It was way past time to give the road bike some love. It’s funny, in Houston I practically lived on my road bike. Pre-COVID my routine was long group rides on weekends, recovery ride on Monday, hammerfests on Tuesday and Thursday, summer races on Wednesday, rest day Friday. Like clockwork. For years. About the only time I rode my mountain bike was to race. But that makes some sense. Houston is pavement rich, trail poor. Here, the equation has been flipped and I now find I live on my mountain bike while the road bike mostly collects dust on a hook in the garage. It was time to right that wrong.
My objective for the day was Buena Vista, 32 miles north of Salida. In the local vernacular, the vernacular I grew up with, that’s BYOO-nuh Vista, not BWAY-nuh Vista as the Spanish spelling would suggest. I’m not sure what happened way back in the day but I suspect the same pioneer people that turned the Spanish Suh-LEE-duh into the gringofied Suh-LIE-duh also adjusted the pronunciation of Buena Vista to suit their tastes. To avoid sounding uninformed, or maybe just because it’s easier, most locals these days just call it BV.
The ride starts with a spin west on Highway 50 to Poncha Springs, just five miles up the road.
From Poncha, most of the route is on State Highway 285 north. I was a little uneasy about riding on Highway 285 but to be honest, after years of riding in Houston traffic it doesn’t seem that bad. It’s not a country lane or anything but there’s a wide shoulder most of the way and you’ve got the whole of the southern Sawatch range on your left and the Arkansas river peaking in and out of view on your right to help you forget about the 18-wheelers and campers whizzing by. After a while you sort of stop hearing the traffic and start enjoying the scenery.
One of the things I love about living in the upper Arkansas valley is that it still feels real. Yes, tourism is a big deal here but there are still plenty of normal people that have normal jobs not related to the tourist industry. So many Colorado mountain towns like Breckenridge and Telluride stopped being real decades ago. And don’t get me started on Aspen, the Emerald City of Colorado. I’m not sure it ever was real. Don’t get me wrong, I love all those places for what they are. There’s a reason they became so popular. They’re all beautiful and they offer some of the best recreation in the state, it’s just that it’s pretty tough for your average teacher, plumber, or cop to live there.
Meanwhile, in the Arkansas valley we still have cows.
Approaching BV with Mt. Yale and Mt. Columbia in the background.
Welcome to BV!
Cyclists abhor an out-and-back. I don’t know why but it feels weird to ride somewhere just to turn around and go back the way you came. We’ll do it if that’s the only option but if there’s a way to make a loop out of a ride, we’ll go out of our way to make it happen. Looking at the roads around BV I knew there was a paved county road just west of town that runs along the flank of Mt. Princeton and drops you into Mt. Princeton Hot Springs. It doesn’t make a complete loop back to Salida but it would make for a pretty decent lollipop route with the added benefit of getting me off the highway and onto quieter roads for a few miles.
One of the things you notice pretty quickly around here is that the big mountains seem to make their own weather. As I turned south to pass by Mt. Princeton dark clouds started to form around the summit and I thought for sure I was about to get caught out in the open in one of those cold spring showers Colorado is known for. I had absolutely zero rain gear with me so that would have been very bad. Nothing like the fear of hypothermia to motivate you to get on with the task of pedaling.
But the rain moved off to the north and after a few more miles it was blue skies over Mt. Princeton.
The old Maxwell schoolhouse, dating from 1889, sitting out in the prairie all by itself.
By the time I made it to Mt. Princeton Hot Springs Resort the sun was shining and a whole bunch of people were out enjoying the hot mineral pools along Chalk creek.
Crossing over the Arkansas river heading back to Salida on Highway 291.
Alpaca ranching is a fairly big deal in the valley. As I approached town from the north I went by several large herds still sporting their woolly winter coats.
A welcome welcome sign.
All in all, it was a great day out. The ride ended up being a 4-hour, 65-mile round trip, enough to let your legs know you’ve accomplished something but not so much that you walk funny for the next couple of days. Along the way I spotted a few more paved county roads that may allow for some creative routing on future rides. I’m feeling a lot better about my road riding options around here.