Ride the Rockies 2011

[AnnieBikes]

I rode Bicycle Tour of Colorado this year and feel that I can answer some of your questions! BTC is run the week after RtheR. and we did BTC because we did not want to deal with the lottery with six of us wanting to go and the route this year was over Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mt. National Park and we really wanted to ride that. There was actually a "lottery" between these two big competing rides to see who would get the one permit for Trail Ridge Road that is awarded to a large group. That was kind of the tipping point for our choice of rides for BTC. I do think they are equal in caliber, difficulty, and organization. Both have great reputations, I have heard.

However, your questions relate to almost any state ride but particularly to Colorado.

1. I cannot answer this as BTC does not have a lottery. We did recruit 5 people to register together and the 6th went free. That made it nice for my DH, two sons, and two friends to get a break on the price.

2. Yes, it was cold. There was frost on the tent on two mornings and we wore lots of clothes every morning. It warmed up dramatically every day and we stripped off to shorts and shirts by midday. You do need to have a hat, long finger gloves, jacket, and tights for the mornings. Be prepared for cold because it will be cold!!! And we did tent every night. We used one 45 degree sleeping bag for the two of us (over the top) and used a silk liner and we stayed warm. We wore long johns to bed on the two coldest nights. If you are not used to camping in the cold, it could be a challenge for you.

3. There is a total hotel option (it is very difficult to hotel one or two nights). Either you hotel or you don't as your luggage is transported separately and you use the hotels BTC recommends. You cannot pick a few nights and tent, and a few in a hotel, though on the layover day, lots of people stayed in hotels. This is possible as many people had visitors with cars on the layover day or made their own arrangements with hotels in the layover town (generally a larger city)

4. You do not feel left out when hoteling because you ride all day with people. Lots of people hotel and you will socialize with them. I am partial to tenting because you do meet some interesting people but it does not "single you out" to be in a hotel.

5. There were numerous different kinds of bicycles, from tandems, singles, quads, Bike Fridays, recumbents, MTB's, and hybrids, and even comfort bikes. I saw a guy from Japan, fully loaded, riding a tandem Bike Friday alone. He accepted any offers for someone to ride with him and several rode with him by sending their bike on a SAG!! You would not feel different if you were riding a BF!

6. Most common bike, by far...road bike.

7. I cannot think of anything that I would change, short of going another day early to get acclimated. You are coming from sea level and I came from 1800' We arrived three days early and I could have used one more.

8. LOTS of people sagged over passes. More people sagged at the end of the week than the beginning. It was very hot in the middle of the day several times and people were dehydrated/heat exhausted/ etc thus needing the SAG. I did not use it, wanting to ride all the miles, but I once used it to drive me to the ER on Cycle North Carolina when I was involved in a multi bike crash and needed stitches. The SAGs are awesome and really nice people volunteer to drive them. At BTC, they were 18 passenger vans and towed trailers holding many, many bikes. No one was too shy to use them and there were some long, steep climbs in Colorado. A few years ago, my husband did BTC and he said that they were required to use a SAG when the weather high in the mountains turned bad and dangerous. They transported all people and bikes to the next town.

9. I have never slept in the gyms, have always tented. You will have less of a problem with snoring if you tent, though not 100% that no one around you will snore. It is the luck of the location!!! Gyms are another story from what I hear. With no experience, I don't speak with authority, but I hear they are a problem with noise at night.

10. We had a mixed bag of mostly great weather. Unfortunately, they had a winter storm on the second day which forced closure of Trail Ridge Road through Rocky Mt. Nat'l Park. Everyone was disappointed. A few people made it over before they closed the road, my two sons being part of the 50 people who made it over. It was terrible wind, sleet, rain, snow, and hypothermic weather. The SAGs picked up lots of people who tried to make it before the road was closed. However, the rest of the week was gorgeous and I hear we were very lucky. It can be cold as I said in #2, but we also had hot days. We layered up in the morning and stripped off as necessary. You are required to carry rain gear and nearly everyone had rack bags or handlebar bags to hold it and the stripped off clothes. You could also put your clothes in the SAGS and pick them up at night, but I thought that sounded a bit difficult with all the clothes people left in the pile!!!

I hope I have answered your questions and am happy to answer any more if you have them. Sorry this is so long!!! One other thing... I am 62 and only 10% of the 1500 people were over 60 (BTC Statistics!). I rode alone almost all week. My DH and sons are faster riders ..my sons are 30!!!...and I know that one guy is a ride and two guys is a race!!! It is really nice to go with a compatible rider who rides with you. I went knowing well that it would happen but it was alot of lonely climbing miles with everyone passing me on the long, long, climbs. It was not that they never rode with me, just that on some of the windy, hilly parts, it would have been nice to have company and I did not. I did meet some great women, though too late in the ride to hook up except on the last day.

I highly recommend the rides in Colorado and don't believe that one is any better than the other. The scenery is unsurpassed and you will never get a downhill ride like you will experience there. Absolutely exhilarating!!!...for miles and miles! Good luck and hope you decide to go!

[hulagirl]

Wow Annie - thanks for all that! Hubby and I just found the BTC last night and we thought it was the same as RTR. Just a different name. Ha! So we need to go back and look at it. I think I would appreciate 1 extra week between my half ironman and a long ride in Colorado. (Half Ironman is June 3, RTR is June 10...yikes)

Thanks again. I'm off to find more info on this ride.

Denise

[AnnieBikes]

Hi there again, Hulagirl! yes, they are definitely two different and competing rides!! Some people would only ride one or the other!! There would definitely be a case for you to do BTC as you would have a good week off from your half ironman...and you would really need it. These are big climbing rides with some long days. Both the Colorado rides are great and they both fill, BTC, less quickly and without the lottery. Hope you get to go. It is really FUN!!! ...and the scenery is absolutely spectacular...the people are really nice (aren't all cyclists!!!?) GO FOR IT!!!