Leadville – Penny comes with a lot of baggage. Just ask her husband, Mike.
She can’t help it. It’s her job.
Well, that’s not exactly true. She volunteered for this.
Each morning of the 2005 Ride The Rockies bicycle tour around 4:30 a.m., Penny hits the campgrounds while most of the 2,000 participating cyclists are still a-snoozin’. Her job is to monitor the loading and transport of roughly 150,000 pounds of RTR luggage from one town to the next. It’s good to have her hubby around to help with such a weighty responsibility
Penny and Mike Kosel of Littleton, both 34, have now three years and 13 years of experience, respectively, handling RTR baggage. Rounding out the volunteer baggage crew, and keeping with the family-affair theme, are Dave Jackson, 50, and son Samual, 22, both of Englewood. Dave just finished his 15th RTR, and Samual his fourth. That’s 35 years with Ride The Rockies for this “Suitcase Quartet.”
No foursome so fearsome can go long without individual nicknames, too: Penny is “Baggage Queen,” Mike is “Baggage Guy” (incongruous, yet true), Dave is “The Hook” (perhaps a nod to his work with the bass as well as the bags) and Samual is “Sam I Am.” Together with two 53-foot and one 48-foot Ryder trucks, three drivers provided by Ryder and a small team of recruits to help unload at the end of each line, this unit allows cyclists to meet their luggage in each host community.
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TODAY’S DESTINATION:
BRECKENRIDGE |
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Without the baggage team, RTR as it stands would not be possible. Few cyclists carry anything beyond a rear-rack bag or an under-saddle bag. None could tote, for example, a Rubbermaid garbage can on wheels that contains a tent, mattress pad, clothes and who in tarnation knows what else.
“We’re kind of like the red-headed stepchild around here,” said Penny from her truck as she surveyed the loading of the “early truck” (there’s a “middle truck” and “late truck”, too.) “We see the riders before they have their coffee. And we see them again when they’re exhausted.
“But most people are very, very cool. Three out of 7,500 riders have been intent on giving me a hard time.”
Nevertheless, the question begs: Why wake early and retire late for an entire week loading 70-pound bags for folks you don’t even know — as volunteers, for Pete’s sake?
Sam I Am: “I enjoy being out here. It’s a good way to see Colorado. And it’s a good way to meet interesting people — from 48 different states and seven or eight foreign countries.”
Clearly, it’s a manual labor of love.
Up, up and dismay
It was 59 uphill miles from Salida to Leadville on Friday, and it nearly totaled me. The first descent of my day came when I dragged my duffel bag (expertly transported by the RTR baggage crew) down the football stands at Lake County High School to my camping spot on the 5-yard line.
I experienced my first substantial rain during the last 15 miles of the trip. In addition to showers, we ran into periodic episodes of road rage. One lady wasn’t satisfied barking “SINGLE FILE!” from the car; she was compelled to lean out the car window at the knees.
Let’s see. We’re cycling, in the rain, at 10,000 feet, and you want the shoulder?
If there’s one thing on this weeklong tour that I’ve learned, it’s this: Share the road. Cyclists work hard. Plenty hard. And if you need to kick back for an extra minute — maybe even put down the cellphone — to pass cyclists and make them feel comfortable on the road, I beseech you, do it. They’re a nice bunch.
That’ll about do it for this here blog series. There’ll be one more installment next week to wrap things up, once I have a chance to digest my experiences — and something other than PowerGel, “performance pasta salad” and thinly veiled insults (“Nice bike!”).
It’s been a blast, y’all. Thanks to everybody who put up with this Ride The Rockies rookie. And if you’re knocking around the idea of cycling the 2006 Ride The Rockies, I’m here to tell ya’: Do it. It might just be the best-organized event of its kind in the country. And it’s a heckuva bargain, too. The free bananas and cycling jersey are alone worth the price of admission.
Get on it!
(P.S. To my brothers and sisters at Red Rocks this weekend to see Widespread Panic: Kiss the mountain air, let it rock, and I’ll be seeing you soon. Tailwinds …)
* TODAY: Leadville to Breckenridge: 45 miles.
Day 6 recap
* High point (literal): Leadville, approximately 10,100 feet elevation.
* High point (figurative): Lubing my chain for the first time. Not the first time during the Ride, the first time ever. As a result, my chain went from rattle to hum.
* Low point (literal): Salida, roughly 7,100 feet elevation.
* Low point (figurative): A sketchy dude in a sketchy van reserving one toot of the horn and a perpetual middle finger out the window for each RTR cyclist traveling in the opposite direction just east of Buena Vista on Colorado Highway 24. This was not an isolated incident of road rage this day.
* Quote of the day: “We’re also known as ‘The Buttheads.'” — one of “The Moonies,” who attach on their helmets anatomically incorrect dolls that expose their backsides to cyclists immediately behind them.
DenverPost.com sports producer Bryan Boyle is participating in the — his first bike ride of any kind beyond the occasional wee-hour visit to a convenience market. His series runs on DenverPost.com each day of the June 18-25 event, which follows a 405-mile course from Grand Junction to Breckenridge.
To share any RTR-related experiences, fears, advice or yarns, send an e-mail to Bryan at bboyle@denverpost.com.