Day 10 - a day off in Colorado

Today was a day off.
In the morning we went whitewater rafting in the Royal Gorge on the Arkansas River in Colorado - twas great fun.

In the afternoon we headed off towards Colorado Springs, to ride up Pikes Peak.
This is really amazing, you can only get this in America - the highest mountain around - 14100 feet, and what do you get right at the summit ??? A car park !!!
But that does mean, that there is an amazing part tarmac, part dirt road all the way to the top - starting from around 7000ft, the 19 mile drive took us 25 minutes - and we stopped a few times for photos.

They have a race from bottom to top and the quickest guys complete it in 10 mins!

This is the road up;




and at the top


As usual photos are at flickr
And the GPS track is here

Today was a fairly long ride - approx 270 miles, ...

Today was a fairly long ride - approx 270 miles, but the scenery was so good in the Colorado Rockies, that the time just flew by.
In fact the scenery sidetracked me enough to have an 'off' - no damage done.

All day today was spent above 7000ft ! The highest we hit was somewhere about 10,000ft - the bike was struggling a little !

A few selected photos from the day (check out my flickr page for the rest)

La Veta airfield at 7000ft in the Rockies



Riding in the rockies


The 'plateau' at 9000ft



And finally, my wildlife photo of the day


The day's GPS track is here


Tomorrow is a day off - we are going white water rafting on the Colorado River, then upto the top of  Pikes Peak (14000ft)

Day 8 GPS Track

Today was 260 miles, the track for the virtual tourists is here
Marcus has kindly converted the gpx files for day 7's log to be compatible with the free version of Google Earth - if Marcus doesn't get a chance to convert the files, and you can't wait try this link (I would convert it myself, but my lil ole laptop is creaking..)

My navigation equipment:

Day 8 New Mexico into Colorado

Today started with more monotony with straight Oklahoma farm trails - BUT this was broken up by a bit of road jumping, and some wildlife interaction (Prairie Hare, Tortoise and Snake)

Fuel stop and lunch was at Keyes - population 500 - one garage selling lunch but no fuel, one diner - closed, one fuel pump - open (keys held by the grain co-operative across the road!)

Open fuel station:


The town centre:


After lunch, I had a quick check of the maps - it looked like 150 miles (approx) to the overnight in Colorado - we knew the bikes could do 100miles to a tank, but were not too sure how much further they could go !
After chatting to a guy in Boise City (population 1483), who told us there was nothing between here and Colorado - we decided we needed auxillary tanks:


Entering New Mexico ;

Phil was lucky to get across the heavily guarded state line with his home made bomb;



And finally, a quick photo to show what a short-arse I am (oh and great scenery of New Mexico High Plains (6000ft))

Re: Bizarre Observations

The big yellow school bus

Wildlife update

Loads of Pairie Hare (White-tailed jack rabbits)
Antelope (running alongside the trail - clocked at 40mph)
Tortoise
Snake (possible a garter snake - you google it and make your own mind up!)

Dat 7 GPS track for Google Earth

Hopefully this is the link for the GPS track for Day 7 for use in google earth - let me know if it works ok, as my poor little laptop can't run google earth.