Ride the Rockies

We just finished the "Ride the Rockies" event here in Breckenridge. This is an extremely challenging bicycle run starting at a different point each year. This year the event started down in southwest Colorado, continued for six days, and finished here in Breckenridge. This is not a race. This is roughly two thousand people from all over joining together to ride over four hundred miles, each leg of the event being at least forty miles. One of the things I love about living out here is that people don't come here to retire and play shuffleboard. They don't come here to reminisce about the good old days. They come here to ski, to play spectacular golf courses, to ride bicycles for miles through the valleys, and to be surrounded by life nurturing scenery.

Granted, Breckenridge is a ski resort and, like most ski resorts, caters to young people. But young is a very relative term here and no one assumes that the older folks here are any less athletic or enthusiastic about life than they are. Unlike places that are just ski resorts, however, Breckenridge was a town first, a ski resort much later. Like a lot of old mining towns, Breckenridge survived the demise of gold mining and today combines the old west along with fine dining and wonderful hospitality. People who come here once come twice. I did. Then I chose to live here. I'm glad I did.