Dobbs: Grading the new Vail Pass bike path

Put it this way: Unless you like riding your bike to the top of Vail Pass with semis rumbling uphill on Interstate-70 about 6 feet from your elbow, the new path is a big improvement. With more coming.

This season I’ve cycled up — the more accurate word is climbed — maybe half-a-dozen times. The Colorado Department of Transportation made some stretches a little easier, some a little harder. 

The first change you come to falls into the “a little harder” column. After grinding up the old U.S. Highway 6 for about 5 miles once you’ve passed the Gore Creek trailhead, somehow the engineers, to build a more gentle curve in the westbound highway section just below, managed to build in a slightly steeper approach to the gate that takes you and your bike down and under the interstate. I haven’t figured out why, but when I see little changes like that which just toughen the toil, it doesn’t seem like any of the engineers who planned it actually ride a bike.

Then, The Wall. Among cyclists, with its 14% pitch, it’s famous (the more accurate word here might be infamous). It’s still there now — but not for long. Just to the right of The Wall, CDOT is grading a more gentle path. Needless to say, if you have to get from a lower elevation to a higher one, you’re going to have to climb it no matter what, whether it’s up the long-challenging Wall or along its eventual replacement. But once they’ve finished with the replacement, the climb will be gentler on the legs and lungs. Longer, but gentler.

Then, for two reasons, comes the best part. First, once the new path turns away from the highway, it gets about half-again wider than it used to be. When you think about the tourists who pay bike rental shops to haul them to the top of the pass so they can have a thrilling ride back down but who sometimes descend in two- or even three-abreast packs … and also in my case when I think about all the cyclists who pass me going uphill because they’re simply a whole lot faster … wider is better. Way better. 

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Second, once you’re on this new part of the path, the highway and the semis become a distant distraction. Instead, you meander through one of the “a little easier” parts, dropping down below the highway to a gentler grade, tall trees and small meadows on either side, once crossing Gore Creek on a newly installed bridge, then crossing back on another.

You could almost forget that the interstate’s even up there somewhere … until you look. And sure enough, there it is, way up high on your left. Unlike the old path which was at the same level of the interstate, this new path stays lower, and you know what that means: you’re about to pay for it because there’s no getting around a hard fact that you’re going to have to climb back up to the highway. Here’s where you come to the next piece that’s “a little harder” — they built a second Wall! It’s maybe a couple of degrees less steep than the first one but still steep, and about twice as long. 

I try to be philosophical about the nasty new parts that are “a little harder.” From Vail Village to the top of Vail Pass, there’s an elevation gain of about 2,500 feet. So it doesn’t really matter how the engineers design the path. If you start at the bottom, you’ve got to climb about half-a-mile higher to get to the top. But it’s worth it because then, you get to fly back down, and you use the gravity of about half-a-mile of elevation loss when you do.

So on my report card I’d give the new project an A /. That’s not a minus mark. It’s just a reminder that it’s still steep.

Greg Dobbs is a speaker, author, and veteran television journalist who is a part-time resident of East Vail. Check out more of his writing at GregDobbs.Substack.com.