Tag: Black Forest Regional Park

Road tripping

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

It was chores, chores, chores today — a full shift’s worth of my usual stock in trade, which is to say bicycles and bullshit — and I didn’t pay much attention to the Black Forest fire until it was about time for Herself to motor on home from her gig in Denver.

And then, holy shit! The friggin’ thing is spreading like a head cold at Interbike and more evacuations are ordered, this time in Bibleburg proper.

“Traffic nightmare in northern Colorado Springs,” quoth the Gazette.

“I-25 is completely congested. Avoid traveling if not necessary,” added the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office.

El clusterfucko, bucko, as we say south of the border (Monument Hill). I’m thinking she’s gonna be idling at Baptist Road for the better part of quite some time. And you know how those Baptists are.

So I propose going long — E-470 to Interstate 70 to Highway 24 and home. Or maybe C-470 to Highway 285, then jink down through Pine and Deckers to Woodland Park and thence back to the ranch.

Nope. She blazes right on down the Big I to home and hearth — and with hardly a bobble, too. Go figure.

Ride the Rockies is not so fortunate. Thanks to the Royal Gorge fire, they’re getting rerouted through our old stomping grounds of Weirdcliffe, which adds some 33 miles to their ride from Salida to Cañon City, many of them uphill.

I know all of them well, having ridden them as a Crusty County resident and as an entrant in several editions of the late, lamented Hardscrabble Century, which tackled Weirdcliffe from the other direction, from Florence through Wetmore and up Hardscrabble Cañon.

The riding is easier the way the Rockies types are doing it, once they’re past Bear Basin Ranch. From there, it’s mostly downhill to Graybar City. Whip a power salute on H. Rap Brown as you roll past Supermax Florence, kiddos.

Blackened forest

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments
The Black Forest Fire, as seen from the safety of Caramillo Street.
The Black Forest Fire, as seen from the safety of Caramillo Street.

Here we go again — this time, the fire is in Black Forest, and it sounds like another doozy.

We used to train up there in the Nineties, when I was still racing, and from the sound of it the fire may have started near Black Forest Regional Park, where Team Mad Dog Media-Dogs At Large Velo promoted a cyclo-cross or two back in the day. Plenty of fuel up there, and with the humidity in single digits and the wind in double digits, you have a recipe for some very bad news indeed.

Herself and I saw a couple of Fort Carson CH-47 Shithooks whock-whock-whocking overhead toward the Forest this afternoon, but we didn’t see any buckets dangling. The Blue Zoomies are pitching in, too.

And this is only one of the fires going on at the moment. Others are at the Royal Gorge, La Veta, Douglas County and Rocky Mountain National Park. The Denver Post is also live-blogging the blazes — using actual live-blogging software, too, unlike our local cage-liner, which seems to be doing it the hard (and cheap) way while expecting the customers to keep refreshing the page. Spend some money, peckerwoods. Phil Anschutz has it to burn, you should pardon the expression.

Anyway, we’re just fine here, but sounds like plenty of folks aren’t. More as we hear it.