Want to take a 203-mile, one-day bike ride through the mountains? | David Ramsey
Taylor Ross was weary.
He was pedaling his bicycle toward the top of Pikes Peak, but, as he climbed, the summit looked more distant.
“As you climb that thing,” Ross says, “the top keeps getting farther and farther away as you realize how far you have to go.”
Oh, there’s one detail I forgot to mention. As Ross gazed longingly at the top of Pikes Peak on a June evening, he already had pedaled 15 hours, covered 165 miles and conquered Mount Evans.
A long day in the bike saddle, for sure.
“That was one of the lower points,” Ross, a 2003 graduate of Lewis-Palmer High School, says of staring at the distant Pikes Peak summit. “But I knew that the end was close and all I had to do was get to the top, and the rest was downhill.”
Not much later, Ross and his friends, Nate Vacura and Colorado Springs resident Daniel Matheny, were relaxing and rejoicing in downtown Colorado Springs. Ross, weary but elated, celebrated with a veggie burrito at Chipotle.
The trio had pedaled 17½ hours, covered 203 miles, gained a total of 23,000 feet in elevation and reached near the top of Mount Evans and Pikes Peak.
Colorado Springs is the kind of city where you can go to a party (we’re talking the days before the COVID-19 crisis) and fall into a talk about cycling and soon be listening to a bicyclist talk nonchalantly of riding 140 miles in a day over one or two mountain passes. We live in a prime destination for the ridiculously fit.
But even by Front Range standards, the Ross-Matheny-Vacura effort was impressive. The trio took the ride to test themselves and to raise awareness for a cause. Ross is on the board of directors of Go4Graham, a foundation that seeks to end the stigma surrounding depression and mental illness.
Matheny, who has lived in the Springs since 2006, answers quickly when asked why he volunteered to ride 203 miles.
“Doing something audacious and overly challenging sets a standard,” he says. “It was just getting out there and doing something that seems to be more than the norm, I guess.
“I would not want to attempt it solo.”
Camaraderie was crucial. Ross says riding alongside his friends made all the difference. He has taken many epic solo rides through the Rockies, and the loneliness of a long-distance ride can grow oppressive. Negative, searing self-talk lurks when exhaustion and doubt begin to blend.
“On this ride,” Ross says, “there weren’t a lot of really low points. We were together and knew we would have each other’s backs until the end. We talked all the time. We were just solving all the world’s problems.
“There was some fun banter.”
About what?
Ross laughs.
“I know we talked a lot about food.”
The ride started at 4 a.m. June 29 in Lakewood. The trio had planned the trip for an earlier date, but snow in the mountains repeatedly stalled the attempt. Matheny had gone for a two-hour mountain bike ride June 28, but when the call came that said he would be riding 203 miles the next day, he did not hesitate to say yes.
The climb to near the top of Mount Evans was brutal with winds roaring past 50 miles per hour. On the climb, the trio would feel a strong push into a switchback and then emerge into the teeth of the wind. Sometimes, Ross says, they were pedaling with all their might as they crawled along at 2 or 3 miles per hour.
The cyclists could barely stand in the wind when they reached their destination near the Mount Evans summit, where they met creatures unbothered by the roar.
“We see these Rocky Mountain goats, seven or eight adults, that were totally unfazed with this wind,” Ross says. “There were two little babies, 3 or 4 months, running around and playing and jumping on top of the adult ones.”
The cyclists were amazed by the goats but could not linger to admire the dancing beasts.
They had to pedal another 150 miles and reach another mountaintop.
Contact the writer: david.ramsey@gazette.com
Taylor Ross on his 203-mile bike ride.
Cyclists head to the near the top of Mount Evans.
View from the top of Mount Evans.