markf

CO Rte 9 south of Breck can be bad. People commute from Fairplay to work in Breckenridge now, so that road gets more traffic than it was meant to take. Get there at the right time of day and year, though, and it's still one of my favorite places to ride. CDOT has plans to rebuild this road in 2006. You can avoid the traffic by taking US 285 from Fairplay over Red Hill Pass to Como, then taking the Boreas Pass Road (well graded dirt) over, you guessed it, Boreas Pass into Breckenridge. More miles, more climbing, but much more scenic and a much more bicycle friendly route.

Breckenridge to Frisco (and onward past Silverthorne) is all bike path, I recall a British cyclist complaining to me that there were "too many bike paths to choose from".

From Silverthorne north CO 9 gets really dangerous, you can avoid some of the bad parts by taking Ute Pass Road (County Road 15) over, that's right, Ute Pass where it becomes County Road 3 in Grand County. This is a really well graded dirt road that will take you north to US 40, it connects with US 40 between Granby & Kremmling. Once again, CDOT has rebuilt a lot of this road, there are plans to upgrade more in 2006.

Both of these detours add time and mileage and put you on long stretches of well graded dirt road. They also are much safer and pleasant to cycle on, and much more scenic than CO 9 through Summit COunty.

Colorado has grown tremendously since the original TransAm route was mapped in the 1970s. I really think that Adventure Cycling should re-evaluate the TransAm route and consider re-routing it in places like Colorado, where traffic levels today are many times what they were in 1976, when the TransAm route was first laid out.