Father of Six

Damn it was cold.

I left our house at about 7:15 this morning and road my bike through the back streets of old Littleton in order to avoid the ice and snow covered Highline Canal, and get across Santa Fe to reach the Platte River bike path. This route still didn’t provide me with a clear and dry path, as most intersections were covered in ice.

I then went south on the River path, which also had occasional patches of ice, and stopped at the intersection with Mineral Avenue to wait for my friend Arne. Here is my bike at this point, with a snow berm in the background.

Looking south along the river at this same spot you could see where the ice had covered all the way across the path. You should be able to see a guy fly fishing along the bank - right in the center of the photo.

Arne arrived about 10 minutes later, and we continued south into Chatfield State Park. In the park, we took my favorite leg and lung buster up and over the dam.

We stopped briefly at the top, and I took this shot looking west at the reservoir. The big white swath through the bottom third of the photo is the lake - frozen solid. The little black specks are hoards of ice-fishermen. And the hot-air balloon is skimming the surface of the ice. Pretty amazing scene.

We headed down the other side of the dam, picked up the bike path and back to our rendezvous point. We split here and I pedaled slowly back home, pleasantly tired, and really quite cold.

22.27 miles in all for me, and it took 1:43:36. 12.9 mph average