Day 32-Boulder to Denver CO

Today was unbelievable. I could not wait to get to Denver, I woke up early packed and got my bike ready before most of the guys and ate breakfast super fast, I was very anxious to get on the road and get to Denver. I rode sweeps with Hayden because I knew I was going to be too excited and would have ended up riding way too hard and getting too far ahead and red flagged waiting for the vans to catch up, plus we thought it was a good idea for us to because even though we only had 35 miles we really wanted to make rack and push everyone to get there and meet the north team at stage up at The Mile High Stadium, and we also wanted to ride at the front of the pace line for arrival at the capital building. It was a really easy ride, went by pretty quick and we had awesome roads to ride on, Denver is so bike friendly. Towards the end of the ride we ended up running into the North route on the road, we only caught up and passed their sweeps line but guys ahead of us passed some more of their team. The only problem this caused was that for some reason our teams were taking different routes to get to the same place, so what happened was the front 5 groups on my team came up to a intersection that the north team was turning left but our crew wanted us to go strait but the north crew turned our groups left and off our route so we had to contact them to turn our cyclists around and get back on our route, luckily it wasn't too big of a detour but we had to get red flagged to wait for them to get back on track with us. It was a quick ride from their to the stadium after that.

When we got to stage up I got to see the guys from ASU on North route, KQ and Aaron, Chris was still gone. It was awesome to meet the North guys and talk to them about how their trip has been going and swap stories. While we were there we also got to get a private tour of the stadium and walk out onto the field, it was very cool to see the stadium from that perspective, something I have never done. There we also got a sponsored lunch that was catered by Chipotle and so delicious. When we finished lunch we had to decide which route was going to lead into the capitol, the competition was an unusual cookie eating contest, 5 guys from each team were given a cookie, they had to place it on their forehead and without dropping it maneuver the cookie into their mouth, unfortunately we tied 2 to 2 and settled it with best of 3 rock paper scissors and lost, it was so sad but not too big of a deal. Hayden and I still got to lead the Trans rout in our massive double pace line. Because of how big Denver is this was also out first police escort, we had at least a dozen cop cars and motorcyclist with us, one in front and behind our pace line and the rest were blocking off roads for us so we could just cruise through the city and up to the capital rolling through all the lights, it was so fun and having 40 or so cyclists in a giant double pace line was so much fun. When we approached the capital I was looking everywhere for Emily and seeing her right in the front at the capital steps was the most amazing thing in the world, we had to stand with the team while some people gave speeches but the whole time I wanted to drop my bike and run over to her, I eventually did when they were done. I am so happy that I was able to bike half way across the country to see her here and meet her sisters Sarah and Hannah. After a very stressful hotel check in we showered and headed to our friendship visit with Denver Special Olympics and their event Peddles for Pennies.

The friendship visit was so fun, Emily and her Sisters came with and got to hang out with everyone. I was partnered with Cole and Kade who rode a tandem bicycle and we did laps around the lake at City Park. They did 9 laps and were so proud, it was great to hang out with them and learn about the sports they compete in and chat while we cruised around avoiding all the geese and other riders. After the riding we had a big BBQ, a bunch of awards and stories from each route and then the best part was the dance party!!

After our friendship visit I got to hang out with Emily in Denver for the evening and go out to get some drinks and meet more of the North route guys.