Over the Labor Day weekend I went camping with a couple buddies: Paul and Jason. We went to Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP in tha hizzy, yo), with intentions of camping, burning sh*t, hiking, biking, drinking a few beers and burning shi*t.

Jason, being the wise camping vet that he is, was up and in the park early Friday morning to secure a spot, while Paul called in sick and I "worked" from home. He came back down to get us, and we got to the park sometime around 7ish.

Saturday morning we were riding. Trail Ridge Road. None of us had scouted it, other than we knew its highest point was over 12,000ft, and that we were going to spend the Out portion of the ride climbing pretty much the entire time. Paul was a little surprised to hear that we were going for a multi-hour ride; but that's Paul being Paul

One thing to note: Jason has ridden about 250mi for the year, and moved to Denver from Dallas about a month ago.

Before we get to the pics, here are the stats for the first half of the ride; we did it as an out-and-back:
Start elevation: 8219ft
Finish elevation: 11782ft
Highest point: 12189ft
Distance: 21mi
Avg Grade: 6%

My computer's stats for the ride:
Total Distance: 43.52mi
Time: 4:00:01
Max: 43mph
Avg: 10.8mph

And now some pics:

The reason why I don't take pictures while on the bike. That's Jason and then Paul


Looking towards Bear Lake (I think). Keep in mind that we were going to climb through that cloud layer


Some section of curvy road


Two miles above sea level. And we weren't anywhere near done


The view from Rainbow Curve


Jason, me, Paul


(more pics in a second)

And I've attached the elevation profile.


It was the hardest 43miles I've ridden, but easily the most rewarding. I feel like we did something significant, and all three of us had no hesitation calling the ride 'Epic.' ...Maybe we'll do Mt Evans before the end of the season?