CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A one-way ride of 116 km, Salida to Leadville - roughly 1 h 49 in the saddle. The stops in between: Buena Vista and Twin Lakes. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,450 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
This part of the ride is 35 km of Top of the Rockies Scenic Byway.
Salida stands where the Arkansas River leaves its mountain valley and starts to spread out, a former railroad town of about five thousand in central Colorado, at about seven thousand feet. The old brick downtown is on the National Register of Historic Places, and has the kind of independent bookshops, galleries, bakeries and brewpubs that make it a pleasant place to spend an evening. The river runs right through town, and in summer it is full of kayakers, rafters and paddleboarders enjoying a whitewater park.
Read the complete Salida write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Salida is where the day begins. Next is Buena Vista.
Buena Vista sits in the Arkansas River valley at the foot of the Collegiate Peaks, and the first thing to know is that nobody there says it the Spanish way. Locals call it Byoo-na Vista, and they will tell you so with a smile. The town is small, with a few thousand people, a main street of brick buildings and a courthouse square, and it stands on a broad, high valley floor with the wall of the Sawatch Range rising to the west, a line of fourteen-thousand-foot summits capped with snow for most of the year.
Read the complete Buena Vista write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Buena Vista comes up about 39 km into the recorded legs. Next is Twin Lakes.
Twin Lakes sits in a basin under the highest mountain in Colorado, and it is one of the places where the Rockies feel larger than life. The two lakes, glacial in origin, lie side by side at about 9,200 feet, fed by streams from the surrounding peaks, and the great pale bulk of Mount Elbert, at 14,433 feet the highest point in the whole Rocky Mountain range, rises behind them. The village is tiny, with a few dozen residents, and the road that runs past it is the approach to Independence Pass, one of the great mountain crossings in the American West. Leadville is the nearest town, twenty kilometres away, and Aspen is on the far side of the pass.
Read the complete Twin Lakes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 80 km into the recorded legs you reach Twin Lakes. Next is Leadville.
Leadville claims to be the highest incorporated city in the United States, sitting at 3,094 metres, or 10,152 feet, and when you step off the bike you will believe it. The air is thin, the nights are cold even in July, and the town itself, a grid of Victorian brick and false-front wooden buildings on a broad plateau, feels like a place that has survived on stubbornness. Around it stand the highest mountains in Colorado, with Mount Elbert, the state's top summit at 4,401 metres, and Mount Massive both visible on a clear day.
Read the complete Leadville write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Leadville closes the day.
Salida → Buena Vista is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Buena Vista → Twin Lakes is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Twin Lakes → Leadville is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.