Getting your player ready...
ESTES PARK — Sure, it didn’t snow. There were no rainstorms greeting bicyclists along Rocky Mountain National Park’s Trail Ridge Road Thursday. Hail didn’t bother to show. But the wind at the six-mile stretch of near-12,000 foot elevation, it blew.
In the morning the wind gusted strong enough to push riders across a lane of traffic. In the afternoon it gusted so hard, dozens of riders chose to walk their bikes down the road.
The wind wasn’t the only obstacle — riders shared the road with cars and trucks and motorhomes, a sometimes uneasy relationship.
The route was simple: Ride three miles out of Grand Lake into Rocky Mountain National Park and take Trail Ridge Road all the way up and down into Estes Park. Make the cut-off times (8 a.m. at the park entrance, noon at the aid station at the Gore Range Overlook, and 2:30 p.m. at the park exit), ride your 49 miles, call it a day.
Joe Murphy
Bicyclists on the climb up Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park on day five of Ride The Rockies 2016