Day 5 – Glenwood Springs to Aspen

Talk about a wonderful ride. This one was close to or topped yesterday’s ride for scenery and beauty. The ride headed out of Glenwood Springs up Highway 82 along the White River. The good news is that we turned off the four-lane road (with incessantly cars buzzing you at 70mph) in favor of a high quality paved county road. This road took us into Carbondale which is a nice little town about a third of the way to Aspen. There were lots of green fields and conifers in the valley. The big Rocky Mountains were starting to show up. You could see the Maroon Bells on the horizon.

After leaving the rest area at Carbondale, we headed to one of the nicest bike paths my tires have every graced. It was newly paved and spinning the roughly 2% uphill grade was almost effortless. There was a nice little stream which ran down the side of the path (of course it was going the other way – water flows downhill! ). We went through another cool little town of Basalt. Here’s a picture of the rest stop @ Basalt:







The ride started to get a little more serious after this point. We did have one stretch of roughly a mile that was between 8 and 12% grade; talk about *ut buster?! Here’s a little breathless (actually it’s me breathing quite heavily after the climb) video:



Then…..the piece de restistance…..Aspen. The views are simply stunning. The following are a compendium of views heading into Aspen courtesy of the Hammer:









I can tell you one thing. These views don’t suck. But, you better bring a wad of cash if you want to stay here.

Here are the stats for today’s ride (per my Garmin cyclecomputer):
• 42.33 miles
• Total Elevation Climbed – 2,902 ft.
• Maximum Grade – 12%
• Calories burned – 2,972

All in all; it was well worth it!

The Coach