Final notes: riding style

It’s important to note that a lot of the advice here is specific to my riding style and my situation. Once Tim quit, I was on my own. This meant that I really had nothing to do but ride every day. If I stopped early, I would just be sitting around by myself. When I hit towns, without somebody else to wander around with I wasn’t going to spend a lot of time seeing the local sights, going on side trips, or whatever. Plus, my wife was at home waiting for me, so it wasn’t really fair for me to spend a lot of time hanging out and not making progress toward the end.

I didn’t mind this so much. The reason I did the route was because I like riding over the top of mountains. My goal was not so much to meet lots of new people, get into the local culture, and so on. (It’s sort of unavoidable, though – a sort of nice side bonus – just because of the nature of the trip.) So packing light and riding solo and relatively hard fit my style.

But this is not going to be the case for everyone, maybe not even for a majority of people. If a person had the right group – say a couple of other guys, or a partner who is a partner in ways other than just riding – this could be a very good route to spend a lot more time on. There is a lot to do along the route that I couldn’t even consider doing – whitewater stuff in Salida and Steamboat, hiking 14ers in Summit county, riding the train in Chama, singletrack throughout CO, backpacking in Glacier, and the list goes on. With the right group, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to chuck some hiking boots in the panniers and plan on taking advantage of these things. If that’s your style, of course.