had to make steady time to get to Salida before too long. I was staying at Trey's place, a Warmshowers host most excellent.

After the summit, I enjoyed a long drop that I knew would be followed by more climbing: Canon City was at 5,200 ft., Salida at just over 7,000. I entered a wonderland--high, barren peaks over 14,000 ft. on the skyline, narrow, craggy canyons, the glittering Arkansas River cutting a meandering path down low. For mile upon mile, I drank in what I had so long desired. The fly in the ointment? For there is always the fly, no? Oh, yes, the winds kicked in, blowing steady and strong into my face. What would have merely been a strenuous day was turned into a real burn. I frequently faced the discouraging reality of shifting into my lowest gears for the slightest of grades. Traffic was light to moderate but comprised of too many trucks for my taste. In this area, at least, I was lucky. I passed river rafting company after company, all closed for the season. Each had a small fleet of buses for transporting riders up river. Consider the highway with dozens and dozens of buses running round trips, the usual truck and car traffic, and factor in what must be astronomical recreational traffic of trucks, fifth wheels and mega RV's, and cyclists would be well advised to stay away from June to September. In places, too, the shoulder is non-existent. I was blessed with a Tuesday afternoon in October--no skiing, no rafting, kids all back in school. Elite cyclo-tourist one, traffic zero. Well, almost. I was still annoyed and had to keep an eye out, but conditions on this road were far better than I had faced in some other places.

By noon I was needing a serious break and pulled over at a river access area and campground to make lunch. With a pained sigh, I realized I still had 40 miles to go. At least the beauty of the scenery took away much of my misery. If I were going to struggle, this was the place to do it. Each turn of the road revealed a new vista, a curve of the river, a new imposing crag breaking out of the steep juniper and pinyon pine covered sides of the canyon. As I progressed, I got closer and closer to the massive peaks I'd seen when first breaking the pass earlier. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen thousand feet, they heaved their mighty bulks into the clear October sky. Wind-scoured, barren-topped, the summits were only exposed stone, far above the region where trees could take hold. Even the hearty lichen would have trouble up there. I had troubles of my own down below. I'd have to come back some day and hike these majestic peaks.

I stopped for ice cream about twenty miles out of Salida. Treat yourself when you're feeling thrashed, I always say. I sat on a bench outside the store and looked up at an American flag snapping merrily in the breeze, such a happy, perky snap, snap, snap. Each snap a nail in the coffin of my energies. Gotta fight, Scotty boy. That's all there is to it. C'mon, Mojo, let's get that Mojo goin'. Back into wrestling mode, I headed out...only to find the winds stopped, a door shut on the west, and I was free, even, at times, getting a little assist. It must have been the ice cream. Whatever the cause, I was deeply grateful and cruised the remaining miles at a much faster, easier pace, realizing that the winds had been taking three to five miles per hour off my average speeds.

At Salida, the heart of the Rockies, I slipped into the old, classic part of town and found the bike shop Trey had recommended--Absolute Bikes. A fantastic staff greeted me like an old friend and I chatted some time with the crew until hunger overcame my convivial impulses. Must...have...food. No worries. Sidle next door to the Bongo Cafe, order large mixed green salad with balsamic vinegar dressing, a large bison burger, an "adult malted beverage recovering drink," as one of the bike shop blokes put it, and dig in. Life was perfect: Fine people, good food, grotesque volumes of hard exercise, what more do you need? I cleaned every crumb and drop of food from my plates and stepped out into the chill of the early evening. I needed to find Trey's place. I pedaled through the deepening shadows as the last rays of the sun glowed on the Sawatch range seven thousand feet above.

The photos are out of order, so sue me!

