Day Four: WyNOming

Start: Loveland, Colorado
Lunch: some dude's front yard in Buckeye, Colorado
Dinner: Coppersmith's Pub & Brewery in Ft. Collins, Colorado
End: Hilton Garden Inn in Ft. Collins, Colorado
Today's biking distance: 72 miles
Total biking distance: 267 miles

The plan to was to quickly head up to the Wyoming border, tag it, and return to Ft. Collins, where the moustaches wives would be waiting (a moustache ride first!). But bike-unfriendly roads dashed that plan, and so the guys sketched a quick detour while we met up for a water break at Forks, which sadly, was not the fork museum I was hoping for (apparently we'll have to take the moustache ride to South Korea if we want that).

a very deceiving sign

Jason and Brennan quickly plan a reroute. Sorry, Wyoming.

Luckily, the ride became a pretty picturesque trek through rolling hills, farms, and lakes. I was also able to finally stop on the side of the road to get some pictures of the guys while riding. I also took a picture of a cow who stood up and mooed at me. It was scary.

See that black cow on right? It's in the process of getting up to moo at me. See how scary it looks?!

We had settled on a town we saw on the map, Buckeye, for our lunch stop. Turns out Buckeye, Colorado isn't much of a town. It barely has shade, let alone restaurants. I was able to ask permission to eat our lunches in a front yard from the owner of the one house in Buckeye. The chickens weren't too happy with us, but the shade was much appreciated!

After that, we were all excited for our stop for day four, the New Belgium Brewery! Some may recall that the 2010 Moustache Ride through Indiana involved a brewery stop each night, so this was of course right up our alley. I sped ahead to get our name on the waiting list for tours, and true to form, the guys showed up about 10 minutes before we were called to check out the massive operation there. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Off all the places I've had to sit and wait for the guys to arrive, the New Belgium Brewery tasting room is by far my favorite!

here's the front of the huge brewery (its campus is quite impressive)

While waiting, I watched other patrons play a game (and namesake of this year's summer ale), Rolle Bolle. It's sort of like bocce ball with wooden disks that look like cheese wheels.

Arrival to the brewery!

Hey! New Belgium stole my wife's Christmas-lights-in-beer-bottles idea!

That's some quality Fat Tire coming your way soon!

Needless to say, it was amazing, especially the end, which involves a slide!

We then met up with our wives, who are incredibly understanding and tolerant of our facial hair escapades each summer. We hit up Coppersmith's for dinner, took in some Ft. Collins people-watching, and then settled in for the final day of the trip...back to Denver!

from left to right, Jason's wife Sarah, Brennan's wife Haley, Brennan, Ryan's wife Amy, and Ryan