Monday: Over the Grand Mesa

There were 3 days on the calendar that were clearly going to be hard--Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. As it turned out, many people think Monday was the hardest. I tend to agree, but Wednesday and Friday were close (more about those later). Here is the map, the elevation profile, and a description of the route.

"85 miles and approximately 6500 feet of climbing.  The Grand Mesa is one of the must do climbs in Colorado.  Rather than repeat what I have already written, click on this link to bring you to my Grand Mesa write-up in this site.  Please note, the write-up is from Cedaredge to I-70, so just reverse it as you read.  The first 30 miles out of Grand Junction are fairly flat and uneventful.  You are on city streets to Palisades, I-70 for a few miles, and then in a spectacular little canyon with impressive rock overhangs and cut outs until you get to the town of Mesa (about mile 31).  From there, it’s up.  And the up is relentless and grueling.  This face is steeper, but a touch shorter, than the Cedaredge side. It will more than likely be hot so bring extra water…  It’s a long hard climb and this IS the hardest day of the ride.  Sag wagons will be in short supply.  Just plan on it being long and hard.  Scenery, on the other hand, will blow you away."


The author was right on all accounts. The day started on flat roads through Palisade with a short stretch on I70. The Colorado Highway Patrol had the right lane coned off so we had a lane between us and the shoulder which we were supposed to ride. As we headed up towards the Mesa, it was clear that the weather was a bit iffy on the top. There were stories of 4 inches of snow on the top overnight so everyone was a bit wary of what we would ride into.

This photo must have been at about mile 30 as we were beginning the serious climb.


The climb was relentless. It was Energizer Bunny-esque. It just kept going and going and going and going. The average grade was 5%+ so it wasn't as steep as some of the later climbs, but it was LONG. And, it was steep enough (as you can see).

Even Luke suffered a bit up this climb. 

But, we made it to the top after well more than 3 hours of climbing and took a welcome break.

It was a bit cold at the top, but the sun was out a bit (you can see shadows). After some photo ops, eating some food, refilling bottles, we headed down the other side. As you can see from the profile, we had a nice long downhill in store that we were looking forward to. As we headed downhill, it begin to rain and after a couple of miles it was raining pretty steady. It made the road a bit dicey and it was COLD. Even slowed down a bit to account for the slickness of the road we were doing over 30mph in a cold rain. The downhill was over 25 miles so it took us close to an hour. By the time the rain stopped and it begin to warm up a bit, I was so cold my arms were shaking a bit and I had little feeling in my hands (in spite of having long glove on. It was a bit sketchy to be riding at 35 mph with arms which shook a bit--makes the bike feel unstable. When we got to Cedaredge, the weather was considerably better, and we were able to warm up, take off the cold weather clothes, and enjoy a warm ride to Delta for our next stop.


We rode for about 7 hours for the day. That much effort requires a lot of calories so you get to eat a lot at night. 

It was a bit of confidence builder to know that I could actually get over the top of that climb and feel pretty decent that night. But, it was only day 2 of 7.