Hello all. It’s been several days since I last made an entry. My ride has come to a somewhat ignominious end as I started having severe left-sided flank pain last Sunday night, which ended up being a kidney stone. It is being pretty stubborn and I really can’t ride with it.

I am pretty disappointed; the ride has been spectacularly beautiful and the riding group has been great to hang around with. Oh well, I ended up riding almost 1900 miles which is not nothing. I don’t know whether I’ll do another long ride like this again, but I will certainly be doing other bicycle journeys.

Thanks to all who have been reading this, and to those who have contributed to the MS effort.

August 3rd and 4th

Yesterday we had a more moderate ride, 58 miles to Cedar city. We are now in Western Utah, which is much more high desert than dramatic rock formations. We did have one significant climb with a 22 mile screaming descent following it. We have one more day in Utah until we transition to Nevada.

Today is a rest day, and I am performing that task admirably.

August 1 &2

Yesterday and today were among the toughest but most beautiful rides I’ve experienced. Every day in Utah has featured geography that seems to change every 10 miles. Yesterday was the most climbing I’ve ever done; 6700 feet in 83 miles. We biked through Capital Reef national Park, which I’ve never visited previously. Beautiful rock formations, and petroglyphs that seem to be everywhere. Today we biked towards Bryce Canyon; we didn’t actually enter the park but saw many spectacular rock formations that were similar to those in Bryce.

July 29-31

On July 29, we completed our tour of Colorado and entered Utah. As we left the Rockies, Colorado in the west resembled Colorado in the east; fairly flat, lots of farmland, and quite sparse. We ended the day in a RV park, where we camped. as we get farther west, the wind seems to be more directly and powerfully in our face. Other than that, it was a very pleasant ride.

July 30 was our first full day biking in Utah. From the very beginning, it became more and more spectacular. The rock formations in someways resembled those in Sedona, although the geographic extent is far more vast. It is somewhat less green here than in Sedona. As best, I understand it, the sandstone red rocks in Utah derive from tectonic plates, pushing the area up from an ancient ocean, sometimes at an angle, leaving large fissures and cracks that can be at any angle. Wind and rain smooth many of the rocks also creating striations  that are at very dramatic angles. Anyway, that’s my non-geologist understanding.

We finished our ride yesterday very close to the Colorado river. We were to stay at a campsite next to a lake fed by the Colorado but many years of drought have dried the lake and the campsite was closed. We ended up shuttling to the next stop in Hanksville, Utah. Some contingent of the group shuttled back to our original stopping point so they could have the entire biking experience. I chose a day off.

July 28

Today we left Telluride via gondola. Put the bike on the back and rode up and down about 1700 feet to a neighboring village and then started the ride. We biked up our last mountain pass in Colorado called the lizard head pass. The next 40 miles were supposed to be a downhill piece of cake, but we had a headwind that was strong enough that biking downhill was still quite an effort. Tonight we’re staying in Dolores, a tiny town near the Utah border.

The route we have taken through Colorado has been exceptionally beautiful and an error in areas of the state that I haven’t been. Most of the roads have been relatively empty. The biking has been spectacular. We will see what Utah brings.

The one non-geriatric member of our group is a recent Cornell grad named George. He is taking a couple of gap years and then intends to apply to medical school. It’s interesting to see him interact with this diverse, but all older group. I think it bodes well for him with regard to his potential ability to interact with a diverse patient group should he follow through on his plans.

July 26 and 27

Yesterday we biked across another mountain pass, and then up to Telluride. As you can see from the pictures, this is a gorgeous part of Colorado. The biking was tough; 4600 feet of climbing. Telluride itself is a beautiful little city surrounded on three sides with mountains. We had a rest day today. I used it to relax a bit but also hike to a waterfall at the end of the box Canyon. Very beautiful. This evening we had a group dinner.

Telluride has the reputation for being the most expensive municipality in the United States. Given what Airbnb and hotel prices were, I don’t doubt it. Tomorrow we cross our final mountain pass in Colorado to Dolores and then the next day into Utah. It will be interesting to see how the geography changes.

July 25

Today matched and probably exceeded the beauty of yesterday. Because of bridge repairs we had to shuttle the first 25 miles which made the ride only a 40 mile effort. I can’t say I was devastated by that news. We left Gunnison and traveled along a beautiful reservoir. After we got dropped off, we climbed through the black canyon of the Gunnison, which is a deep narrow Canyon cut by the river below. Towards the end of the ride, we descended from 8000 to about 5800 feet to high desert. We are staying in Montrose tonight.

One of the great things about biking is that you can absorb the changes in geography, temperature, and the appearances of towns at a pace that lets you really appreciate  it. We left Gunnison this morning when it was 39° and arrived in Montrose when it was 96. The variety of the terrain in between was just incredible.

July 24

Well, today was as advertised. 4300 feet in 23 miles. We crossed the continental divide at 11,318 feet. The climb was hard but incredibly beautiful and the ride down 10 miles of hair raising descent. This was our highest point, which I guess makes sense since we crossed the continental divide.

We are staying tonight in Gunnison, Colorado. We are in the city park with about 25 Pickleball courts all of which were completely occupied until it got pretty dark.

July 23

Today we had a fairly sedate 46 mile ride through the Colorado Highcountry. No big Mountain passes; I think we moved from the range towards the main and bigger mountains. Tomorrow we climb to the highest point of the trip, about 11,300 feet to pass through monarch pass, it should be a hard but beautiful climb.

July 22nd

Today we biked 56 miles into the Rocky Mountains. Made it across the first mountain pass about 9300 feet. We had about 5000 feet of climbing. Although hard, it was a lovely ride. Amazing to see the mountains in the distance, get larger and larger, and then finally be in the midst of them. We are camping at about 7800 feet and it’s pretty cold and windy. I am hoping we will avoid a storm but we’ll see. Everything is very hazy here as a result of fires in Canada.