Kiki Bikes Across America

Saturday, July 11th – Salida, CO to Pitkin, CO

I got up about 7:30 this morning, ate a little breakfast and rolled out after Mike returned from a quick dog walk. I stopped by Safeway to pick up a banana and a banana and strawberry smoothie. I got on the road by 9am and started the slow and long climb from Salida to Monarch Crest at 11,312 feet. The grade was 6% and fairly steady most of the way. I passed another two cyclists (Dwight and Brent) coming down Monarch Pass and we stopped and talked for a bit. They’re from CA and are riding to Yorktown, VA and plan to arrive by August 9th. They’re racing across the country pretty fast as they’ve got a sag vehicle and are on a time limit with their vacation.

I continued on up the mountains slowly, doing anywhere from 4-7 mph depending on the steepness and the wind. I stopped a few times to drink or snack on a peanut bar but didn’t really have much of a problem with the altitude. I thought it might be a bit tougher with lugging all the weight up the mountain and the oxygen becoming less, but it really wasn’t too bad. I was definitely happy to reach the top at 3 hours and 30 minutes later (riding time, that is). Just at the top, I was getting my stuff together and a guy gets out of a pickup truck and says “Are you Kiki?” – so I was caught off guard there and slightly puzzled. Turns out, it was Chase – he had come to look for me and see if he ran into me on the road, and so I went into the gift shop and got a hot dog and cheetos and then ate real quick and rode down the other side of the mountain to Sargents. At this point, the rain had started slightly and it was pretty cloudy, and since Chase had come all that way to look for me, I figured I’d just hitch a ride back with him and go with him and his parents to Tin Cup for a little music thing at Frenchy’s. So Chase stopped at Sargents to pick me up so I threw my bike in and bags and we headed back to Pitkin where his mom and dad were waiting.

After the climb up Monarch Pass

Off we went to Tin Cup – I drove the pickup over the bumpy and rocky road 21.5 miles to Tin Cup over Cumberland Pass. It took 1 hour and 4 minutes to get there. Once there, we listened to live music on the deck of Frenchy’s and had some food. Another long drive back to Pitkin over the pass (1 hr 10 minutes this time) and we got back and Chase had his birthday cake (his birthday is really July 16th next week, but his family was celebrating since they’re here with him now). So we had french vanilla cake with french vanilla icing – pretty yummy and we pigged out. Finally to sleep around 10:30 or 11pm…

GPS Stats (from Salida to Sargents):
33.8 miles
8.7 avg speed
45.9 max speed
03:53 moving time

Computer Stats:
34.57 miles
9.0 avg speed
47.0 max speed
03:49:46 moving time

I was driven 28.8 miles in the pickup truck from Sargents to Pitkin.