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Safe Cycling Tips, Evergreen Style

As I was riding on the bike path along I-470 this morning, the wind whizzing through the vents in my my helmet as I labored uphill toward Golden, I passed a cyclist plummeting downhill at top speed with a bare head. “What an idiot!” I thought.

My husband has landed in the ER twice because of riding accidents – once he toppled headfirst when he hit a raised utility lid while riding downhill, and the second when he hit a dollop of tar that had been dropped onto a newly paved roadway. The second time, an examination of his helmet showed a long, deep ridge in the back, just to the right of where his brain stem would be

Fortunately for me, Bob isn’t a vegetable and I am not a widow for one important reason – he wears a helmet. He still suffered road rashes and mild concussions, but emerged to ride again, and again, and again.

So, with spring here and people stampeding outdoors to get the exercise many of us have foregone all winter, I now present, in no particular order, tips for keeping safe when cycling.

  1. Always, always, ALWAYS wear a helmet. I don’t care how hot it is. This rule is not negotiable. And make sure your kids are helmeted, too, even riding around the neighborhood. The helmet should fit and be worn snugly, so there is room for just two fingers between the strap and your neck.
  2. Always tell someone where you are going and when you expect to return.
  3. Ride what you can handle in terms of distance and terrain. Don’t try to do too much and risk finding yourself far from home and incapable of climbing the big hill you need to forge to get there.
  4. Ride on the right side of the road, but don’t feel forced onto a narrow shoulder. You are considered a vehicle and cars and trucks are required to pass you and give you plenty of space. When it’s congested, if you’re riding with someone, ride single file.
  5. Carry a patch kit and a spare tube, and make sure you know what to do with them.
  6. Carry a pump. Doesn’t do much good to be able to change a tire if you can’t pump it up!
  7. Carry ID – your driver’s license, or a Road ID device (http://www.roadid.com/) – in case something happens to you. A credit card and $20 cash are a good idea, too.
  8. Carry a phone. If it has Latitude on it, even better. This app can help your significant other find you if you don’t make it home.
  9.  Make sure your bike is maintained in good condition.
  10. Always carry a bottle of water or a sports drink. If you’re going more than 20 miles, carry two. It’s a good idea to carry an energy bar or two as well.
  11. Wear sunscreen.
  12. Take it slow on the way down, Yes, a fast descent is a real rush, but if the road is windy, make sure you can control your speed, especially if you hit a rock.
  13. Check the weather before you go out. Sometimes you should stay home – if it’s raining (slippery roads), or there’s thunder and lightning, or hailstorms in the area.
  14. Dress appropriately, and be prepared. Just because some idiots ride in shorts and short sleeves below 30 degrees doesn’t mean you should. Do you know how to spell “hypothermia?” Also, there’s a huge difference between how your body feels climbing up Squaw Pass (Whew! Sweat!) and how it feels whizzing down the other side (Brrr!). Carry extra gear, at least a wind vest or light jacket. If you’re doing a pass, check the weather at the TOP and prepare for it.
  15. Ride with friends! Team Evergreen is available for the intense and hardcore. For more moderate mountain cyclists, I just formed the Evergreen Multisport Club. The goal is to bring together cyclists, runners and swimmers for training partners, friends, and fellow competitors. Learn more at www.meetup.com/EvergreenMultisportClub.
  16. Got any other ideas? Please add them, or share your experiences!

See you on the roads!

The Hammster

Coming next week … Riding with kids when you live in the mountains.
 

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Cycling Season is Here … Want to Go for a Ride?

One of the big factors that lured me to Colorado was the divine road riding. I envisioned miles and miles of open road, surrounded by rocky ledges and ponderosa pines, warmed by the bright Colorado sun. And I was not disappointed.

Coming to Colorado three years ago from Westchester County, NY, where I had to ride 10 miles down the busy Boston Post Road, dodging cars and potholes and waiting at through countless traffic lights, before I arrived at any semblance of “open road,” the Foothills seemed like heaven on earth.

