Here is a description of the route.
"58 miles and about 3000 feet of climbing. While there are some interesting sights and scenery along this route, mostly on the approach to Ridgway and definitely into Ouray, by and large, this is a ride through 5000-6000 foot high arid treeless terrain. Delta to Montrose is a bit of a bore if you like alpine scenery. The road has a number of rollers, trending upwards, and is wide open. With the Grand Mesa shrinking behind you over your left shoulder, there is not a whole lot to look at. As you approach Montrose, traffic increases and you’ll have access to a lot of food and refreshment. The DQ on the north side of town is great on a hot day (and it will be hot, so try to get an early start).
Once past Montrose, the view of the San Juan’s become more and more clear. The jagged peaks are striking against the skyline. You are also getting a bit higher and the land is turning, ever so slightly, more green. The closer to Ridgway you get, the hillier the land gets. Just before the Ridgway Reservoir, Hwy 50 descends toward Dallas and you get one of my favorite photo-ops in Colorado: the road falling away against a backdrop including the San Jaun’s rock face and Ridgway in the foreground. You’ll know it when you see it. Ridgway can be a good stop for food and beverage. It’s a small little town with a cute Main Street off of 50.
After Ridgway, you come face to face with tomorrow’s nemesis, Red Mountain. While you’ve been climbing all day, this last segment is steeper and more prolonged than the rest of the day combined. You’ll gain almost a third of your elevation gain in the last six miles of the day. The valley you are in is closing in on all sides and you face what is looking like a solid wall in from of you.
Overall, this will be a fairly easy day. The climbing is long but shallow (for the most part… there are some steep but short parts). It’s a good day to relax a bit and recover from the Grand Mesa. When you get to Ouray, it should be fairly early in the afternoon. Take advantage of the hot pools and eat well. You’ll need the muscle relief and the food reserves for tomorrow."
I think this writer took the straight line from Delta to Montrose. The RtR route took back roads adding about 10 miles. The route book said 67 miles. That would have been great--less traffic and better scenery--except much of that road was really rough. I don't suppose it was like the cobbles in Paris-Roubaix, but it had to be similar. By the time we got to Montrose, we were plenty tired of rough roads.
The terrain was lots of rolling hills, but the climbs were generally a bit longer than the descents so we slowly gained altitude. It got to be a bit monotonous after a time. Those mountains in the distance were where we were headed and they just kept getting bigger and bigger all day.
It turned out to be harder than we thought, and was warm and dry. Luke felt the need to stretch a bit at one of the aid stops. What better place than in amongst the bikes?
We knew the next day was going to be tough, and the closer we got to Ouray, the more we could see how hard it was going to be. The mountains begin to loom ominously in front of us reminding us every pedal stroke that we had to go up and up before we could go down again.
We got to Ouray and set up camp. We camped on a baseball field and it got FILLED with tents. It was hard to walk from our tent to the outside of Tent City.
Ouray is a beautiful town, that has almost no flat spots. Even Main street is about 15 feet higher on one side than the other.
It was off to be early that night because we wanted to get an early start the next morning.
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