July 12: Springs to Hartsel

So we finally made it out of the Springs today, it was evident that the group had some cabin fever. We all enjoyed the hospitality of the Sunrise United Methodist Church and the Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity, but we felt that it was time to get the show back on the road. After more than one week off the road, it took everyone a little time to get everything packed and get used to being up at 4:30 in the morning.

The route of the Springs to Hartsel was a 75 mile journey from 6800 feet in elevation to 9000 feet. We started off the day with a fun ride through bike paths in the Springs that Jake was able to find. It was much nicer than those busy roads with no shoulders for bikes! It brought us out toward the Garden of the Gods City Park where we biked through the 5 mile loop of the park. If you google Garden of the Gods than you can see how beautiful all of the many rock structures are. It was nice to be there before the tourists hit the place up with all those cars as we had limited traffic to deal with.

The park brought us out to Manitou Springs, a tourist town just west of the Springs. It had a cute downtown aspect to it, apparently it is buzzing during the summer but quiet between Labor Day and Memorial Day. After the nice pretty quiet roads, we had to face the reality of tackling our first pass (Ute Pass elevation 9800 ft) on US Highway 24.

There were cars flying past us but everyone was safe with a shoulder. During this first ascent, we could definitely feel that week we took off the bike. Lets just be nice by saying that it took us a little more time than usual to get up the pass as people were adjusting to life on the bike. Some highlights of the ascent was the random carnival rides that we saw to our left near the Pikes Peak entrace.

We eventually made it though with a nice lunch stop in Woodland Park (another tourist town), and people took a long break there. It was so long that our sweep Jon and driver for the day Jake were able to get a haircut!

After we came down from Ute Pass, our next big challenge was the Wilkerson Pass. This was where things got interesting. Jake gave us a county road to get off the main highway but unfortunately half way through it became gravel. Tough luck sometimes but it was nice to actually speak to riders and not have to worry about vehicles going 55 mph.


We need to highlight this town of Hartsel; first off you could bike through it in 30 seconds if you really had no need to stop. The closest towns are 25 miles away in both directions and it is in the South Park flat land of the Rockies. We were just lucky to find some random church to take us in for the night!

The Hartsel Bible Chapel hosted us by having us sleep in their sanctuary that is shaped like an igloo. Check this link out, http://www.hartselbiblechapel.org/, and on the bottom you can see the picture of it. We somehow managed to fit almost all of our bags in there by strategically placing our bags on top of chairs/tables along the perimeter of the walls inside. We really got cozy basically!