I’ll admit it took a full year and a half and the purchase of a carbon fiber bike with a triple chain ring before I acclimated to the altitude and stopped feeling as though I were drowning when I rode, and before I could finally make it up the three switchbacks to my hilltop home in the Kittredge corner of Evergreen, but it was worth it! The riding here is like nothing I have ever experienced. It’s rare I see more than one traffic light, even on a long ride. Yes, there’s a little congestion in downtown Evergreen, but that half a mile is nothing compared to the challenges I’m accustomed to back east.

The riding is literally heaven on wheels. Out Upper Bear Creek Road, past former vacation lodges that make me reminisce about Evergreen’s resort past as Mt. Evans looms into view. Up Buffalo Park past Alderfer/Three Sisters Park, encountering the sweet surprise of ridge top ranches. Out to the Brook Forest Inn. Twisting and turning on the North and South Turkey Creeks.  Soda Creek. Bear Creek Lake Park. Down the canyon road (74) to Morrison and back up (Ouch! Will the hill ever end?).

A freak hailstorm pelts me. A fast downhill freezes me, a jarring shock after the long, sweaty ascent. An elk jumps onto the road and almost knocks me down. A great blue heron flies beside me along Bear Creek, a twig in its beak. I’ve climbed Kenosha Pass, ridden around part of Turquoise Lake, enjoyed the freedom of the bike trail in Glenwood Canyon, explored Estes Park on two wheels. Once I left a piece of my knee on the bridge at Evergreen Lake (before they replaced it) when my skinny wheel went between two boards and I fell. But despite that mishap, which I considered my “baptism” to riding in Colorado, each ride has been more divine than the one before it.

But I have to admit one thing: I’m lonely. I miss having a partner or two, or four or five, to ride with. Team Evergreen is too intense for me. The Foothills Running & Cycling Club, which I helped found, decided to focus on Golden, leaving me high and dry (literally). I’m amazed that there’s no mid-level riding group in the mountain area for recreational riders like me, who just want to climb a few hills, pedal 10 or 20 or 30 miles or so.

Anyone interested in getting a group together for Saturday morning rides, or maybe Thursday evening, in Evergreen or Conifer or Kittredge or Morrison? Anyone want to sweat together up the big hills, then grab a beer and swap war stories? Anyone want to train for a biathlon or go on a road trip to bag a mountain pass? If so, email Lisa@HammsterMedia.com.  Let’s start a mountain area riding club, or even a multisport club. Join me on the roads — I’m ready to train with some company! Are you?

The Hammster

 

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The Swimming Hole and the Castle

On one of those late winter days when the air was unseasonably warm but the ground was still covered with snow, Lexie and I decided to take a walk in the Lair. Lair o’ the Bear, my favorite name for a park. We parked by the road at the western end and strolled down to the trailhead. Lexie was wearing shorts, a light jacket and snow boots. It was one of those Colorado types of days.

Swimming Hole
The Swimming Hole

Suddenly Lexie stopped and gasped.

“Mom!” she exclaimed excitedly. “This is the swimming hole!”

Lexie, 11, and her sister Kyra, 14, had gone to a Bear Creek swimming hole several times last summer with a friend and her mother, who had never been able to describe exactly how to find it.

But sure enough, and the very edge of the park, Bear Creek widened and had a slightly deeper, calm pool. It was flanked by large boulders for sitting on, trees for lolling beneath, and the water was still halfway covered with snow and ice. That didn’t deter a bunch of kids who had discarded their shoes and were splashing around in it while their parents watched, amused. On the third week of March! It was about 65 degrees, but that creek had to be closer to 40 degrees.

