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I arrived at Denver airport mid morning and had an easy walk through immigration and customs. It felt good to be in the states. I could see it was a beautiful sunshine day outside. I had decided to hire a car on my US trip as I had a short amount of time and a lot of ground to cover. I decided that I only needed a small hire car to get around and it would be easier on my now shrinking budget. I went to National Car Hire and the girl at the counter tried very hard to get me to upgrade to a larger car, even stating that if I was going to the mountains I should get a more powerful car. I decided against all her not so gentle persuasions. I went out to collect my car and there was only one economy car left. Well it was ok but stank of stale smoke. When I tried to leave the car hire place, the lovely lady at the gate told me that the car had too much mileage and I could not take it. She then arranged for a new car to be brought to me. As there was no longer aneconomy size one left, I got a free upgrade to a Chevrolet Sebring Limited Edition. Pretty nice car and so I was very happy. It did not smell of smoke and I did not have to pay the extra upgrade cost. I headed off to the nearest services to get myself a road map. After buying a map I headed off towards Utah through the Colorado mountains. It did mean driving around Denver, but it was not too bad. Better than the M25 in London by a long shot. The I75 is a very scenic route and I headed all the way through to Glenwood Springs where I found a hostel and booked in for the night. I went looking for a bike shop to look for a potential mountain bike to buy. I found a shop but the bikes where mostly bottom of the range and not suitable for the riding I was planning on doing. The next morning I headed off at 6:30am and had driven about 15 minutes when I realised that I had left my iPod in the hostel. So it was a mad rush back to rescue it. Luckily it was under my pillow and nobody had got up yet. I would of lost a lot of my travel photos on its hard drive which would of been gutting. By now I had decided to drive straight through to Moab - Utah where I could hire / buy a mountain bike and then make my way back to Denver. I had read that there are a lot of bike shops in Moab and so probbly the best place to get a great deal. It was a long drive, but the scenery was beautiful and the change in scenery quite dramatic going from Colorado to Utah. I arrived in Moab and it was like a little oasis in a very large desert. I found accommodation at a caravan park and hired a rustic cabin for 5 days. I went in search of a bike shop to get some mountain bike maps and some long awaited lunch. Well I found a cool bike shop called Slickrock cycles and got to know the staff pretty well over the 10 days that I stayed there. In the course of our chats about bikes I noticed a beautiful Turner 5 spot. I asked Kelly (A bike mechanic from Seattle) about it and he called the owner to see if he wanted to sell it. Well to cut a long story short he did and I eventually bought it. I then went out onto the fampius Slick Rock with Kelly and started getting used to it. Needless to say the first time out I tried to hop off a small ledge and managed land on my backside. It was more of a bruised ego than anything else. Over the next week I got up early each morning and was out riding by 7am. The desert gets pretty hot later in the day. I was getting used to the bike and was amazed at what I could ride up, down & over and was having a bloody good time doing it. The trails in Moab are awesome and I got nowhere near riding all of them. I would love to go back there for some more riding. Anybody keen for a weeks trip in 08? It was with sadness that I left Moab and made my way out to Fruita - Colorado. I spent 3 days here and rode in the 3 different areas. Again the riding here was varied and awesome. From really rocky tracks to sweet flowing singletrack that just kept going & going. I met up with some of the local lads at the bike shop who happily took me along and showed me their area. Another big bonus was my discovery of the New Belgium Brewing Company and discovering the best bottled lager yet and appropriately called Fat Tyre. I might just have to import it myself. I left Fruita and made my way to Crested Butte. The drive through was yet again, spectacular. The town of Crested Butte is really cute and I managed to find a wonderful hostel. Its called the International Hostel and the quality and cleanliness was like a 4* hotel. I popped into one of the bike shops there and got a map of the local trails and spent the next 2 days riding them. The only problem I had was one of lung capacity. Crested Butte is around 2800m above sea level and that's when the mountains start. I was hoping for the ski lifts to be open but I was a week too early. After leaving Created Butte I stopped off at Salida. I had heard that there was an awesome downhill route from the top of the pass to Salida. Unfortunately I found out that it was still closed most of the way at the top. I did however join up with some lads from New York and did the bottom section of it. One of the guys was really struggling and so when it came to the downhill section I wished them good luck and headed off. It was a great ride. Some nice tight technical sections with some cool drops every now and then. Being there in the sunny mountain air seemed to be nearly perfect. When I got back to the car I managed to get the bike washed and packed and then headed off towards Grand Lake. I drove through some amazing passes that had me wishing I was here with all my cycling mates on the road bikes & mountain bikes. It reminded me of the Alps and made me feel a little nostalgic. I arrived quite late in Grand Lake and so had a dinner and then went and sat out on the jetty on the lake watching the sunset. It was stunning but did start getting cold. The next day I was heading off to Boulder. I drove through the Rocky Mountain National Park. What a beautiful area with numerous elk in the fields and again an awesome road climb to the top of the Colorado mountains. There was still a lot of snow on the side of the road and I was once again reminded of the Alps. The drive down was frustrating as the were resurfacing the road and it took me an age to get through the park. Once through I drove through an awesome canyon for numerous kilometres before managing to get to Boulder. I found a motel and stayed for a night. The next day I met up with Leah a girl whom I had met in Guatemala. We had a coffee before I headed off to the airport. At this stage of the trip I was very happy with all the biking and sites I had seen and was looking forward to flying to LA and meeting up with Anna who was flying out to travel with me for a few weeks.
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