» Day 34) Frisco to Breckenridge at Bikepacking - …Like backpacking, only on bikes. A blog about a cycle tour from Bend, Oregon to Durango, Colorado

Jul

Day 34) Frisco to Breckenridge

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Last night we had seen an advert on the TV for a kayaking park that had been built along the river on the outskirts of town, with rocks under the water to create static waves. We decided to check it out on the way out of town. Unfortunately the water level was too low for the park to be in use, but you could see that it would be cool when the water level was higher. There is so much to do around here if you love the outdoors and we saw about 10 cars in the car park unloading bikes from the roof to set off on a day of mountain biking.

It was all uphill to Breckenridge, but along another bike path so it was great fun. There were so many other cyclists out; lyrca-clad serious cyclists, groups of friends, couples, families, it was great to see so many people making the most of the sunshine on a Saturday morning. When we pulled up in Breckenridge the first people we saw were fellow cyclists Jim and Bob! We thought they would have been way ahead of us by now! They were staying in the hotel next to us in Frisco and were taking a day off today. They found Breckenridge a bit too busy and commercialised, but informed us that there was a beer festival on in town. That sounded like fun. We said our goodbyes and set off to explore Breckenridge.

Ryan had ordered an extension to raise his handlebars from REI and had it sent to Breckenridge Post Office, so that was our first stop. The main street looked awesome, so cute and bustling. Thankfully Ryan’s parcel had arrived and we went to the bike shop for them to help us fit it as Ryan’s cables would need to be lengthened and we didn’t have any cable cutters. The bike shop was great and they sorted Ryan’s bike and put my chain in their washer for a degrease.

We got some lunch at Giampietro Pizzeria as recommended by the bike shop guy. It was a great recommendation and we shared a huge calzone with Mozzerella, Ricotta and pepperoni. It was de-li-cious! We were enjoying Breckenridge so much that we decided we had to stay! So we checked ourselves into the most affordable accommodation in town (there wasn’t a campsite) – a dorm room at the Fireside Inn. It was still $30 each, but it was in a great location and the English owners, Nicky and Andrew, give a free breakfast to cyclists on the Transamerica. They included this for us even though we weren’t going the whole way.

After a quick shower we dashed down to the Beer Festival. Unfortunately all the beer tasting cups had sold out, so we got a beer in a plastic cup from a local bar and just enjoyed the band and the atmosphere. The Breckenridge Brewery gave is some free beer vouchers to use in their pub later. Afterwards we took a look around the shops and Ryan managed to find some new sunglasses as his had been taped together with Duck Tape for the last few days! Later we came across a free talk by a well published photographer with a gallery and store in Breckenridge and then we stopped at the gallery of Gary Soles. His photographic work was awesome and Ryan in particular was amazed at the beauty of his scenes and quality of the printing. It turned out that Gary was looking after the gallery that night and we had a good chat with him about his work and our cycle trip. He spent ages trying to think of better routes for us to take to Durango and drew us a map on 3 sheets of paper which he taped together. Gary said the route we were going to take was on busy roads and wasn’t that scenic. We now needed to check online and see if the routes would work for us.

We had a huge plate of Nachos and some local beer in the Breckenridge Brewery before retiring to our 4-bed dorm room where one of our room mates was a snorer – we got our earplugs out!