We woke up to a normal hotel breakfast. I had yogurt, granola and raspberry....then I decided to get unhealthy and eat eggs, sausage and biscuits.

The first 5 miles of the ride were straight uphill. I burned up them with two T4k alums. I think everybody was saving themselves for The Challenge the next day. I'll explain what The Challenge is later. After going uphill for a while we cruised back downhill essentially the entire day into Denver. The ride was exciting because you didn't have to pedal and you'd cruise at 23 mph. Pushing it we could cruise at 36 mph. There was one hairy part where we were crossing a bridge and an electricity wire had fallen into the road. We couldn't see it until we were right on it. I ended up having to bunny hop it to avoid getting tangled up in it. Luckily no one got hurt. The lead group stuck around to warn people about it.

After the last rest stop we cycled into Denver via the Cherry Creek cycling path. Denver is a really beautiful city. It reminds me of Austin and England combined. 62 miles today

Ariel (the gf) met me at the church we were staying at. She got into town a few hours before us. It was nice to see her. It's been fun showing her how we do things along the ride...although she's seen a very atypical couple of days because of The Challenge....

After we got to our church we took a trip to the massive REI in Denver. It's in an old power plant by the river. After a little shopping we took a dip in the river. It was freezing - glacier melt water tends to be pretty cold.

We had another dinner prepared by the alums. Chicken Alfredo - delicious. After dinner the team planned The Challenge.

Originally it was going to be an easy 35 miles from Denver to Boulder. Now they've planned to ride from Denver to the top of Mt. Evans and then down to Boulder. Thats 140 miles + 9000 ft of climbing. Mt Evans is about 14,000 ft. We think it's going to take them about 13 hours. So far Mike, Trent, Abby, Trisha, Geoff, Peter, Dane, Ivan, Scott and Evan are up to the challenge. I would love to be joining them but Ariel came all the way here to see me so I couldn't spend the whole day climbing a mountain.

We'll see how it goes....