Loveland Pass, elevation 11,990 ft: check! Supposedly the highest paved pass in the US... and my personal all time elevation record, beating the 3600 m last winter on the glacier of Les Deux Alpes.
Today my detour towards Boulder starts, so the coming days I will not be on the Transam route. I asked the The Denver cycling clubbfor was some advice on the route to take for this part and they were so kind to offer it to me in detail, so I think I'm good to go. The morning started with riding halfway around Dillon Reservoir and accross the Dillon Dam fully on paved bike paths. After joining up with the main road the almost 3,000 ft climb to Loveland Pass started.
The climb to Loveland Pass was simply fabulous! The views at Hoosier Pass were nice, but the views here were simply so much better. It started off between mountains covered with pine forests, riding along whitewater creeks and later between mountains patched with snow, all in all: awesome! Since there was no wind on the climb, the going was relatively easy and I only had to use my lowest gear on the last, slightly steeper, part. At the summit it was very windy and chilly, but the views were stunning.
The descend was off course also good fun. After the descend of the pass itself I got on a bike path, which was simply the best bike path I've ever ridden (being Dutch that means a lot). Twisting and turnig with a varying but definitely downhill gradient, along creeks and through pine forests, the path was super fun and also good steering practice :) The part after was a combination of frontage roads (@Dutchies: I had to look it up as well :p) and bike paths. The whole way was downhill, but there was also a strong headwind in this valley. Along the way I had some lunch in historic Georgetown.
Early in the afternoon I arrived in Idaho Springs. Here I stopped at the bike shop to get some final route information for tomorrow. I spent more than half an hour chatting with the owner of the shop, who was an avid touring cyclist as well and also big fan of Holland. After that I went to the campground. I'm camping at a campground next to the Indian Hot Springs, which is pretty crappy (close to freeway, bad restroom building, small spots) and extremely overpriced. I didn't feel like looking for anything else though. In addition I found out that the next Game of Thrones book is not on my ebook (finished the previous one yesterday). To counter these unhappy thoughts I had some very good fajitas with some beers in the town and though about all the awesome riding I've done today.
Tomorrow is gonna be even more happy, as I'll be riding into Boulder, meeting up with my friend Jon, and watching the soccer world cup semi finals Netherlands - Argentina... cannot wait!
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