The time has come. Jeff’s move to Seattle. Sandie’s been up there for over 2 months always telling me of her awesome adventures and how great the weather has been. I should have just moved with her back in June.
Guess that means one thing for me…road trip! Took me 3 days to get the Jeep ready, totally rigged out redneck style. My Jeep hates me.
I shipped 5 boxes of stuff to Sandie. And left a bunch of stuff in my garage. Amazing how much crap can accumulate. I wasn’t about to rent a truck…this is my opportunity to hit some great mountain biking spots over a 2-week time, and no reason not to drive the Jeep. If there was something that wasn’t necessary to have in Seattle then it was staying in Texas. One day we’ll come back to get everything, hopefully when it’s a little cooler.
So first stop planned is Gunnison, Colorado. Why? 24 Hours in the Sage bike race on 8/20/2011. I purposely looked for races or cool places to ride during my road trip, and this lined up perfectly. I made reservations to stay at the KOA, since that’s where the race was being staged from. Look for a race report writeup soon.
The Jeep seemed to take things pretty well. Started the trip at 59,735 miles on the odometer. Left Texas around 2:30 AM on 8/18 to beat the heat. Didn’t matter, since by the time the sun came up things got hot. Engine temps were fine, but transmission got hot and I could feel it inside. Add in some nice headwinds and crosswinds through west Texas and New Mexico, and had to drop speeds down to 50-55 mph. Doing 60 was no problem, and even got 13-14 mpg, which is what I normally get without loading the Jeep down. Guess those 4.56 gears helped. Northwest Texas and northeastern New Mexico are pretty damn boring to drive through…I highly recommend avoiding those areas. The most exciting thing was an overturned truck. Hope everyone was OK. Even saw some bikers on the highways.
Total time to Gunnison was about 18 hours. It was awful. Getting to Colorado was cool, but I was too tired to take pics, even though it was the most scenic part of the drive. I had to go over Monarch Pass, which made my Jeep hate me more. It’s a consistent incline for many miles up to over 11,000 feet, then 9 or so miles back down, only doing 30-35 mph because of the curves around the mountain. I regret not getting some pics along this part of the route, but I just wanted to get to Gunnison sooner than later.
Got to KOA in Gunnison around 7:30 PM (mountain time) on Thursday night and setup camp. The KOA here is nice, everything was clean and maintained well. Not many other racers here yet, so I picked a spot with electrical outlet nearby and along the course.
Below is my route I drove to get to Gunnison. Boring at first, but definitely better once I got into Colorado near the mountains. Look for another post about my adventures in Gunnison on Friday as I relaxed before the race.
