May 16th, 2019 / (0km/0mi)
It’s extremely windy today outside and wind gusts of up to 55mph have been forecasted. With the negative impressions of yesterday still present on my mind and having checked the weather forecast for the Colorado mountains in the coming days, I decide to take a rental car and drive from Moab to Pueblo, Colorado.
I check with Marcel, who has been stranded with his dog Chester limping from the intense walking distances, and he made it to Monticello, UT, via tramping. We decide to jointly drive to Pueblo. I get a rental pickup truck at Enterprise Car Rentals around noon, pack my bike on its loading deck, and start driving south towards Monticello where I pick the two up.
We continue the drive to Telluride, first thru some agricultural area until Cortez, and then quickly winding up the road into the mountains. Towards 5pm we reach Telluride and look for a motel. We find the Angler Inn, where we are basically the only guests, which lies 20km outside of Telluride along our tomorrow’s route, but it comes at a bargain price for the rooms it offers.
We drive to Tellurite for dinner and have some great food at the Smuggler’s Brewpub.
In the evening it starts to rain, so the weather forecast seems to have been right.
P.S.: The decision not to ride along 191 towards Monticello by bike was absolutely right: the road gets worse for bicyclists with extremely narrow and sometimes no shoulder to ride on at all! Add the gusty winds to this and trucks and RVs at 70mph and you risk your life.
I was in Telluride in February with 3 meters of snow
There’s a pattern in this! 😀