Palisade to Telluride, The Divide Road

Onward to festival #3, the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. This will take us from Palisade to Telluride. Since it's not that far, we've decide to take a longer (more arduous) route on the Uncompahgre plateau riding the Divide Road. This is basically a dirt road which links Grand Junction to Ridgway or Placerville. That's a view from the divide road above.

We didn't know exactly what to expect of the Divide Road as we know no one who has pedaled it. Was there water? Was it steep? How was the gravel/road? Well we went not knowing the answer to any of these questions but planned for the worse. So we began the ascent to 9000 ft. with 2 gallons of water on the bikes. A pickup truck stopped to chat with us and we inquired about the water situation on the divide. They are like, "Um, yer definitely gonna be needin' some water up there", (Ah, yea, thanks for that one!), and proceed to look at us like we were possibly the stupidest folks they'd ever run into. We are like, "So is there at least some running water up there?", thinking that we'd just filter from creeks like we always do. They reply, "Welp, ya know there's this campground with spigots, but they ain't worked since the 80's. Iffn' it's running water you want, I'd stick to the pavement." I realize then and there that there two type of people, those that think running water comes from spigots and those that think it's in creeks.

We soon realize that the going is not gonna be fast and our first day ends after only 46 miles. But we were both spent. We end up at the above mentioned spigoted campground (nope they didn't work!), and there are 5 tents set up with nobody in them and nothing in them (I checked). It's also late and we ponder for a moment the idea of just sleeping in one of the already set-up tents. How cool would that have been. No set up, no break down. In the end, we didn't have the balls to do it but it was fun to consider.

We start the next day with flat tire number one of the tour. As Kiki's back tire had small hole/gash in it. I repaired it using a yogurt lid and duct tape thinking myself a veritable Macgyver. Oh and I should mention that we carry a spare tire too. But I figured it'd hold until we got to the next bike shop. Well it lasted 50 miles. And man, when you get a flat because of a hole in your tire, it blows like a 357 magnum and pretty much causes you to think you are dying for a second or two. Well, second time we put the spare tire on and all was great.

We come up with the saying, 50 miles is the new 70, because our progress is so slow (7 mph). But it sure is great to be away from cars and on dirt roads. The Divide Road is on the Uncompahgre Plateau in that whole area surrounded by, OK, use your finger here and follow along, Montrose, Delta, Grand Junction, Gateway, Norwood, Placerville, Ridgway. Between all of those cities is the Uncompahgre Plateau. The Divide road goes the entire length of the plateau and is 96 miles long and for the most part, the surface is rideable. Camping is literally everywhere which is really nice. You can simply cycle until you're tired and within 1/2 mile you'll find good camping. We're glad we took lots of water though, as there were tons of cows and not many creeks with running water.


Here's the typical campsite on the Divide Road; anywhere in the forest, it's all flat and good for camping. This shows Kiki multi-tasking by cooking dinner and reading her book.

I have this thought up on the plateau: I start (unexplainably) singing, "First thing you know ol' Jed's a millionaire, Kin folk say Jed move away from there", then I say, wait a minute! "Kin folk say Jed move away from there?" Come on! He just earned a million bucks. Kin folk are gonna be like, "Hey Jed! Wanna come over for dinner". There not gonna be telling him to move away! "Well Jed, now that ye ain't poor anymore like us'n, yous just betta get on outta here, we've ain't got no use for you 'round here, lessn' ye wanna work like the rest of us'n so's yous can earn yer keep.

After 2 days of cycling, we finally hit the pavement again, which I have to admit, I wasn't upset to see (it's just so darn smooth). And from there it was only 26 more miles to before hitting the world famous town of Telluride and their equally famous bluegrass festival. I knew life was treating us right when the very first person I run into is Josh Elmer of KBUT in Crested Butte
who is a friend of mine. He immediately hooks us up with some saved campsites which solves that problem, his friend (who owns a bike shop in Durango) then hooks us up with new tires for our ailing bicycles. Life is good on the Bluegrass Bicycle Tour. Now it time to festivate!