Colorado whey, worlds most epic ride part II

Words cannot describe the breath sucking ascents of this climb. Fall River road is THE highest elevated paved Hwy in the united states of america. And as a flag waiving ameriCAN we conquered and occupied this foreign land because it threatened our freedom... the freedom to ride fast. For the entire ascent took nearly 2.5 hours of sludging speeds of 6-10 miles/hour. Here some pictures illustrating our illustrious voyage into the heights of the motherland. At the top awaited an unexpected twist to this tale.

Happy faces at the base of the mountain. Average temperature was 80 degrees. The viscous tar blood that pumped through our huge mammoth hearts struggled secondary to the heat.

Katie became irate early in the climb due to the steep ascents and little available oxygen. "Dont take anymore pictures of me!" shortly followed this snap shot.

Around 10 miles into the climb. Look at the road we carved through the treeline across the other side of the mountain. Notice the beautiful conifer trees that mark the sub-alpine tundra of man.

Grueling faces and handsome mustaches. It was becoming noticeably cooler.

The MOTHER LAND?!? We were unaware that we would be returning to the Arctic Tundra of the mammoth birth. The park needs to emphasize this location in the map of the route. Perhaps if Wooly Mammoths are successfully cloned they could live here. Seems like a nice place with high temperatures around 30 degrees. Finally our mammoth thick gooey mammoth blood started flowing better due to the excellent climate.

As a male, Taylor took the lead... or maybe it was because he decided to do intervals once in the Tundra. It was hypoxic training at its finest.

Katie pictured here performing her best Alexandre Vinokourov impersonation. The Kazakhstan stallion has been both a personal hero to both Taylor and Katie and midway through every bike ride in Colorado we pay homage.

Why does this always happen? Grossly unprepared for dramatic temperature drops of 60 degrees. Makes me so mad!

Alas! We reach the place in which Katie was conceived by her wooly mammoth mother. Do we look cold yet? 12,183 feet above sea level!!!!!!!!!!

Stationed inside the visitor center we decided that we would die of frost bite had we descended the mountain. The temperature was 20 degrees on top and it was windy. Storms were brewing on the horizon and we were chilled to the bone. Katie politely asked a park ranger as well as 2 older park guests if they could drive us down to at least the sub-alpine level however to no avail. All we received was sympathy and an offer to buy us a pair of socks from the gift shop.

Taylor gave an inspirational speech to Katie that will live forever in infamy. It was as glorious as a speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The true X factor in descending the mountain was the improvised extremity warmers. The couple both used plastic bags to suffocate their feet from the bitter cold air. Taylor also used 2 bags over his hands which made braking on the descent provocative.

Spirits were high back at base camp and the lovers had a 12:00pm flex off. Katie won with the display of her huge pipes.