Bicycling Montana, Wyoming,
Colorado and New Mexico - 2006

Frisco to Leadville, CO

June 25, 2006
Distance 32.8 Miles
Climbing Elevation: 2,415 feet

We woke up this morning, loaded the bicycle and headed for Leadville. We started by climbing a hill from our motel to Interstate 70 West. We got on the interstate and we continued climbing. Mary Kay's computer was not working. We stopped in about a mile and found that the computer had a broken wire which we repaired and continued on our way. We were in another canyon and the scenery was great. The only problem was that we were going uphill all of the time. We reached highway 91, exited the interstate, rode our bicycle about a ½ mile past the Copper Mountain Ski Resort and stopped for a rest. We continued on, always going up hill. After another hour we stopped and ate some food. We then started what turned out to be a minimum of 3 mile of continuous 6% or greater grade. At times the grade was 9% but it never was less than 6%.

When we got to the top of Fremont Pass, we were at 11,320 feet of elevation, the highest we have ever cycled.

We traveled back down the mountain into Leadville where we stopped at a museum. They had one of the machines Jim worked with when he was working at the Climax Molybdenum Mine, when he was in college. This machine is called a mucker and it is operated by compressed air. It was used to pick up rock off the railroad tracks into an ore car.