Glenwood Springs

Sunday we took a day trip to Glenwood Springs, about 85 miles east of Grand Junction. Our first stop was to check out a piano that we’d seen on Craigslist. It was in pretty bad shape, both cosmetically and mechanically, so we crossed it off the list.

We had a quick lunch at Subway and then found the parking area for the Glenwood Canyon bike trail, a paved path that extends 16 miles through Glenwood Canyon, sandwiched between I-70 and the Colorado river. The starting-the-ride process is always a bit of an ordeal: unload the tandem from the roof rack, fit the child seat on the back of it, load the handlebar bag with snacks, put some windbreakers in the bag we strapped on the back of the child seat, slather up every bit of exposed skin with plenty of sunscreen, find 3 helmets, 3 pairs of sunglasses…

It was a warm, sunny day – one of the first warm days this month – so Chris and I were comfortable in long-sleeved jerseys and shorts. We knew from Shaun and Cindy’s experience that Cailan would require some extra layers to be warm enough on the back of the bike, so we put him in lined nylon pants, a long underwear shirt (a size 2T hand-me-down from Quinn that still fits), a T-shirt, and a fleece jacket. I also took one of my legwarmers and slid it over the bar that goes across Cailan’s seat, so he would have a warm place to tuck his hands.

The bike ride ended up being a lot of fun, after a somewhat rough start. The beginning of the trail, where it leaves the town of Glenwood Springs, is adjacent to the highway and had a lot of debris on it. The trail then crossed over the interstate on a slightly disconcerting bridge with a tunnel-like fence, while the highway plunged into a tunnel through the canyon. Then the bike trail headed into a residential neighborhood and we got a flat tire. With 3 of us on the bike, it takes awhile to get everyone unloaded, and having the child seat back there makes handling the bike and getting the rear wheel off a bit of a challenge. Fortunately, Chris is an expert at this task and he quickly had a new tube installed and the wheel in place while Cailan wandered around looking at daffodils, violets, and dandelions, and I watched a great blue heron at the river.


We started riding again and within a mile were out of the neighborhood and back on the bike path. It was easy riding, slightly uphill but we had a tailwind so it wasn’t hard pedaling; the path was smooth and wide and there was very little traffic. We passed 3 rest areas that are accessible from the highway, and there were clusters of people walking and biking near each of those, but in between we pretty much had the path to ourselves. It was fun to ride beside the river, watching people in rafts and kayaks going through the rapids. We saw a couple of rafts with dogs aboard, and I wondered how Utah would do on a boat. Somehow I don’t think he’d like it much.

I suppose I will go ahead and document our moment of rule-breaking. See, we were riding up the canyon from the west. We’d gone about 7 miles, I think, when we came to a place where the trail actually went under the interstate, with a big concrete wall between the bike path and the river. On the other side of the bike path was a work area for the department of transportation, surrounded by an 8-foot fence. Between those two things was an 8-foot chain-link gate, with a sign saying “Bike Path Closed for Season.” And on the other side of the gate were 4 cyclist (2 couples, each pulling a toddler in a trailer). They had ridden down the canyon from the east end of the trail and were as puzzled as we were about the gate blocking the path. Their group made the decision to circumvent the gate first. The 2 women climbed around the gate on the side of the concrete wall. The babies were unloaded from the trailers and passed through the gate, at a place where the chain-link wasn’t tightly attached to the frame. Four bikes and two trailers were passed around the gate. We helped them get all their gear around the gate, and then they helped us pass the tandem around. Cailan had been sleeping in his seat, and he woke partway up as he was being squeezed through the chain-link, a much tighter fit than those younger babies.


After that, we were back on the bike, pedaling a smooth clean undamaged trail that wasn’t closed from the east end, wondering what the gate was about. Cailan woke up and started singing his planet song. I love having him ride in the child seat on the tandem; I can hear him, know if he’s bored or uncomfortable, talk to him, even reach back and hold his hand for awhile. He stayed happy for the whole ride yesterday.


We stopped for a snack break at a rest area, where we had pretzel sticks and Larabars, strange-looking but yummy concoctions of ground up nuts and dried fruit. Cailan also had a taste of a chocolate Clif Shot. At first he was surprised (and not pleasantly) by the texture and almost spit it out, but then he decided it was very good and he wanted to "slurp some more of that."



After our lunch break it was just a couple quick miles to the end of the bike path. The east end trailhead was just a small parking area with an outhouse, so we didn't bother stopping there; we just turned around and started pedaling west. We were now going downhill, following the flow of the Colorado river, but the wind was now a headwind so we weren't exactly coasting. At another rest stop on the way back, Cailan was delighted to find some bugs crawling around on the ground - he's been waiting a long time for them to "wake up" from their winter sleep.

When we got back to the gate blocking the path, we didn't encounter any bikers on the other side, so we were own our own to get back through. I went around the gate, Chris hefted the tandem up onto the concrete wall, and we rolled it along the wall, past the gate - tilting it to get both sets of handlebars past the gate post - and then brought it back to the ground. Not much worse than loading it up atop the car.

From the gate, the miles passed quickly and we were soon back at the Subaru, hot, thirsty, and pleasantly tired from cranking out 32 miles. We stopped for a snack in Glenwood Springs and then headed back for home. On the drive home, we saw LOTS of cars loaded with bikes heading in the opposite direction - towards Denver. There had been a mountain bike race out near Grand Junction, and it seemed a lot of bikers from the Front Range were on their way home after the event. We started counting, and in one 10-minute stretch, we saw 73 bikes!