Downtown Salida:


For Dean--fly fishing on the Arkansas:


Cottonwood in the canyon above Canon City:


Cranking hard for the mountains of mystery:


Lizzie, my mascot:


My camp in the junipers:


On the way to camp:


Downtown Canon City:


Fall color in Canon City:


Frosty gear in Pueblo:


Wall art in Pueblo:


Graffiti in Pueblo:


On the cusp between 2,000 and 3,000 miles:

Borderline Personality Disorder

I finished Kansas before Kansas could finish me--although the outcome was in question for a while. My last night in the state in Tribune went well enough. I'd been told that I could sleep in the park and that, if the restroom were closed, the sheriff's office could open it for me. So upon finding the door locked, I returned to the office and was told--by a different person--that I was out of luck: No John for Scotty. Crap. I'd stayed in a town back in Indiana called Denver that also had no John. Well, no Rocky Mountain High for the Midwest, and Tribune, Kansas, was continuing the tradition. So another commando camp it would be.


I returned to the park and filled my water containers and studied the area to the north of the park. I could see trees and some buildings. Perhaps... I cut around a fenced field, spotted some grassy area at the far end of another section of the park, and motored cross country to my campsite, which was actually on the border between the park and undeveloped country. Perfect. Trees and scrub would provide a suitable cat box, and I was far from the road. Little did I know that my short cut would have some mildly serious consequences.

In the morning as I pulled away from camp, the bike felt strange. What's wrong with this thing? I jumped off to find not one but two flaccid lovelies splayed out under my once proud rims. (Insert ranting, profane tirade.) Well, this fine turn of events ruined any early start I'd hoped for. The good news was that it was not raining nor was the wind blowing, and I could push the bike over to a picnic table under a light. There in the tread of the tires, buried up to their hideous, bulbous heads, were several nasty thorns, goat heads, what I later heard called "Texas tacks." These are fiendishly effective tools for the puncture of bicycle tires. I lay wounded Mojo on his side and pulled the wheels. Step by step, I scrutinized the tires and pried thorns and tips from the tread. Needle-nose pliers were vital here (praise the Lord Leatherman). I then studied the interior of the tires, careful to invert the inside so that I might expose any remaining points. The rear tube already had two patches and probably two new punctures. I tossed it. Another mistake I could not at the time foresee.

Once on the road, I pedaled straight into a fog bank--huh? No wind, thank you, but this grey muck was no joke. My friends in Bakersfield, California, will know this kind of fog, a thick, gooey, opaque mass that leaves too much to the imagination and covered my glasses with dense moisture. I repeatedly had to wipe my lenses to clear my vision. A final farewell gift from the Great State of Kansas. As I neared the Colorado/Kansas frontier, the sun began to break through, and there, just as I was about to cross, sun hit the pavement and created a muted "fog bow" in the clouds that arched perfectly over the road, a sign from the gods that I was welcome in my first WESTERN state. I did my border crossing rant, and pedaled through the fog of the threshold and into the next phase of my journey. As if to fully signify the event, I broke clear of the sludge just west of the border and sailed into a bright, nearly windless Colorado day. The air was dry, the dome of the sky an almost unbearable blue.

Range land, ladies and gentleman, range land unfurled about me. Cottonwoods filled the stream beds and stood green and familiar here and there. Although I would still see a few more corn stalks to remind me about the past, I was in cowboy country now, coyotes and jack rabbits. And just the next day, I would see the Rockies, mountains of my dreams. I cued up some Grace from the Apostle Paul (Simon) and grinned down the road, my spirits restored, my legs ready for the day.

To seal the deal on my arrival, I met my first long-distance cyclist since Steve in central Ohio. On his way to Illinois, Theodore and I stopped and talked for a while. In the eager, happy way of cyclists, we swapped war stories and information. I was able to give him my map so that he could save some miles on his way. We were both reluctant to get back on our solitary treks, but the miles wouldn't do themselves. To Eads, Colorado, for me, to somewhereville Kansas for Theodore. Ride well, brother. You can have tailwinds after I get mine! I was to get no genuine tailwinds, but I was given a temporary reprieve, so I was thankful.

Got another thorn flat a few miles further on and learned from an old Mexican caretaker how to identify the dastardly plant. After almost 3,000 miles without a flat, I was suddenly getting way too much practice at fixing the damn things.

