Two weeks of amazing Rocky Mountain highs are done for bicyclists who rode The Denver Post Ride the Rockies and the Bicycle Tour of Colorado.
Together, the bike tours covered 1,002 miles of Colorado blacktop and summited 14 mountain passes, 7 on each bike ride.
Celebrating its 25th year, Ride the Rockies is one of the oldest mass bicycle tours in the nation, probably surpassed only by the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Around Iowa.
One of this year's highlights was bicycling along the Rim Rock Drive in the Colorado National Monument. See the video for scenes along the route from Grand Junction to Salida.
Ride the Rockies has become so popular over the years that organizers instituted a lottery to award places among the 2,000 bicyclists that are allowed to ride. The Bicycle Tour of Colorado caps ridership at 1,500; a few vacancies were available in the weeks leading up to the ride that finished today.
More Colorado rides
If you were boxed out of one of these large group rides, there are other bike rides coming up for mountain goats who want to climb Colorado passes this summer.
The Colorado Peace Ride, July 29 – Aug. 1, starts and ends in Durango with overnight stops in Ouray, Telluride, and Delores. The riders will cover 238 miles as they summit 4 mountain passes. Note the date change.
Colorado Mountain Bike Tour, Aug. 1 – 7, will cover 439 miles and attack 9 mountain passes this year. In its fourth year, the highlights promise to be a ride over Trail Ridge Road and up to Mount Evans, the highest paved road in North America. The bike tour starts and ends in Edwards and is limited to 500 participants.
Peaks and Pints, Aug. 30 – Sept. 3, is a new ride this year. Bicyclists riding the 220-mile counter-clockwise loop along the San Juan Skyway, starting in Ridgeway, will entertain themselves with brewery stops in the evening. The day-time riding isn't any less arduous, however, as the route crossed four mountain passes over 10,000 feet in elevation.
For those looking for smaller groups, the non-profit Adventure Cycling Association is leading two tours through the Rockies.
One is the Alpine Loop, Aug. 3 – 7, a 127-mile mountain bike ride on dirt roads in the mountains around Telluride that crosses mountain passes of 12,000 to 13,000 feet. It's a van-supported ride. The other, Colorado Relaxed, Aug. 8 – 14, is a 180-mile, fully supported ride with camping in the mountains around Silverthorne.
If this whets your appetite for jumping into a mass participation summer bike tour, check out the list of more than 100 across-state, multi-day bicycle tours.
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