The Mt. Evans ride used to be a tour sponsored by a vacation group when I did it (around 1991 or 92) with my friend, John Ellison. We started off early from Idaho Springs on the winding two lane road. We followed a stream bed for the first few miles and thought this was going to be a piece of cake if it was like that to the top. Little did we know what awaited us.

I don't know what my total time was, primarily because about 45 minutes into the ride, my freewheel froze up and spilled ball bearings all over the dirt shoulder. I searched for as many as I could find, cleaned them off and reassembled the freewheel with much less than the normal number of bearings. Since I didn't have the right wrench, I turned the nut with a rock hitting a screwdriver, which tightened it and then broke off one of the wings of the nut.

I continued up the mountain in fear of my freewheel, but determined to reach the top. I think my uphill average was 6-7mph but I remember some 4-5 mph sit and spin sections and a couple switch back turns that were standing and still only going 4-5mph. I think I reached the top around noon, had some hot chocolate and headed down before a storm hit the mountain. We did get snowed and hailed on while changing a flat on the way down. Really fun to be dodging hail stones and lightning, but it added extra thrill to the descent.

The ride was so phenomenal and I can't believe I can't find a single picture to show anyone how neat it was to do a 6600 foot climb on my trusty Trek 1100. The vistas were so vast, the changes from base to peak were so dramatic. The storm in the afternoon so intense!

Biking above timberline has to be worth a few points in the achievement book of life. The ride was called "Mount Evans Triple Challenge" due to three peaks/landmarks reached, Mt Evans being the top one. The first stop was 14 miles into the ride at Echo Lake at 10,600 feet, the next stop was at 22 miles, a snow covered parking lot of Summit Lake at 12700' after a very short and only descent on the trip to the top. The end was at the parking lot near the top of Mt. Evans which is at 14,100 and 28 miles from the start. There is a foot path up another 160 feet to the top of the mountain. Bikes were not permitted.

The 28 mile descent down 6600 feet of mountain was truly a gas. We flew past cars, we flew past the gorgeous vistas, we flew past crazy people still going up. It was a screamer, all the way down. My freewheel held in there wonderfully. Thinking back on it now, I was truly crazy. Maybe oxygen starvation makes you do crazy things like that.

I did a number of 7-10,000 ft climb day rides while I lived in Colorado (17 years) and now I am a Florida flat lander. People here really look at me strange when I show them my Avocet computer with altitude readout!

Don't ask me about the 96 mile 10,000' day from Silver Springs Colorado to Woodland Park!