Dunafon Castle
Dunafon Castle

“You want to go in?” I asked Lexie. Fortunately, she declined, and we walked on down the trail, alongside cliffs, through deeper woods where the trail was snow-covered and slippery, and suddenly we came upon a wrought-iron fence along the left side of the trail. There was a gate that prevented us from crossing a stone bridge to the left, and across the creek was a small, exquisite stone castle, Dunafon Castle. You might have seen the crest on a flag while driving down Route 74 north of the Lair o’ the Bear entrance.

We stood at the padlocked gate and took in the castle, with its gazebo, sweeping grounds, and fountains, and shared dreams about fantastical other lives, other places, about magic and princesses and unicorns. A workman came around the bend with a couple of huge dogs to abruptly end our trip of fantasy, and we giggled as the canines frolicked with each other enthusiastically.

The whole walk was only about a mile and a half by the time we got back to the car.  But it took us back several centuries, off on flights of fancy, and even back to last summer!

–The Hammster

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Fire in the Back Yard

Yesterday I got an urgent text message in my cellphone through Reverse 911 that 100 homes were being evacuated near Pleasant Park Road in Conifer because of a wildfire.

Fire plume
View of the plume from a Kittredge hilltop

A fire? In CONIFER?? This is the sort of story I’m supposed to watch on 9News, riveted by the orange flames licking the edges of some distant canyon, not a few miles down Rte. 73 near the homes of a number of my friends. My husband and I ran outside and watched, openmouthed, as a giant plume of smoke billowed across the sparkling blue sky.

A few minutes later I discovered there was a second fire along Grapevine Road in Idledale, perhaps two miles away as the crow flies from our Kittredge house. I had driven right past that spot just two days earlier. Suddenly I felt incredibly vulnerable.

Natural Disasters

Everywhere that I have ever lived, there has been some sort of natural disaster to be wary of. Back east, where I lived two blocks from the Long Island Sound, we worried about floods, windstorms, and the torrential downpours that edged hurricanes. When I lived in Puerto Rico, a block from the ocean, we were also afraid of hurricanes, and a volcano erupted on the island of Montserrat. My husband lived in Tornado Alley for a while. I have felt the earth shake under my feet during an earthquake.

When we moved to Colorado, we thought we had found a home that didn’t seem to be a victim of Mother Nature’s irrational outbursts. No tornadoes, no earthquakes, certainly no hurricanes. But how wrong we were. Mother Nature is so erratic here – flooding us one season, parching us the next. (And of course, last year we did have a deviant earthquake.) We are at the mercy of the rain, the snow, the mercury – seesawing between abundance and famine. Those 330 days of sunshine a year that attracted us are also a curse!

As the fire rages in Conifer, a number of my friends have fled their homes, and many others live in the fire’s path. Friends and family from back east, who have seen our fire on the national news, call and email asking if we are OK.

A Fire Plan

Our family spent dinnertime tonight creating a fire plan. We prioritized what needed to be done if the Reverse 911 call came in about a fire in OUR neighborhood. Get US out safely, of course. Also the cats, important papers, hard drives, Grandpa’s violin, Great-Grandfather’s Revolutionary war epaulets, family photos, what else?

Our lovely cedar-and-stone house sits at the edge of 40 acres of beautiful ponderosa pines. There’s some comfort in the fire hydrant that sits at the edge of the front yard, but less comfort in the pine boughs you can reach from the back deck. Forget about “defensible space” — we chose this house because of the woods. We love the smell of the pine in the air, especially on windy days. But today, as I look at those pine trees, I see a threat.

So I’ll call my insurance company tomorrow, make sure I’m covered in case of fire, post the Family Fire Plan on the bulletin board — and pray I never need to use it. And then I’ll go help make sandwiches to help feed the firefighters in Conifer, and pray they get those flames stamped out soon.

Stay safe.

— The Hammster

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Cracks

I drove by Evergreen Lake this morning and saw it: the first crack. A big long crack along the lake, running from the mouth of the creek almost to the dam. The first omen of approaching spring.

