After a quick breakfast at the Pony Expresso Coffee Shop in Dolores (where the small coffee is called a Shetland) we headed towards Telluride on a crisp cool sunny morning. The road was a very gradual uphill with no undulations.
We had decided to change our sag rotation strategy the evening before. We made a rotation list for each car (we have two to hold all 10 riders when doing a complete sag, and a trailer to hold the bikes.) The two Bikeoppers (Social Bikers/Shoppers) have a 3rd car and are only on call for emergencies. Anyway we decided to only drive 5 miles instead of 10 on each sag interval. We felt the shorter interval would work better for the terrain (lots of climbing – and relatively little downhill.
I felt it worked well. We went through a full rotation before lunch (and a little more). We had lunch in Rico and met a biker riding from NYC to San Francisco. The coffee shack near the gas station no longer makes sandwiches but does have breakfast burritos (which many of us had had at the Pony Expresso and were in the mood for something else.
We decided to sag to the top of Lizard Head Pass (since it looked like rain and we had heard some lightning. As we drove it started to rain hard or we saw evidence of recent hard rain and hail. At Lizard Head pass it was still raining so we decided to check out the next downhill from a high point (there are several along this route) – but it was raining there too – so we bagged it and drove on into Telluride.
The Bikeoppers joined us briefly at one of our sag stops before lunch. There was no cell coverage along the route except Rico had ATT (but not Verizon). Then they went on into Telluride and had lunch at Smugglers Brew Pub.
We had our Happy Hour in the hotel lobby at 5:00 and dinner at La Cocina De Luz at 6:30. The food was wonderful – highly recommended!
Tomorrow is a rest day – with lots of shopping planned – a small amount of riding and good food to be had by all. Unfortunately rain is predicted – but we shall overcome!
Thursday we head to Ouray for a 50 mile ride.