The bride wore Lycra. So did the groom. And the honeymoon had just begun when the couple ran into difficulty.
But so did the other 2,000 Ride the Rockies cyclists who began the 2013 tour at Telluride High School Sunday. Only a few miles out of town, we started the first big climb, setting the stage for a griddle-hot day that ended in scorching Cortez.
In the middle of the chugging pack were Twist Phelan and Jack Chapple, pedaling a Da Vinci Joint Adventure tandem that they had ridden all of 110 miles before bringing it to RTR.
Phelan, a Denver novelist, and Chapple, an investment executive, are RTR veterans. Before they married in March, they had never ridden a tandem.
“I think I romanticized the idea, so when I met and fell in love with Jack, I assumed I’d met my tandem captain, too,” Phelan said. “Of course, I had to get him to like road-biking first: he was a mountain biker.”
No one would have blamed them if they had quickly peeled off their wedding-themed cycling getups. The temperature in Cortez hit 95 by mid-afternoon.
Tuesday looks to be a bit cooler ride, with highs in the 80s between Durango and Pagosa Springs.
