Hotel Draw To Bolem Pass on the CT

First i think i forgot to mention that Ted has only been mountain biking for about 6 months and did the hermosa creek ride on about 3 hours of sleep, and did it well. In an effort to really test how far he has come in short period of time, he went with us the next day. We had done this ride in the reverse direction last year, the way most everybody does it. But this year, howie decided we needed to do it the other way. So we still parked at Hermosa Park, but went up the road to Hotel Draw instead of Bolem. This was like a walk in the park climb compared to the other way, but still a heck of an effort for the Scott n Ted, the kid stayed right with howie all the way up. They got in front of yoda n I and when we got where the trail took off, no howie and the kid. Just as we got near the top, a local caught up to us and was headed down the road that howie and the kid must have gone down, so we asked him to send them back when he ran into them. they made it back just a few minutes before Scott n Ted crested. Then the climbing really began. That which is all down hill the "normal" way is all up hill on trail our way.


here we are thinking about the last few hundred feet of climbing, all hike-a-bike for the most part up to Blackhawk. We had done almost 3000 feet of climbing by this point.



The views were spectacular and we ran into another group riding the other way along with their very cool blue healer/pointer mutt that had his eye on a marmot that he never quite got


although there wasn't alot of climbing left, what little there was was starting to really drag on Ted and Scott, but they both soldiered through like champs.

Here's the kid, heading down. Ted, I promise, its all downhill from here (except for the uphills).
All told it was 30 plus miles, almost 3500 feet of climbing almost all above 9000 feet, a truly remarkable performance for somebody only riding 6 months. Hope you make out next year, Ted!