Boulder to Estes Park

This morning started with good music, so this day was bound to be a good day.  After a scrumptious breakfast and eventful route meeting, we jammed to some pump up songs in the parking lot as folks got ready. One of which was All These Things That I Have Done, which everyone jumped around and danced to while singing along and it was a beautiful moment. 

I was sweep with Julia today, so we had to stay behind the last riders.  The last folks to leave today also happened to be the fastest group who stopped for coffee early and had bike troubles early on. With all that, we ended up leaving Boulder a solid 2 hours after the majority of the group.

The first climb was ridiculous and I feared that the whole day would be like this hill. It was followed by a fun downhill, 8ish more tough climbs, and then lunch. After lunch everything seemed a lot easier. The climbs were longer and slower, and descents were ridiculously fun and windy, and there was a big rock along the way that we got to climb. Woot. 

About 20 miles after lunch, we started feeling raindrops, which soon turned into tiny hail, which soon turned into giant hail and forces us to hide under some trees with a father/son motorcycling duo. They were riding from SC and only planned to take 2 weeks to get across the country. They left, we waited out the lightning, and then got moving. 

We didn't get to host until around 7 and I was beat. We watched a video about the school we're staying out (which is pretty neat) and had town hall. Fell asleep as soon as I was on my thermarest. Tomorrow will be longer, harder, and a bigger elevation difference so here's to hoping my leg survives.