Rollins Pass Mnt Bike with Rachel - 28 miles

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An out and back crawl up the old Rollins Pass Rd from East Portal. A beautiful September day in the Indian Peaks with mostly blue skies, cool temps, wild flowers still holding on for the season, and a good work out.

2011_09 Rollins Pass Mnt Bike
The road is a gentle 4% grade most of the way. A bit sinewy as it slowly gains altitude up out of the South Boulder Creek valley but that serves to keep the strain low and gives plenty of opportunity to take in the views.  The road surface is pretty rough in most places and so not the most enjoyable ride from that perspective. When you finally get to tree line near Yankee Doodle Lake, the vista make up for any sore behind or rattled arms.

A couple of miles before the spectacular end point of the ride, Rollins Pass itself, you have to hike your bike up over the closed of Needle Eye Tunnel. The road is an old railroad bed, - built in 1903, abandoned in  1923 when the East Portal Tunnel opened - and the Needle Eye tunnel cuts through a ridge line for a short 100 feet in really chossy, fractured rock. The roof and walls are about to collapse and thus it is closed for safety reasons.


Even cooler than the closed tunnel, are the two old railroad trestles that you get to ride over just before the pass. Both span gulches that drop a sheer 1000 feet down into the valley below. Pretty cool to have these old wooden structures still up and supporting your wheels.


A slow descent with cooling temps with a short cut via the Guinn Mnt meadows capped off a long, 7 hour day.

Location: Rollins Pass, CO

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