Monday 16/5/05

Left Colona early with huge mountains looming in our path. After eating more yummy bree, bread and mango for breakfast we headed over to Ridgeway where we took a rest for a hot chocolate. There we met a guy who told us that we should go to Telluride - a beautiful ski resort just 3 miles off our route instead of our original destination of Placerville which had nothing. Leaving Ridgeway we had to climb up a really steep 11 miles to the Dallas Divide at 8970ft. We thought that the other side would be great coming down, but the winds were so strong that we had to peddle hard all the way down to Placerville. We stopped at the extortionate Blue Jay cafe for lunch and met a very snooty waitress who demanded we tip her! Another 15 miles of steep uphill led us to Telluride ('To Hell You Ride' a name coined due to the fact that the entire town ran on brothels back in the 1800's). Set up camp in the city park there and decide to go out and have a beer and a bite. We met 3 people on the pool table in a bar and got chatting. Mark was originally from England, he'd come to the USA on an exchange trip when he was 14 and never left! He and his girlfriend Alisha were really nice and offered us showers and a place to stay if we needed - unfortunately we had already payed to camp and were all set up. The other guy we met was Jimmy - he was fun. Mark and Alisha left and we carried on to another bar with Jim. After a few drinks and more pool Jimmy took us back to his flat to show us his mountain bike. At his flat we met his friend Scott. Now this guy was cool. He was a real oldschool skier who used to do crazy 80ft drop-offs into powder. He told us how he managed to damage his hamstring real bad and then skied for the next five years on one leg! Another time he broke his arm and gaffer taped it up and carried on skiing - he lived for the slopes in a big way. After chatting for ages with Jimmy and Scott we said our fairwells and hit the sack at about 2am.