Copper Day 1

After waking up to a sunny morning, I as able to deduce that Copper is indeed a beautiful area.  We were up on the 5th floor, and we had a nice view down on our trucks.

We also had a good view looking West towards the rest of the village and the mountain.

I decided to test out my legs a bit in the morning and go for a short ride.  Nate's dad was gracious enough to lend me his road bike for the weekend, and other than a couple flat tires it worked great.

I decided to head up towards Vail pass and unknowingly made it to the top 5 miles later (I found out it was the top the next day - more on that later).  There's a really nice bike path that parallels I-70 up through the path, though it does get a little crowded during the middle part of the day since it's such a big area for outdoor recreation.

After the ride, we had setup for the weekend's event (the Copper Triangle cycling event).  Our expo was right at the base of the mountain near the lift, so we were tortured by watching mountain bikers coming down the hill all day and wishing we could be doing the same.

After set up we had the expo until 9PM, and I left a bit early to go make dinner since we had a kitchen at our disposal.  I made spaghetti and carbo-loaded a bit to make sure I was ready for the long ride in the morning.  I didn't sleep particularly well that night, partly because I was anxious to find out whether or not my legs, lungs, heart, etc. could actually handle an 80 mile ride at serious elevation.