Nederland is a mountain town that has never entirely decided whether it is a ski-resort suburb, a hippie holdout or a mining camp that kept going. The answer is probably all three. It sits at about 2,500 metres where Boulder Canyon spills into the high country, at the edge of the Barker Reservoir, with the Indian Peaks on the horizon. Once you ride in from the canyon, the first thing you register is how cold the air has become, even in summer.
The name is old and slightly odd. In the 1870s a Dutch company bought a local mine, and the settlement became Nederland, Dutch for the Netherlands. The silver of nearby Caribou had drawn miners and mill workers here, and Nederland lived as a processing and supply place for them. Today the town is better known for its eccentricities than for its silver. A few days every March brings Frozen Dead Guy Days, a festival built around a man preserved in dry ice in a shed up the valley, and the town also has an old carousel hand-carved and restored by locals. I mention these because a rider doing laps on the Peak to Peak Highway should know the place has a sense of humour.
The riding in and out is the draw. Coming up from Boulder, Highway 119 climbs Boulder Canyon in a long run of tight, rocky bends alongside the creek, which suits a middleweight bike and a rider who has not eaten recently. Past town, the Peak to Peak Scenic Byway runs north and south along the Front Range at over 2,500 metres, with a view of snow on the high peaks, long open curves, and not much else. Weekends bring cyclists, tourists and heavy bikes in numbers, so mid-week is better. Winter can close sections, and ice lingers in canyon shadows into spring.
Nederland has a handful of coffee shops, bakeries and a few gas stations, so it is a natural place to refuel, eat and warm up before turning on to the higher parts of the byway. Boulder, about twenty kilometres down the canyon, has everything else. Altitude cuts engine power slightly, and the weather can turn in a few minutes, so pack a layer.