Walk on the lake
A February walk on the lake with my friend, Linda Kirkpatrick

Just a week and a half ago I was walking all over the lake with my daughter after ice skating at the Lake House. We saw several clusters of fisherman huddling together in the cold over a tiny hole in the ice, hoping for a catch. A few were inside little tents.

We examined a big snow fish sculpture and a castle. We pretended we were on the North Pole, far from anyone. We listened to the distant laughter of skaters. We reveled in the whiteness that surrounded us.

But today, the lake was deserted. No fishermen. The sculptures melting into shapeless blobs. The skating rink empty.

A blue jay couple flitted around the trees near my car, alerting me to what the future has in store.

Hello, spring.

–The Hammster

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Transitions

I hate transitions.

That is, I hate the transitions between seasons. When I am in a season, I am thoroughly and completely committed. I live, eat and breathe that season. It’s winter? I want to ski, snowshoe, feel the snow crackle under my feet, and embrace the cold! It’s spring? I expect warmer weather, birds singing, crisp hikes up Three Sisters. Summer? Cycling, fishing on Evergreen Lake, sunny skies, wine on the deck. Fall? Golden aspen trees, crisp evenings, football games.

But Colorado, with its bipolar weather, pokes holes in that theory. First of all, it’s never really winter, is it? It might be minus 5 for a few days, but then, overnight, the mercury can shoot up to 60 degrees, and what am I supposed to do with that? I can never pack away my warm weather clothes, or my cold weather clothes, because Colorado might change its mind and morph into another season, and I need to be ready

Take today, for instance. 65 degrees, halleluiah! Of course, last Saturday I was hitting all the terrain parks at Winter Park on skis with my husband and daughter. But OK, I can make the adjustment. 65 degrees. I grabbed my road bike, donned riding shorts and a long-sleeved shirt and headed out Upper Bear Creek. And I FROZE. The cold air from the ice and snow still embracing the creek alongside the road reached out into the air all around me and bit. Hard. When I got home, I was shivering, despite the 65 degrees on the sign outside Evergreen National Bank

Come on, nature — give me some predictability! I need to know what to expect!

But the truth is that one of my favorite things about living in Colorado is that we are not held in the tight fist of winter from December through March, like we were back east. There’s always hope that a cold snap will be broken up by a couple of spring-like days. The variety, the surprise, make living in Evergreen so great. So I will try to embrace the transitions! I will enjoy the warmth of this warm winter week, secure in the knowledge that next week we may be back in sub-freezing temps, and perhaps Spring Break will be snowy!

–The Hammster

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Migration West

A Transplanted New Yorker in Colorado

I moved my family — husband B and daughters K and L — to Evergreen three years ago from the New York City suburb of Mamaroneck, in Westchester County. It was the dawn of the recession, and my husband had lost his job as CIO of a Manhattan Internet startup. We decided to use the job loss as an opportunity to relocate our family to a place that might work better for our daughters, who both have sensory issues. Perhaps living in a fast-moving, competitive cosmopolitan area wasn’t the best environment for them. Perhaps a few ponderosa pines and snow-covered mountains would calm their souls.

For B and me, avid outdoors people chronically frustrated by the necessity of riding our road bikes 10-15 miles through congestion and traffic lights just to find some semblance of an open road, the prospect of quiet mountain roads was enticing. So when I landed a job with a Denver nonprofit, we packed up our boxes, put the house on the market, said goodbye to our wonderful neighbors, and took a leap of faith.

So here we are, in Evergreen! I must confess that I still sorely, painfully miss New York City, and I think I always will. But Colorado has welcomed us with open arms in ways we didn’t even imagine.

Life is different. Is it better? Yes and no. In this blog, I will share the experiences and adventures of wrenching your entire being from the familiar, of plopping yourself down someplace new and trying to navigate a new course. Everybody should do it at least once in their lives, just to discover they can, indeed, land on their feet!

–The Hammster
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