I arrived in Eads in high spirits with a resolve to take a rest day. I'd been pushing hard since Manhattan, and I needed a break. On studying the weather on the Net, however, I discovered more winds were marching north. If I took my rest day, I'd have to battle some horrible conditions, especially as I was headed south and west, the precise direction of the wind. I scrapped my rest day and resolved to get my earliest start yet.

At first I planned to sleep in the open, but as I finished dinner, I could see sprinklers coming on across the lawn. Pitch tent or get drenched. As I was setting up the fly on the tent, a sprinkler erupted from the ground right in front of me, its ugly head bursting out like an alien from an unsuspecting space traveler's belly. Water sprayed directly into the tent through the mesh. I quickly grabbed my pot and tried to cover the sprinkler but without much success. I ripped my tent from the grass and scrambled to get everything clear of the watering system. Exhausted, angry, frustrated, I just wanted to lay my sorry ass down and sleep. I had a bunch of gear scattered on the parking lot. With a sigh of resignation, I began picking up all my stuff and transporting it behind a small building where I could see no freshly irrigated grass--just dry dirt and leaves. I threw my pad on the ground and worked on getting a little sleep.

I was up and packing shortly before 3am. This wasn't cycling. This was war. I was going to escape the advancing armies in the south or know the reason why. I was riding by 3:35am. Good grief, man. Have you completely lost it? I left the pools of light in town and quickly became engulfed by the vast emptiness and darkness of the high plains. Only a few very distant homes and a cell tower or two broke the perfection of the night. Overhead, Orion burned its skeletal form in the velvet black of the sky. A crescent moon glowed through a high thin cloud. Mojo and I made our way towards the mountains we couldn't see. To the south, flashes seemed to indicate lightning. Such a strange and solitary life!

Shortly before dawn, I pulled into a dirt lot to use a restroom, and before I knew exactly what surface I was on, I saw the telltale grass of vicious thorns. Damn double crap! I swung away, looked down and found the tools of detumescence protruding from the rear tire. I pulled out the biggest one to hear the song of my frustration whistling shrilly from the tiny puncture. On fixing this flat I discovered the folly of throwing out that other tube: The additional spare I thought I had was, in fact, for the smaller diameter front wheel. Running low on patches and tubes, I was starting to get worried. The nearest bike shop was still about 90 miles away in Pueblo. I fixed the flat and just tried to be as careful as I could.

The dawn was a magical ride into immense grassy expanses turned to gold in the early light. This was fine compensation for my brutally early start. Then, at precisely 7:19 am, I saw the Rocky Mountains for the first time, a peak off to my right--Pike's? I couldn't say. But the mountains were still there. I would reach them somehow, and these trying high plains would fall into my wake to become a good story rather than the present trials.

After a short break, I started up Mojo only to feel that uncertainty on the road that only meant one thing: another flat. This one, however, was of the slow leak variety, and I decided to ride on, pausing occasionally to re-inflate until I got to Ordway, about 25 miles away. It was obviously a small puncture and would likely require placing the tube under water to detect. I did not have sufficient water to do the job in the wilds where I found myself. Every twenty minutes I would dismount, pump until my arms started to ache, then ride another twenty. This went on until I encountered another cyclist, Matt, on his way to Philadelphia. A fine young lad, he gave me a spare patch kit. I gave a map to Theodore only to receive this. We cyclists must look out for each other, pay it forward, as they say. With renewed repair supplies, I pushed on into the rising wind and heat. Ordway seemed to be a long way off.

The town was guarded by a feed lot with the wind cutting right across my path. Fine particulate matter and raunchy odors assaulted me as I pedaled as resolutely as possible to clear the zone. I pumped up the tire one more time and rolled into town. Matt had told me of a hotel across from the park with excellent ($25/night) rates for cyclists. Couldn't pass this up. I'd stay for two nights and make a real rest of it. The Hotel Ordway was temporarily missing a clerk, and check in wasn't until 2pm anyway, so I went to the park to work on my bike in the shade.

