While I was on my bike Monday morning around 7.30 a.m.ish I received a text from Joe Fox..."Haynes and I are heading your way do you have xxx and yyy, we need it for our adventure." I owned partial parts of x's and y's but none of what they were specifically looking for and none of which I could have available to them that day already having 40 miles out from my house on the bike and headed to work. So I assumed after telling them "not really" they would keep on trucking towards their adventure... 3 days on the continental divide trail. But lo and behold mere hours later I had two of my best buds standing front and center in my Specialized concept store... albeit a bit out of their element... and asking route questions to anyone who would listen.
Their route looked tough, they were looking at HUGE miles 2 days in a row and I respected them... almost more than before for taking it on. But when I mentioned that I had Wednesday and Thursday off their eyes lit up. "Maybe we can get my dads house in Vail Wednesday night," was all that I heard Joe say. And from then on I was stoked.
So Wednesday morning I drove past Leadville to the road closure at Independence pass (where the USpro cycling challenge was charging through). I unloaded my bike and prepared to climb and climb and climb to their campsite to watch the pros suffer up the climb that I had just accomplished. But for some grace of god I only had to climb up to 11,000 feet when I heard Jeremy yell out in my direction. They were coming off trail at the same time that I was crossing their path... thank god.
Once we met up everything was good, their bivys were stuffed, we watched the pros roll by and headed straight to Vail to hang out at the spa.
Now I'm sure their legs were cooked from the riding but mine equally felt like bricks. I only brought my roadbike with me to ride to the bars in Vail, not anticipating the Indy road closure that I had to crawl up before. The day before I attended a Specialized dealer event and rode a handful of the cheechest bikes man could fathom. I had the privilege of railing an sworks Epic 29...(underwhelming with the new SID, couldn't get a hold of the bike on the downhills and felt like a hardtail that weighed 3 lbs too much on the climbs), an SWorks Stumpy (amazing bike that felt like an Epic that worked in the steeps and could air it out downhill although the HA was about .5 degress too steep to inspire) and an SL4 Tarmac that killed the downhills on 50mph decents.
Bike reviews done... we chilled, drank and lived like kings in Vail. I might write some more recaps later but this whole blog is starting to get un-inspiring. I'm feeling a bit too lazy to keep it for my "own memories" since my own memories always sound better as fish stories 3 years later and a bit embellished.
So Cheers, Thanks for reading. I'll be back. Love, Slater
