Advice on Cycling in Denver, Colorado?

livb

Hi,

Does anyone know anything about cycling in Denver? Any good places to hire a road bikes or routes etc.?

Thanks

amrushton

You are at 5000ft and get some serious climbs up to 11,000ft. Prob. do a Google on Bike hire but places like Breckenridge and Boulder are good and over to Colorado Springs. Lots of beautiful back roads and stunning vistas. if you have access to a car you could get out of the city and head out to Vail - but everything is up or down and it gets v.hot (or cold). I was in Colorado one August and a pass shut due to snow.

https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=cycling+colorado

tourdriving

Bike hire see my site https://tourdriving.wordpress.com/usa/ go down to photo of bike find state Colorado and then Boulder or Denver

rolf_f

You can cycle up Mount Evans if you like. It's a nice ride and you will probably never cycle anywhere higher in your life (12,000 ft). You can start from various spots - I just did the top 3000 ft from the turn off so quiet roads all the way. Alpine style climb with sensible gradients. I met an ancient bloke at the top who'd just ridden up on a titanium Brompton. I hired a Giant TCR from Golden and drove over.

homers_double

Its high, nicknamed Mile High City so make sure you take time to aclimatise.

Drink plenty of fluid and not so much the beer flavoured stuff for the first few days.

livb

This is all great, thanks for the replies!

I'm basically tagging a couple of days onto a work trip so hoping to get some good climbing in and acclimatise while working first. Do you need a car (or is there public transport you can use with a bike?) to get over to a good place to start climbing? Or is the cycle out of Denver alright and not so far that you have already covered a lot of miles? Tour-driving, have you hired from all those places? If so what spec bikes do you get from say bicycle village etc.?

Has anyone got any gpx files or links for routes, otherwise I'll plan one out myself. Mount Evans sounds fantastic!

Also are summer only routes likely to be open in late September?

rolf_f

livb wrote:

This is all great, thanks for the replies!

I'm basically tagging a couple of days onto a work trip so hoping to get some good climbing in and acclimatise while working first. Do you need a car (or is there public transport you can use with a bike?) to get over to a good place to start climbing? Or is the cycle out of Denver alright and not so far that you have already covered a lot of miles? Tour-driving, have you hired from all those places? If so what spec bikes do you get from say bicycle village etc.?

Has anyone got any gpx files or links for routes, otherwise I'll plan one out myself. Mount Evans sounds fantastic!

It's America - small distances there are big distances here. I wouldn't want to cycle from Denver to the front range and then you still have a distance to go before you reach the best bits. Hire a car - it'll probably cost less per day than the bike!

Personally, I'd try to tag a week on. The Colorado Rockies and San Juans are fantastic. Terrific scenery and all sorts of historic old towns from the Mining/Wild West eras. Favourites of mine include Leadville (where Doc Holliday fought his last gun battle), Ouray and Lake City. That one of my favourite places in the world is in America never ceases to surprise me!

cosine

Rolf F wrote:

You can cycle up Mount Evans if you like.(12,000 ft)

Higher, 14,000! You'll be sucking some pretty serious air if you aren't acclimatized.

rolf_f

cosine wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

You can cycle up Mount Evans if you like.(12,000 ft)

Higher, 14,000! You'll be sucking some pretty serious air if you aren't acclimatized.

Indeed - don't know quite why I quoted 12,000 since I think we only started our ride at 11,000 ft

Acclimatisation can be an issue. Denver is at 5000 feet and most of your time in the Rockies is at 10,000ish. I think we did the ride towards the end of the trip so we'd have had about 5 days to acclimatise to 5000ft in Golden and another 6 days at least at 10,000 ft. I didn't have any problems at all with the altitude (though ironically always find lugging bags up a couple of flights of stairs at the 10,000 ft elevation Delaware Hotel, Leadville hard work) but my friend was definitely affected a little bit by it.

canamdad

There are lots of bike paths in Denver itself if that's where you're going to be based. Suspect a google search can show you maps and all the info you need for them. There is a popular ride that starts in Golden, just west of Denver, and can be reached by bike from a lot of parts of the city. A switchback road takes you up Lookout Mt with some nice views back at the city when you get to the top. You can come back the same way or keep going over the top and descend a bit until taking a left on the I70 frontage rd which will take you back toward the city. Mt Evans, which has already been mentioned, is, of course, a classic ride that usually starts in Idaho Springs but could be ridden from Denver itself if you're interested in a (very) long day out. Bring lots of extra clothing- everything you can fit in your pockets like arm/knee warmers, hat for under your helmet, full finger gloves, etc- as the summit can be/will be much colder and the descent will most surely be. Mind the mtn goats! Further west on I-70, there is Loveland Pass which tops out right around 11,990 if memory serves me. The "short" approach is from Loveland ski area on the east side of the tunnel and the long approach is from the west from Dillon or Keystone. This is a nice climb (max 7% gradient) and will take you by Arapahoe Basin ski area and then above timberline.
Summit County (where Keystone, Breckenridge, Arapahoe Basin and Copper Mt ski areas are located) has a beautiful bike path that goes around Lake Dillon including a climb up Swan Mt and a descent back to what's called Farmer's Corner at the south end of Lake Dillon. Another path will take you west to Copper Mt and even to the top of Vail Pass and over to Vail for lunch if you're so inclined. These paths allow you to access the I-70 corridor which runs through the canyon between Frisco and Copper Mt. I used to live for many years in Breckenridge and this is my "home" ground. Hope that you get a chance to ride some of these routes while you're in CO.