Woke up early, broke camp and met up with the Al’s at the Trading Post’s convenience store/diner to see if we could find a ride down US 50.

The ride never materialized for us, so at about 8:00 we headed down the road as a foursome. The twelve miles went pretty quickly with a mostly gradual downhill, and we made it without incident. Huge sigh of relief from everyone.

The rest of the day was mostly wide open riding on mixed gravel in the baking sun. Despite packing extra water, we were filtering water to replenish from every source we could find. Some pretty unsavory! There was a slow general upwards trend until we started to climb Cochetopa Pass from the west, which was to be our third time over the Continental Divide.

The pass climb itself was relatively easy with a tailwind and the sun becoming a bit weaker. The road was nearly deserted, perhaps partially due to the road closed sign at the bottom. We chatted casually and enjoyed fresh stories. Our paces seemed to be pretty compatible too and Allison declared us a good fit. We briefly intersected with the Colorado Trail again near the top.

After the top, we had a few miles of shallow descent to get to Luders Creek Campground, which was empty when we arrived with only a half dozen nicely spaced sites. We set up camp and replenished our water from a spring just outside the campground. As soon as we were set up, we heard thunder and enjoyed a short 30min break in our tents due to rain.

Then Liz and I had a freeze dried backpackers Pad Thai meal for dinner, which hit the spot! Time for bed just as it was starting to get dark, around 7:30.

Overall, about six hours of ride time and 49 miles with 2800ft of elevation gain. A pretty good day on the bikes!