I finally rode up to Mt Evans yesterday. This is the only fourteener (at about 14,300ft) in Colorado that has a paved road all the way. Since the day I passed up a chance to ride up this road in 2003, this route remained on my list of rides to do, and that changed yesterday.
The interesting part of this ride was the mental block I had about riding above 13000ft. The highest I have ever ridden was the Trail Ridge Road (12,200ft) during Bicycle Tour Colorado 2004.
In 2003, I rode Bicycle Tour Colorado. The second day’s route started from Evergreen, and went all the way to Georgetown. By the time I reached Echo Lake (the entrance to Mt Evans starts here), I already climbed Squaw Pass (9800ft) and Juniper Pass (11000ft), and did not have the legs to climb Mt Evans – which was a 14 mile climb over 3500ft to the summit. All these years, my excuse has been that I reached the Echo Lake after 10am and it was too late to attempt a climb to the summit.
Yesterday, Sanjay and I started the climb at 8.15am to avoid the runners attempting the Mt Evans Ascent 2007, which started at 8am. The first three miles of the climb was hard. My legs have not warmed up for the 5-7% climb. Actually, most of the climb was between 5-7%, with some steeper sections here and there. Here is the ride detail from Cyclogz.com.
The climb is not the most difficult I have ever attempted except for the thin clean air. I noticed the thinness after crossing 13000ft, which made me slow down my breathing. I reached the summit 10.40am after about 2 hour 20 mins of riding. Today, I found that I was slower than the fastest runner doing the Mt Evans Summit!
The descent was very very technical. Most of the descent is along the shoulder-less side of the road with steep (over 1000ft) drop-offs. So, I ended up using my breaks more than the usual.
The bad part of the descent was the traffic. Since this is the only fourteener that one can drive to, there was so much traffic yesterday. Some of the drivers were not very happy to see cyclists using up the shoulder-less lane for the descent. That’s sad.
We were back at the parking lot by 12.15pm. I was happy that I rode this. Although it was only a 29mile ride, half of those are quality miles.
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