Garden Of The Gods

June 3, 2016;

Colorado Springs' Garden Of The Gods;

This really wasn't going to be a separate blog post, but it was a nice little diversion, so I thought it would make a good post all by itself. Garden Of The Gods park is beautiful to visit, and because of that, it is a very popular destination for visitors in the Colorado Springs area. Almost a must-do in fact. I had stopped at Colorado Springs because my grandson and his wife live there, and I had never seen their home yet, but I arrived a bit early, and so, to kill some time, (time dies far too quickly in Gods Country) and to help get used to the elevation there as well as getting my climbing legs on, I drove up to the park with the intention of riding my bike through it. There are two paved loops that offer nice wide bike lanes to one side, but the entire distance for both loops turned out to be only 8 miles from the Visitor's Center and back. It turned out to be such a nice ride, I did it twice. 

 The Garden Of The Gods park is situated at the foot of Pike's Peak just to the north and west of Colorado Springs. If you have never been before, it's certainly worth the visit. I spent three days camping here in 1976 during a BMWMOA motorcycle rally. While the park is not large, it does offer some stunning scenery fitting for "A Garden Of Gods ". I parked at the visitors center, and if you look closely at the header photo, you can see the road leading into the park. The header photo was one I took from the second floor of the Visitor's Center. I was a bit worried about traffic going into the park as the road from the Visitors Center into the park itself has no bike lane, but people driving were very aware, and there were many "watch for bicycles" signs along the way. It really wasn't bad at all. It is, however, uphill all the way well past the first main parking area in the park. Here is what the official visitor's guide tells me

Biking in the Garden is a great adventure!

Come to the Garden of the Gods Visitor and Nature Center before starting your bicycle tour. All one-way roads in the Park have paved biked lanes. The Garden Drive/Juniper Way loop is 6 miles with a 15% grade. We would be happy to point out some additional trails you are bound to love.

The above excerpt was taken from the official guidebook. 
  I not only did the Juniper Way / Garden Drive loop, but also up to Balancing Rock. Again, it was tough to get any miles, but there were a few hills along the way, half of them were up, the other half were down. I don't think "I" saw any 15% grades, but a couple of the hills were a bit steep, down into the 4 or 5 mph range. 

The picture below is Balancing Rock. An obliging tourist snapped my photo for me as I did not take my little tripod with me. I had to get at least one "I was there" picture. Tourist I was, but instead of driving through adding to the air pollution, I took the scenic/green way through using two leg power. One of the nice things about taking a bicycle through the park was that I could stop any time I wanted to take pictures, whereas autos could only stop in authorized parking areas. You do lose the bike lane on the Balancing Rock loop, but traffic was decent to this old man on a bike. On the downhills, I could easily outpace the cars, however, one needs to be careful as they stop much faster than I, on the uphills, there was no problem with this.

Pike's Peak from the Garden Of The Gods.

The nice wide bike lanes were really nice, smoothly paved and had signs all along telling drivers not to park in bike lanes. Unfortunately, there seem to be many drivers who are unable to read, as I had several drivers pull into the bike lane right in front of me and stop and get out to take pictures. They weren't really parking, just stopping for a minute, right? Ah well, it is one of those things you deal with in a popular tourist area. There was a lot of traffic, and a lot of tourists, and only a few assholes.

There were times I had to wait 4 or 5 minutes to get a picture without a car, and sometimes one snuck in anyway. Visiting this park on a bicycle means you will have to contend with a lot of vehicle traffic, but in reality, it really did not present a problem at any time. 

After the second time around, it was time to go back to the visitors center, change out of my riding shorts, purchase a nice hat pin, look through the nice museum they have and then head south a ways to enjoy a pleasant visit with grandson and family. The bottom line is this ..... if you find yourself in Colorado Springs with a bicycle ..... Do this!! You will not be disappointed.