Shakedown Trip - Day 4 - Painted Rock CG to Rockrimmon via Palmer lake

Start - Painted Rocks Campground off of Hwy 67 - Elev ~ ~ 7850'
End  - Home in Rockrimmon - Elev ~ ~ 6450'
High Point -  ~ 9350' on Rampart Range  Road.
Low point - Monument Creek @ New Santa Fer trail ~ 6200'
Elevation Gain - ~ 2000'
Mileage - 45 Miles




Today's ride followed the paved bike path from Painted Rocks to Woodland park, and then climbed to Rampart Range road. Glorius Colorado morning, with many great views of Pikes Peak 

Dan on bike path to Woodland Park 

Green pastoral scene from our wet spring along bike path

Rampart range road north was rollers with pretty good surface, better than I expected. this section was racing down the hills and hoping momentum will keep the hard peddling to a minimum up the next incline. I did get hit by a modest squall and had to layers up with the rain jacket, and hang a bit at Balanced Rock road,but it came off half hour later.

I lose a couple thousand feet descending from Rampart Range to Palmer Lake, but Balanced Rock road fooled me again, as it has before, as it has a number of up hill section, gravelly of course. Probably climbed 300' or 400' going down to Palmer Lake.But all and all, an enjoyable section.

View from pull off on Balanced Rock Road

While tempted to stop for a burger and beer at O Malleys in Palmer lake (as a reasonable proxy for my travel through small towns ;-), I opted instead to head directly to the New Santa Fe (rails to) Trail and head south toward home. Must of had a tail wind as I topped 20 mph heading to Monument. Fortunately, Don had informed me that the section through the Air Force Academy opened earlier in the week, and I could ride all of the way back home to close the loop. 
Alas, about 5 miles from home I got caught in one of the front ranges ferocious afternoon thunder storms. Monsoon season seems to have arrived early. Fortunately, I was only a 1/2 mile from Ice Lake and its shelter, which I holed up in for about 45 minutes while 4 extremely heavy waves of rain lashed the area. 
Eventually, it slowed down enough for me to ride home in the puddles and rain. On the plus side, i did get to test the BOB dry bag ( works great), Ortlieb handle bar bag and map case ( both work great), fenders (rear ones helped, but need adjustments, and need front fender) and day pack storage (soaked!). So even the rain storm was a shakedown success!