More than 300 cyclists are pedaling through southwestern and central Colorado this week as part of Colorado's Ride, a five-day bicycle tour that started Monday and wraps up Aug. 14. The route loops out of Crested Butte and climbs over two of the state's most punishing Continental Divide crossings, Monarch Pass and Cottonwood Pass, before looping back to where it began.
The tour, detailed in reporting by Colorado Public Radio, follows a day-by-day path through some of the region's busiest mountain corridors. Riders started Monday on Colorado 135 and county and forest service roads between Crested Butte and Buena Vista, then Tuesday shifted to U.S. 285, Colorado 291 and county roads between Buena Vista and Salida. Wednesday's leg sends the group over U.S. 50 across Monarch Pass between Salida and Gunnison, followed by a Thursday stretch on U.S. 50 between Gunnison and Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, before a Friday finish back to Crested Butte via Colorado 135 and county roads.
No Highway Closures, But CDOT Wants Drivers Alert
Despite the scale of the event, no highway closures are planned for Colorado's Ride, according to the Colorado Public Radio report. Cyclists are expected on the roads roughly between 7:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. each day, meaning drivers sharing routes like U.S. 50 and Colorado 135 during those hours should anticipate slower-moving groups of riders on shoulders and travel lanes.
The Colorado Department of Transportation is urging drivers to use caution around the cyclists, per the same Colorado Public Radio account. CDOT Executive Director Shoshana Lew said the agency wants Colorado's Ride to be a safe event for everyone. Drivers can check current road conditions and travel impacts through CDOT's COtrip website ahead of time.
What the Law Requires on Shared Mountain Roads
Colorado's three-feet law requires drivers to give cyclists at least three feet of space when passing, a rule spelled out under Colorado Revised Statutes § 42-4-1003, which also allows motorists to cross double yellow center lines when oncoming traffic is clear enough to pass safely, according to Bike Jeffco. Riders, meanwhile, operate under the state's Safety Stop law, enacted in 2022, which lets cyclists 15 and older treat stop signs as yields at speeds up to 10 mph and treat red lights as stop signs once they've yielded to cross traffic, per guidance published by the City of Lakewood.
The high-alpine terrain itself is part of what makes the route possible. Cottonwood Pass climbs to 12,119 feet, the highest paved crossing of the Continental Divide in the United States, while Monarch Pass tops out at 11,312 feet, according to Wikipedia. Cottonwood's 31-mile corridor wasn't always built for this kind of event — a $34 million, three-year reconstruction completed in late 2019 fully paved the road, adding 11-foot travel lanes, paved shoulders and rockfall barriers, as detailed by the blog Mille Fiori Favoriti.
Filling the Void Left by Ride the Rockies
Colorado's Ride exists in part because of a bigger loss in the state's endurance cycling scene. Ride director Bill Plock created the tour after the 2024 cancellation and permanent shutdown of Ride the Rockies, the 37-year-old multi-day mountain bike tour originally established by The Denver Post, according to The Colorado Sun. To avoid the high overhead that helped sink older tours, organizers capped 2026 registration at 350 participants with a $675 entry fee, opting for a smaller, community-focused format with designated town camping and shower setups, per Endurance Sportswire.
This year's central Colorado loop marks a significant shift for the event. Colorado's Ride spent its first two seasons in 2024 and 2025 based out of Durango and Pagosa Springs in southwest Colorado, crossing Coal Bank, Molas and Wolf Creek passes with more than 26,000 feet of elevation gain, the Colorado Sun reports. Safety operations for the 2026 route involve multi-agency coordination, including traffic control and escorts from the Colorado State Patrol, medical support from CommonSpirit Health and Rapid Response Medical, and host-venue coordination across Chaffee and Gunnison counties, according to Endurance Sportswire.
Part of a Broader Colorado Cycling Season
Colorado's Ride joins a packed summer calendar of high-altitude endurance cycling in the state, including the 4,000-rider Triple Bypass tour over three mountain passes and the Broadmoor Cycle to the Summit up Pikes Peak, as per Hoodline. The tour also folds local philanthropy into its structure, compensating local nonprofit groups such as high school mountain bike teams for volunteer aid-station labor and hosting charity teams including the Davis Phinney Foundation's Team DPF, which raises money for Parkinson's research.
