The Maroon Bells. An iconic mountain cluster, rising nearly 5,000 feet straight up from the end of the road, framed in a U-shaped glacier carved valley so that even a blind photographer could take a perfect picture. Several small lakes – Maroon and Crater – drape beneath the stair-step landscape.
All this would be stunning scenery, if only I had the will to raise my head and look around. But I’m on a mission, having finally decided after 5 years to treat this ride as the time trial it should be. Most of the races held here start at Highlands Village, a nouveau kitsch faux alpine cluster of gingerbread fronts, mostly uninhabited in the summer. That’s merely for convenience; the climb actually starts a couple of miles below, at the RFTA bus turnaround (also strangely uninhabited). However, since the road drops down to Maroon Creek, I chose to start my personal TT there, as the climb is uninterrupted for 7.65 miles, topping out at 9470’, dropping me right into the lap of the Bells.
For years, this area as been bruited as a National park, but the influential locals staunchly resist. Aspen values its pristine, low-key, high-expense environment more than anything else, maintaining property values as high as the surrounding wilderness mountains. A National Park would just bring hordes of RVs, motels, strip malls, and excessive exploitation of the environment. So the money men who have second (or third, or tenth) homes in our valley, and contribute just as heavily to political campaigns as Wall Street financiers or Hollywood moguls, keep the rabble out.
It reminds me of the fight against Wal-Mart in my town of Gig Harbor, ten years ago. Many explanations were given to explain the vehement opposition, such as traffic impact, loss of forest land, and excessive growth. But the real, unspoken reason, I surmised, was that the people of Gig Harbor just did not want the type of folks who shop at Wal-Mart in their neighbohood. The boys from Bentonville uncharactaristically gave up, and now we have an upscale shopping community in that spot called Uptown Gig Harbor – the name is no coincidence.
And so we have the Bells all to ourselves. The road is perfectly smooth, paved with maroon colored asphalt. A Forest Service toll gate sits at the bottom, charging $10 to drive the five miles to the Maroon Lake parking lot. The Roaring Fork Transit Agency (RFTA) runs buses from Aspen Highlands, keeping the roads basically free of traffic during the day.
The scenery, the smooth, empty road, and the steady 5-7% grade all conspire to make this the ultimate Aspen ride. If you don’t enjoy yourself here, you need to get another sport.
I have checked my seven previous trips up this ride, and found my times varied between 55 and 44 minutes, perfectly correlated with my heart rate and power expenditure. I decide before the ride to find out just how good I am after a Big Bike Week in the mountains – it’s sub-44 or bust for me.
The first half of the ride is a little less steep – 3-6%, while the final 3 miles or so is more a steady 5-7%. And the increasing altitude will sap my power potential the higher I go. So I’ll work a little easier for the first 20-25 minutes, and then see what I’ve got for the last 20 minutes. Also, when I’ve done this before, I haven’t really emphasized staying in the aerobars on this ride. Today, I intend to keep my profile low and clean as much as possible, knowing that the 7% grades near the top will not allow that, but lower down, it will help my speed.
And I will save my sightseeing for the ride down. The Bells stay hidden until 4 miles in; the teaser is Pyramid Peak, another 14,000’ mountain in the shape of — guess what. Then, turn a corner, and two mountains in the shape of … again take a guess – appear. And all the while, though a scattering of Aspen groves and open avalanche scoured meadows, the Creek tangles with rocks strewn along its bed. On my way down, I’ll just coast, and look and listen.
But uphill, it’s all work, all the time.
Today’s ride: 24 miles, 1 hour 43 minutes. The 7.65 climb: 42:13, IF (altitude adjusted) 0.91, HR avg 122
MapMyRide: http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/35974766