I made this discovery while doing one of my favorite things on a bike today--taking a tandem ride with Jill. There are a lot of reasons to love tandem riding, but what it basically comes down to is that, although Jill weighs a bit more than my ipod, she's a whole lot more entertaining. (Jill did suggest today that one thing that would make tandem riding even more enjoyable is if we could get Daisy to join in the fun. "Do you think that she would ride in one of those Burley trailers?"). Daisy's absence aside, the only real downside of tandeming is that with Jill riding "stoker", I couldn't dispose of my, um, "cold bi-product" quite so easily as if I were riding solo--Jill generally doesn't appreciate the old "farmer blow"/"snot rocket" coming back her way. That meant that meant I had to resort to one of the most disgusting inventions ever made--the handkerchief (I'm all for sustainable living--but I draw the line at carrying around what amounts to a personal booger collection in my pocket).
Anyway, the wind. We discovered the power of the wind when climbing up to the top of Chatfield Reservoir in Chatfield State Park. Climbing up the reservoir leaves you very exposed (as the picture to the left hopefully demonstrates)--remember that there aren't a lot of trees here (outside of the mountains) and so when the wind blows down, it really pushes on you (not unlike Iowa in this regard). I think at one point, Jill thought that it was going to blow us right over. Based on our previous experience falling on the tandem, that would not have been popular.
On the bright side, the wind did make for a fast--and fun--ride home (Another great thing about tandems is the speed you can pick up going down hill. When Jill asks how fast we're going, my standard reply is "Not very", but on a descent hill its not difficult to top 40 mph). We really appreciate the trail system in Denver (it's like self-contained roads for bikes--it goes beside/over/under roads and there are separate trails for walkers/joggers on the side). But there's one catch. If you're going for scenery, you have to be fairly selective in what you look at.
On the one hand, yes, there is a lot of nice scenery. The Platte River Trail, which we rode today out to Chatfield, runs right next to the Platte River (hence the catchy name) and through several golf courses (it's really, really hard for me not to yell at the golfers when they're in mid-swing). So it's not unusual to scenes like the one depicted to the right (try to ignore the RV dealership there in the distance).
On the other hand, the trail also runs next to Santa Fe Ave (Highway 85) and past a lot of the normal junk you'd expect to see in a city. So you can also count among the highlights the place that cars go to die (pic. #1: "The Car Crematorium") and the place where Waste Management trucks apparently store our trash before taking it to the landfill (pic. #2: sorry Dad, I couldn't get a better shot of the RMT cylinders in action). I also had some pictures of big loaders doing whatever big loaders do that I wanted to include for Caleb S (if he's still into that sort of thing), but for some reason they wouldn't stick.
Not quite ideal and, in truth, it does make us miss the backroads of Michigan. But then again, maybe there's a moral to the story.* Maybe riding in Denver is like the rest of life here (or anywhere else)--a whole lot depends on your outlook. Of course there's always plenty of junk to be found--but if that's what you focus on, life/cycling is not going to be very enjoyable. Undoubtedly, we'd all be better off if we learn to develop eyes to see beauty where it can be found.
Maybe I'll have to work on that.
*My apologies--I didn't intend to write a morality tale today.
