andy reagan only the interesting stuff

Steamboat Springs!!

In one sentence: The ride here yesterday was great, I really enjoyed the one climb and big descent, Steamboat Springs is an awesome bike friendly town, and the day off today was perfect.  The internet here is useless, so I'm going to try writing from my new phone so hang tight!

Picking up where I left off, we got to see fireworks the night before in Kremmling and I got some pics that I think will come out pretty cool.  Playing with sparklers and long exposure is always great.

It was our first night camping and oh boy it was cold, I think it got down to 15 at night and without my wool socks it would've been a stretch.  Getting up and around in what couldn't have been more than 30 degrees was hard, but once we got going it wasn't intolerable.  I tried to stay warm with everything I had on, and hopped on the bike and starting spinning away as soon as I was ready.  I headed out by myself, and after 5 miles started to warm up a little I stopped to take off my sweatshirt that was under my jacket and some pictures of the morning that was beautiful despite being tad crisp.  Kristen caught up while I was stopped and we got to ride together for a good while which was nice.  There wasn't a whole lot to see, just hills and every mile there was a small billboard for "F.M. Light & Sons" about cowboy hats or boots for the whole family haha.

There was one big climb on the way, just before halfway of our 60 miles, up and over Rabbit's Ear Pass.  I crushed both up and down the hill and it really felt great.  I caught and passed pretty much everyone in front of me, and at the top where the continental divide was, I met four Tech grads who were meeting up for the first time after graduating together in 94.  They were dissappointed to hear that their streaking ritual was no more and that Pritchard, where they had lived, was now coed! It was neat getting to meet some fellow Hokies, Hokie Nation alive and well!

Going down the pass was something like 7 miles at -7% grade, so I thought it was going to be a bnb speed record breaker but there ended up being a strong headwind which held us to just over 50MPH...sad haha.

When we got in the first thing I did was stop by the Verizon store to get a new phone that I needed desperately to stay in touch with Lauren, and I went with the Droid by Motorola.  So far I love it so much...so many incredible features, though I still need to get used to it.

As a group we went out in town at night, which was fun because there were some cool places but we didn't stay out very late at all.  For our day off, I got to first sleep in, then walk to a diner for french toast which was great after not having it all summer!  Then Noah and I suited up to go rent some mountain bikes from the Ski Haus which was one of three cool bike shops in town.  We were super excited to rent some 29ers (29 inch tire diameter bikes...bigger wheels) and ride some of the world class singletrack, but after we sped the two miles there, they were out! Big bummer...so we decided to go check out on of the other shops.  I'd been to Orange Peel earlier and they seemed pretty chill and turned out that they had bikes to rent! And they were 29s! I rode a Kona and Noah rented a Moots, mine was mid level at about 1500 retail and I got it for the two hour rate with a big discount bc we're bnb for 17 which was sweet.  The Moots was a titanium frame with X9 and went for 5500, so he paid a good chunk more.

The riding was just insanely awesome, some of the most fun I've had on the trip, rippin up the trails up and down the mountains.  I got some scratches and covered in mud and it was perfect.  There were some breathtaking views from the mountains we climbed, and I loved just running over everything on the mountain bike.  I enjoyed creek crossing of the cool clear stream we rode up with that I had to try hard not to drink haha, after sinking the bike over the bottom bracket in mud but even with the crossing, rock gardens and steep section I never had to unclip so I impressed myself a little.  They told us just to bring them back before close which was sweet and we rode for a good three hours before takin them back...sooo much fun.  I'm definitely mountain biking more this fall.

Then I got to mail some stuff home so I now have space in my bin finally, got a sweet deal on a smart wool shirt across the street, ate dinner made by us which was good stir fry and then go to the hot springs!

I almost filled a printer paper box with stuff, which I used because I didn't want to do flat rate because that goes priority which I don't need.  And they charged $3 for the ready post...what a rip haha.  So I got it all organized and shipped for $15 which I was happy with and in time to check out the 50% off smart wool sale going on at the outdoor store across the street.  Got to use my cell phone app that reads barcodes and uses gps to do a local product search and it works perfect and in like 2 seconds I knew that I had a sweat deal.  I got a medium weight base layer and I'm excited to use it!

The hot springs were like 7 miles away, and since pretty much everyone wanted to go we did van shuttles out there.  It was super relaxing, there were both hot and cold pools and I used them both to help recover my legs after some hard riding today.  A perfect way to cap off our day off, and now I'm hittin the thermarest to be up in 5 hours!  I just wrote this all on the cell and the real keyboard is definitely the best.

Sorry there aren't any pix yet, thanks for reading!