TCI Friday: Signs, Signs, Everywhere Are Signs

As personal cycling adventures go, one of my all-time favorites was my attempt to ride the 138-mile Celestial Seasonings Red Zinger race course in 2000 as a prelude to covering the event in my fateful year as the head of the ill-fated bike.com.

Len Pettyjohn and company had devised an insane course, going over the Guanella, Kenosha, Red Hill, and Hoosier Passes. Of course, there was no way I could conquer the 17,000 feet of climbing in one day. I actually set aside three days to ride it. I’m a realist.

First off, I didn’t own a real road bike at the time. I had decided a few years earlier that I wanted to be able to dive into ditches and survive scary moments.

So, my only bike was my 35-pound dual suspension Jamis Dakar, a gift from the Trio of bosses at VeloNews. I rode that beast on the road all the time. But not to the tune of 3 miles of elevation gains.

So I talked to my good buddy Clark Sheehan — he of infinite Colorado cycling knowledge — and he offered to lend me a good bike. I went over to Clark’s house, and he pulled out one of his old racing bikes.

What a sweet ride! Light as a feather!

Then we got down to reality, and since I’d been a few years removed from drop bars and skinny tires, not to mention the fact that the course had more than a couple gravel sections including crazy, wild gravel descents, well, to quote Bruce Springsteen, a road bike would have been “A death trap, a suicide rap!”

Clark wandered back into the garage and came out with a more pedestrian and safe option, God bless his soul. It even had a Rockshok fork!

The first day I had to endure the Guanella Pass at 11,671 feet, climbing up Oh My God Road! To say that I felt a bit intimidated by that name Oh My God Road! would be an understatement.

But what really sent my imagination rampant was the next sign:

Do Not Overestimate Road Width

I was pretty sure I knew what that meant, and the more I thought about it, the less I wanted to think about it.

I made it up and over the pass without injury. I didn’t quite manage to ride the whole course. It did me in.

Covering the event was my greatest thrill of covering a race. I had my own rental car and figured I’d get the chance to get a couple of photos near the front, then be relegated to the rear.

Just before we got to the top of the Guanella Pass, Len waved me ahead of the leaders. Are you kidding me? He didn’t have to gesture twice. I floored it.

At the top of the pass, I was there to witness and photograph Scott Moninger switch from his road bike to a mountain bike for the epic gravel descent. Then Len waved me ahead again! He let me drive in the caravan with the leaders the rest of the way.

Flying down the descent Chris Wherry gets a flat on his road bike and I chronicle the Saturn team change his tire, then follow him raging like a maniac down the gravel on a road bike, bunny hopping left and right at mind boggling speeds.

But I digress. I get caught up in the memory.

The question of the day, what’s the strangest road sign you’ve ever seen?

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