Wow, what a mix of emotions with this ride. After an easy 2 hour drive into Chatfield State Park from Limon in the morning, I quickly set up my tent and got ready to ride, hoping to beat what looked like some pretty ominous clouds rolling in. The route I had planned online was 40 miles, and instead of driving to the start location I decided I would just ride over from my campsite, which ended up being about 5 miles. The first 90 minutes of the ride was awesome, a pretty steady ascent up into Conifer, CO along Deer Creek Canyon Road. I felt like I was in the Tour, climbing up the switchbacks of alpe d'huez. At about the 90 minute mark the sun gave way to clouds however, and soon thunder and lightning came along with at least a 10 degree drop in temperature. Having been climbing for the past 2 hours I was exhausted, yet was only at the halfway point of the ride. I stopped under an overhang for a few minutes as the rain really started to pick up and was really wishing I had a rainproof wind breaker. What I had looked forward to as an exhilarating 30 mile descent in the warm sun became a grueling, scary trudge through cold rain and slippery roads. At one point a nice enough looking guy stopped and asked if I wanted a ride somewhere (he must have seen the cold and pain in my grimacing face) but my stranger-danger instincts kicked in and I declined. Eventually I made it out of the canyon and luckily the rain stopped for the last 5 miles home to the campsite, and my soaked, freezing toes began to warm up a little. Even my post bike hope of a long hot shower was dashed a slightly by a sorry excuse for shower head at the campsite bathroom that left me feeling like I had been spit on for a few minutes. Lessons learned: Don't let my excitement of an epic ride let me ignore possible bad weather, cause I didn't drive to the west to bike in cold weather rain like Worcester in February.