Scenic Route

My week away in Colorado was just too huge to write about in anything blog-length. Trying to sort it out chronologically is tempting, but I think a thematic method will be better.

I’ve already written about the Mt. Evans climb. Other topics deserving of their own entries are the train trip on Amtrak, The Epic Century, and the BikeJournal Reunion rides and events. Today, I’ll try to hit everything else to get it out of the way.

I bracketed the week with metric centuries ridden on the bike paths of Denver. I decided I was less likely to get lost that way, and more likely to see neat stuff if I wasn’t focused on staying alive in traffic.

Wow! The differences in their bike paths and what we have is huge. First, their paths seem to connect destinations. If you want to go to Parker, use the Cherry Creek Trail. Golden? Use the Clear Creek or Ralston Creek trails. Thornton? North on the Platte River Greenway. I rode to all these places and more.

All sorts of riders use the trails. On my last day, I was headed into downtown Denver at rush hour on the Platte River Greenway. Outbound, the lane was filled with commuters. It wasn’t quite wheel-to-wheel, and bar-to-bar commuters, but compared to here, it sure seemed so. And they were on all sorts of bikes—dumpster specials to carbon wonderbikes—and all with a backpack, or panniers.

On my first day, I came upon a guy sitting with is feet in the Clear Creek. I was on one of my “vague notion” rides and asked where I was going. Turns out I was headed for Golden again. I decided I wanted to do something different and asked if I could ride with him a while.

Ed is a retiree. He bought his bike in May and since then has been putting 30-40 mile rides on it two or three times a week. He rides a loop that begins and ends in Lakewood. We had a conversation as long and winding as our route. A long while later he left me at the Subway on 31st St at the corner of the bike path, with some suggestions for things to see and places to go.

Fast forward to my last day again, and riding downtown from Parker, I rode up on a girl and engaged her in conversation. Jean had just moved to Denver from Boston. She and her wife were still settling in to their new apartment and she hadn’t yet begun job hunting.

Car-free for several years, Jean was ecstatic that their new apartment was just yards from the bike path. She was exploring it for the first time and was delighted that the Cherry Creek trail went right to the Cherry Creek mall, down past the library and all the way into downtown Denver.

What impressed us both was that closer to downtown, there were separate trails for bikes and peds. Keeping us separate from them was an entirely new experience. And a pleasant one. On my first attempt at navigating through Confluence Park, I wound up on the peds-only path instead of the bike path, and was treated with scorn until I stopped a dog walker and explained my predicament. She set me straight and in short order I was on the bikes-only path.

Confluence Park is in the heart of downtown Denver, where Cherry Creek (and the bike path of the same name) flows into the Platte River (and the Greenway of the same name.) Creeks and rivers have a different definition than they do here, back east. You can walk across the Platte River in Denver, and many people do. It was a hot, hot day and the river and creek were filled with people getting wet.

Nearby is the main REI store, which had more bike racks outside than I’ve seen anywhere else in America. And most of the spots were filled. I rode through the neighborhood on the west side and was delighted to find a ride-up ATM (used it twice during my stay), an apartment building that had bikes on every balcony, and two bike bridges—one with a corkscrew ramp up to it.

Crossing back to the east side, the baseball stadium is right there off the bike path. On my last day, I ended up being swept away with riders going to the ballgame. Riding bikes to a ballgame? Unheard of back east.

Extricating myself from that, I found myself lost in the streets of downtown Denver where new pleasures awaited. Fixie kids gathered and disbursed like flocks of birds. I learned that pedicab drivers are really good sprinters, and you can catch a helluva draft off a pedicab.

It was the tail end of rush hour and bikes were everywhere. There were still many locked in front of office buildings. Riders were in the streets, on the sidewalks and in the 16th St Mall, which is signed for buses and pedicabs only. Apparently the no-bikes rule isn’t really enforced.

By this time I’d already dropped off my bike at Amtrak, but I could have ridden to Dixon’s at 16th and Wazee, and parked my bike at my table while I had dinner.

This is what I mean by bike-friendly destinations like Dixon’s, REI and Coors Stadium. Bike paths and bike lanes are all very nice, but unless I can park my bike at my destination, there’s no point in bike paths or bike lanes, from a transportation standpoint.

Denver’s bike paths, successfully mix destination-based transportational cycling with “lets go for a bike ride” recreational cycling. The bike paths all go someplace and connect malls, stores, services and events, but along the way they have fun too. In R-Town, they’d never think to put some curves in just for fun. In Denver, they’re all over the place. Finding a straight section of path is the exception, not the rule as it is here.

I was less impressed with Loveland from a car-free standpoint. I didn’t get downtown, but in the suburban sprawl along Eisenhower Blvd, destinations are too spread out for me. It was miles from the hotel to any restaurant, and those were fast-food joints. Strip malls and plazas were no different from those anywhere else. Not bike-friendly at all. I don’t recall seeing a single bike rack.

But in Loveland as with everywhere else I rode in Colorado, drivers treat cyclists with respect, courtesy and equality. It’s probably because bikes are everywhere. You can’t swing the proverbial cat without hitting a cyclist. As a result, drivers and cyclists know what to expect from each other and live within those expectations. It’s ho-hum boring.

I’m of mixed feelings on bike lanes, but I’ll admit it was really nice having my space marked out of the road. Even if many times it was what we call the shoulder back here. Sometimes they take a shoulder, paint a bike on it every 500 feet and call it a bike lane.

Fort Collins was better. There are for-real bike lanes there. I was a real fish out of water in Fort Collins. I’m used to waiting and waiting at uncontrolled intersections. In Fort Collins, cars would stop and wave bikes across. This was far too confusing for me. I went with the flow, but it felt really unnatural. I’d like to get used to it though.

In the early morning, the heat of the afternoon or after dark, there wasn’t any time of day when I didn’t see other cyclists about, and plenty of ‘em. Some of our rides took us on fairly deserted roads, and there were always cyclists coming in the other direction. Occasionally, our rides would be passed by other cyclists. We’d pass some too. Cyclists are freakin’ everywhere!

We weren’t the only ones playing in the mountains either. Climbing up South St. Vrain Canyon, every couple of minutes I’d hear a freewheel buzzing, then a cyclist would appear hurtling around a corner on his descent. And they’d wave, knowing what I was going through and that my reward would be the same as they were experiencing.

The roads themselves are in much better shape than around here. Yeah, the shoulders aren’t swept quite as well, but the pavement is, as the Hypoxians say, sublime.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. The Front Range may not be cycling nirvana, but it’s sure is real nice.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2008 at 2:13 pm EDT and is filed under Bike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.