Steve made it WAY past Boulder today, and not really by his own choice. He finished at Standley Lake after an 86.9 mile ride from Estes Park. Not exactly the day one looks for after finishing Trail Ridge Road, but at least tomorrow’s ride into Denver should be a little easier.
He tried to find a place in Boulder and several hotels near there, but every place was booked for about 30 miles due to a softball tournament. When I talked to him, we both couldn’t understand why that many people would swarm to Boulder for a softball tournament, so I told him I’d try to find something.
Sure enough, Wednesday through Sunday is the 2005 Louisville Slugger Independence Day Softball Tournament. This tournament, besides the long name, brings hundreds of college softball coaches from around the country to scout for talent.
Hmm, seems to me that they’re in the right place at the wrong time, because…..
…..June in Colorado is Bike Month, not softball. I know, I know…perfect coincidence, but I’ll take it.
In other not-related to biking news, Shingo Tsubol, a journalist from Tokyo, may not have gotten the bike month message either, but that’s ok because he’s working on amazing feat of his own. (scroll down after the link to see the article). I told Steve to watch out for a long distance walker/hitchhiker, as they appear to be in the same area.
Ok, last and of course least, Steve confirmed (without my instigation strangely enough), that cyclists in Boulder seem to be slightly “full of themselves“. From talking with a friend in Ft. Collins, this seems to be common for Boulder, which is really unfortunate. Only about 1 in 10 cyclists that he met riding in the area would return his wave, although there were plenty of riders around, and cyclists going faster than Steve buzzed by him with no warning or acknowledgment.
Oh well, not everyone lives in reality yet.
I noticed that too, the Boulder cyclists being full of themselves thing. Well, actually, I noticed it down near Evergreen, maybe it’s a whole Front Range thing. I was riding up the road towards the road up to the top of Mt. Evans. I must have passed 30 cyclists and maybe two waved back to me. WTF? All I can figure is that there are SO MANY cyclists in the area that it’s too much of a pain in the butt to wave at everyone. Yet there are a lot of cyclists around Flagstaff and everyone here manages to wave.
I was talking to John Faull who know lives in boulder, and he describes many of the local riders as “Freds”, as in mostly just there for the show, because biking is the cool thing to do around there. Whatever.