48th annual Bob Cook memorial race held last weekend. Mt. Evans a 14er in Colorado has a road from Idaho Springs to summit. The upper half is only open from June to Sept.
Idaho Springs 7217’ - 2200 meters
Mt. Evans summit (road) 14130’ - 4307 meters
Climb vertical 6915’ - 2107 meters
27 miles - 43 km’s most of climb is 19 miles - 30 km’s
temp at start 7 C temp at finish 9 C
800+ riders
I had a successful day on the 36er, and did not finish last. It is a long and brutal, but never that steep climb. From 12,500’ - 3810 meters to 14,130’ - 4307 meters it is insane how hard just pedaling is. Mountain goats came out to greet me just a few hundred meters from finish, thought I was hallucinating. The scenery is over the top beautiful and the weather was perfect. A must climb for any of you that like to spend the day in the saddle climbing at altitude.
Wow, what a beautiful day for an Aspen Mike ride! In that last picture, you appear to be in front of a sidewalk, and not at the summit. What’s the road lead to?
@ John- the summit of the mtn is still above where the road stops. The sidewalk is a short walk for peeps that want to get away from pavement and also leads to the trail to the summit. There is an observatory on the same elevation as road, so there are multiple sidewalks. And yes it was a beautiful day!
@ Ben- don’t grow up, then u might have a chance to be like me:)
Riding down…
I would miss the party if i did, 2. I got to use my EMT skills and helped with a guy who had AMS - so rode in vehicle down as 1st responder. The fellow ended up ok at the bottom, as rapid descent to lower elevation was key for him. So this time, no ride down- I have ridden down Mt Evans before.
3:37 riding time
the first time I climbed bierstadt you could see the people long the trail who weren’t going make it. most of that is insufficient hydra but also problems with out of shape low landers. climbing the Evans road on a unicycle seems interesting, doing that on a bike never interested me since I have perfectly good legs. I think this is a good goal to shoot for. congrats!
+1 on what the other guys said. Amazing performance!
BTW, I looked up the ride stats online, and saw that your 3:30 time put you right in the middle of the pack (not counting the many non-finishers). You really struck a blow for the unicycle world! I’ll bet there were a LOT of bike riders shaking their heads and saying “I can’t believe I got beat by a unicycle…”
(And that’s not even considering the age factor.)
Glad it was you, and not me…