Featured Rider Blog: Follow Ben Meyer’s R4WH Experience

Ben Meyer has been documenting his 2009 R4WH journey on his online blog. Please feel free to follow Ben's blog under our Rider Blog link or by visiting http://benmeyersblog.blogspot.com.

Here is an excerpt from Ben's blog from April 18th as the R4WH riders crossed into Colorado.

We wrapped up Utah today. We are currently in Colorado and surprised how fast the ride is going. The entire state of Utah was filled with nonstop scenery. We spent the whole time climbing up this mountain, then riding down through that basin or that canyon in numerous national parks. We were constantly amazed at our scenery. Verizon Wireless officially wins the best cell phone coverage when out in the boonies. We stayed in some pretty small and remote areas. We were unable to ride out from Boulder, Utah because Boulder Mountain was whited out, but picked the ride back up on the other side to then be greeted by a sandstorm in Hanksville. We were supposed to camp, but Hanksville Elementary School allowed us to shelter in their gym for the evening. The next night we did camp at National Bridges National Park, which reportedly is one of the best star gazinwelcome-to-colorful-coloradog locations in the US. We beared it out through 2 snow storms that day with temps down in the 20s. My sleeping bag is only rated for 40 degrees so I was literally wearing every article of clothing that I brought.The sky did clear up though for a midnight star gazing session. We also pretty much ran out of food so ate mac and cheese with hotdogs for breakfast, but didn't really care because it was warm (unlike my fingers and toes).

We road into Dolores, CO today, had a lunch lecture and a dinner lecture at different locations. We ride up and up into Telluride tomorrow. Apparently conditions are more favorable for skiing in Colorado opposed to biking currently as a huge storm system is predicted throughout next week.