Today started out nice, easy and fast on a 40km gradual downhill in a pretty canyon with river. It was chilly enough I put on my fancy jacket for the second time. I got to Cotopaxi and took a little break at the store. I should have skipped the packaged breakfast burrito and egg cousiant I microwaved back at the motel ... they were grilling up egg McMuffin type things.
At this point the route left US50 and continued up behind the store on a small local road. Signs warning of horse drawn carriages is always a good thing when you are on a bike. It was a pretty climb that got fairly steep near the top.
The road ran parallel to a long snow capped mountain range on the right. Probably the Continential Divide. I got to Westcliffe in good time. I saw the town from a distance and thought it could not be Westcliffe because I knew I still had 10km to town and that looked way too close. It turned out it was 10km to town. Distance in these wide open places are really hard to judge.
I had a sandwich in Westcliffe at a fancy and expensive coffee shop. It was OK, but nobody should visit the fly over states for the food. What a snob.
With the exception of the 25km of brand new asphalt before Westcliffe, today's roads were the oldest snd crappiest I've riden so far. Shoulders were rare and the cross seams jarring. After a long climb out of Westcliffe the descent was painful. I used my brakes because the road surface was so bad.
It got hot on the descent but with a bit of a tail wind I made execellent time to Pueblo. I was in one of those bad places where I needed to stop and eat something but was too close to the end to do that. When you start running out of gas things start to hurt.
I pulled up to the Santa Fe motel ... not the classiest place I've stayed ... at 2pm and was told to go away for an hour. Like all the rooms magically are clean at 3pm and not before. Ugh! I killed 35 minutes at the Taco Bell across the street and then was allowed to check in a few minutes early.
For dinner I'm going to check out the sushi place across the parking lot ... I like to live dangerously!
