Searle and Kokomo Passes

Saturday I headed up to the High Country for a spin with Luis and Kelly Klett. Kelly was in town from Raliegh, NC and turned out to be a bad ass singlespeeder, not only smoking me and Luis on the climbs but I even gave up the descent to let him rock it all out.



Our drive up to Copper was a bit ominous. Thick clouds swirled in the sky and the rain drops fell thicker and thicker as we neared the Continental Divide. When I broke my hand back in May it had been raining and maybe I let this set me up for a stupid mistake later in the day.



Right as we arrived in Copper, the rain stopped and we had awesome east coasty like rain forest conditions for the rest of the day. As we climbed about two or three miles out of Copper we ran into a fella from Littleton attempting the CT from Denver to Durango. It was right after saying out pleasantries and, "see ya at the top" when I clipped a pedal on a rock, flipped over the bars and my right thigh landed on a tombstone shaped rock. The pain was an intense fire that had me withering on the ground. This has not been my year on the bike as I count this as no less then a dozen crashes.



Luis and Kelly thought I had either broken my leg or the Littleton CT attempter was a raging maniac who was chopping me to pieces as my moans and screams of pain cut through the silence of the morning air. After about 10 minutes I was able to sit up and swallow about 800 mg of Vitamin I. Both asked if I wanted to bail which I declined but the rest of the day's ride would be plagued by that leg trying to give me a Charley Horse which just seemed to suck some of the will to ride from me. In the end, I just settled into a slow pace and kept it cool and enjoyed the Alpine singletrack as it should be.



looking down the Camp Hale side of Kokomo Pass(12,022 ft). I had debated all day whether to do a loop with included Ptarmigan Pass but that was 60% singletrack, 20% dirtroad, and 20% paved bike path. We decided after seeing this that we would be happy with a 100% singletrack out n back even if it did cut ten miles off the ride.


somewhere between Searle and Kokomo Passes


Kelly with Searle Pass in the Background