We woke up at the Super 8 both agreeing our legs felt the most sore so far. Kyle taped/glued our water filter bag and then we went down for their continental breakfast and I ate/took a lot of food. We were hoping to hit the sauna (mostly so I could dry some clothes in there) but it was closed. We packed up and pedaled back up to town and got to Cycles of Life as they were opening. This shop was rad! Kyle worked with them trying to figure out a shifter while I pulled my rear wheel off to inspect, clean, grease, and tighten the hub. It was pretty dry and definitely loose and after I got this taken care of I had confidence that my bike may just make it through the whole trail. Unfortunately they didn't have a shifter for Kyle. He picked up a new dry bag for his front end setup as his had developed a hole and then we started to head out of town. At this point it was 11 A.M. and we didn't think we would make it to Buena Vista before everything closed at 6 so I suggested we call a shop and try to pay for a shifter over the phone and have them leave it outside before we lost cell service. No shops in BV had a shifter but ones in Salida did so Kyle tried to get a hold of a friend of a friend that works in Salida to grab it and meet us in BV.
We started pedaling towards the Mt. Elbert trail-head on some country farm/forest roads which were filled with campers. We stopped to snack at the trail-head before pedaling across the base of the highest mountain in the U.S. Rockies. The push up was not terrible and the ride across was an epic journey filled with some really rad Aspen groves. I was trying to figure out how I could quit everything and build a shack to live in the Aspen groves, the trail through here wasn't bad too. I also knew I'd have to come back here to ride to the top of the mountain sometime.
We encountered our first Trail Magic and a pretty cool guy who put together the Breck 100 who had put the cooler out. We started a fun descent to Twin Lakes and stopped to fill up halfway around the lake. The patch job on our filter wasn't doing so hot so I called ahead to a outfitter in BV to see if they had anything worthwhile for filtration as I didn't own one anyways. They had the same filter we had that was broken or a filter that was more than I wanted to spend given I'd heard mixed reviews on it. We decided we would sort it out once we got to town.
We got to the intersection of the Collegiate West trail and headed up what we knew was our last major climb of the day. A bit steeper and longer than we expected but so was the fun descent on the other side. We saw rain clouds between us and BV and threw on some rain gear and started down the hill. A CTR racer pulled up next to me heading down the hill and he was excited that he was having knee problems the day before but it had seemed to be better today. We chatted while coasting down U.S. 24 until the rain picked up and he stopped to throw on his gear. We turned off onto the dirt road which was part of the official detour and were both looking forward to warm food and milkshakes. The tunnels on this road were pretty neat.
We hit the pavement coming into town and immediately ran into a guy on the sidewalk that had been obviously following the race on his laptop in front of a local shop. He asked if we had everything we needed as the local shop owner lived down the street and could open up if needed. He also let us know he was the owner of MTB Cast (I had no idea what this was but Kyle did and later filled me in that it was a podcast site and that I had heard it in "Ride The Divide"). We stopped at K's Dairy Delite and both went all in for a burger, fries, and large shake. We saw Eddyline across the street and knew we had to stop there for a beer before we left town. We ran into the MTB Cast owner and some CTR racers there and had a beer before heading to the grocery store where we were meeting Kyle's friend to install his new shifter.
It looked like base camp at the picnic table next to the store where some CTR racers were packing their bags full of food. They recommended 4,000 Calories a day and one even suggested we bring 20,000 Calories in case we get pinned down in a rain storm. They also gave us the tip that Princeton Hot Springs had a general store that was open until 8 P.M. if we thought we needed anything else. I bought as much as I thought I could fit in my bags. I ended up getting more than I could fit in my bags but strapped my trail mix to my rear rack using the net figuring I would free up some room after breakfast. I ran to Subway while Kyle put on his shifter knowing it would be the last good food I would have with me for the next 4 days. I managed to fit it in my front bag. It was about 9 P.M. when we were ready to leave the store but we decided since we were now properly fueled up, the weather and traffic would be ideal, and since we had stayed at a hotel the night before that we should do some riding. We decided to at least make it to the trail-head and evaluate if we wanted to keep going to Princeton as some racers were saying that was their destination. The pedal up Cottonwood Pass wasn't bad, there was a cool drive in theater at the base that I definitely want to come back to. We got to the trial-head and decided that was as far as we wanted to go by headlamp. We made the first campfire of our trip and a racer that we met at Eddyline named Barry camped at the trail head near us. Although a big day, this was the easiest day on the trail by far.
Mileage: 61.6 mi
Climbing: 5,133 ft
Moving Time: 7:12
Camping Elevation: 9,395 ft
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