First Week of Biking

I've been on my trip for about a week now. I ended up getting into the bus station in Ft. Collins around 2:30am, and walked about 4 miles towards an REI, where I was planning on buying a Surly Long Haul Trucker. While I was waiting for REI to open I found a bike store just behind the REI, where I stopped in to see what they had. Andy, one of the guys at Re-cycle Cycle, convinced me into getting a Raleigh Road Three Hundred. It isn't quite as nice as the Long Haul Trucker, but it was roughly $800 cheaper, and will still work for me. I spent roughly $450 on the bike, plus another $400 on accessories, including a bike rack and panniers, before heading out.

I spent the first day riding around town getting used to the bike and making sure everything worked, then headed out the next day towards Estes Park. The entire way was uphill, heading into the Rockies from the plains, and it was quite a long ride. The views along the way were worth it though, and when I get a chance I'll be uploading a lot of pictures, most of which are already geotagged.

The next couple of days included a lot of hills, and I'm definitely not used to biking yet. There have been a couple of nice small mountain villages, and most of the drivers along the way have been decent. The only real problem I have had along the way was in Black Hawk, CO where there is a bike ban. They apparently are more than happy to ticket riders, even though the federal law states that places can't ban bikes without providing a nearby alternative route, which they don't have. That case is currently being debated in court, so we'll see how things turn out.