I was right away approached by a small squad of young boys. Eli, the oldest at 14 and a freshman in high school, and his friends quickly became my Ordway Posse, and we spent the afternoon talking about all kinds of things as I worked on my bike. They liked this little town and made a definite point about how much safer it was than Pueblo, which was now known for gangs. I asked them about what they were reading in school, and one boy said, "Not much. We don't have to read much of anything. We don't really like it around here." Nice kids, but I fear for their futures. Later, we did a tour of the town, I riding along at about 3 mph with Eli walking on one side and his cousin, Chris, on a BMX bike on the other. Eli narrated: "There's our saloon. That's the bakery. The library's down there, way at the end of the street." He checked with his cousin to confirm that the street was almost exactly a mile long. The electronic bank sign listed the temperature as 93 deg. F. Only about one thousand people lived here, and Eli explained that it was "an old person's town." What exactly that meant in his mind was unclear as I might be quite old to him. Perhaps affordable real estate meant retirees.

After our tour, I checked into my room and bid the young men good day. It was an excellent introduction to a quiet escape from the road. As I settled into my room, the winds picked up and lashed the trees into a frenzy. The next day I would sleep in, read, write, and do as little as possible. The mountains would come soon.


Looking back at the foggy Kansas/Colorado border:




Sunrise on the high plains:

Have the Slovenians overtaken me? No, this is Theodore, headed east:

A knee's-eye view of the road:

This is what it's like in video. Too cool:

Wits' End

In the dark of an early October morning in Kansas, a television glows into a motel room. A man with a forced, phony smile explains the weather for the coming days. Like a chant, he repeats the phrase "South winds, 15 to 25 mph, South winds, 15 to 25 mph," for all the days into the forecast. For almost everyone in the state, this causes no particular emotion, just a shrug of the shoulders--Oh, well, so it's going to be windy today. For a lone cyclist in that particular motel room, these words are a meteorological prison sentence for which there will be no pardon, no time off for good behavior, just hard time in solitary confinement on a recumbent bicycle.

I set off knowing that I would be facing more punishment. Earlier is better, for as the day warms, the winds intensify, so I was rolling before first light. Always from the south today came the wicked force, the road straight and predictable, no surprises. Oh, look at that, a field of corn stubble. Wow, haven't seen one of those before. Oh, say, that's new, a grain silo. Such novelty. How can I bear it all? Here's something else to add to the list of things I dislike about cycling in Kansas: truck traffic. While the traffic in general is fairly light, most of the vehicles are big rigs, growling monsters stalking the highway. While I am plugging along, taking the general abuse of the cantankerous wind currents, getting pushed and nudged this way and that, I'll see a dragon approaching from the west. As it closes in, I brace for what is coming. The Doppler-shifted groaning of the engine reaches me first, and I instinctively grip the bars. For the wind my have its way with me, but what is soon to come is a full-on Gretzky body-check. The grill of the beast, its chrome teeth, swell in my vision, but at the last instant, I tilt my head down and close my eyes in preparation for the blast. Then it hits, a wall of roaring sound and turbulence that leaves me momentarily fighting for control. A second or two later, the event is over, and I may ride for several minutes before I even see another vehicle.

Part of the issue here, I'm sure, is the harvest season. The wheat seems to all be collected, but lots of corn and milo still stands. The hundreds of square miles of crops mean steady trucking for many days. I'll have to leave farming country to be free of all this. So it goes.

At one point, late into today's ride, I started to lose it. Something deep within me cracked. I had this overwhelming sense of how funny my circumstances were. Spontaneously, I yelled out to myself, to the insensate wind: "Wooo--ha! Fuck YOU!" The deep absurdity of what I was doing gripped me somewhere deep and I started to laugh, a genuine visceral rising of mirth that I could not resist. I was yelling and pedaling and rolling and laughing down the highway, a mad cyclist gone mad. This lunatic high didn't last long, but the after effects carried me the final miles to Tribune and my third Time Zone--yeah--Mountain Time. Tomorrow, it's Colorado. The West is almost mine.

Biker Scotty without coffee:




Biker Scotty WITH coffee:

Getting closer:

I purchased a bunch of real estate on my way through: