This is my last ride of 2021. In 139 days of counting cyclists and vehicles (just on my fifteen minute descents, mostly in the mornings) I have found the ratio of cyclists to vehicles (which includes motorcycles) to be 2.95 to 1 (over three thousand cyclists and over a thousand vehicles).

Lookout is a favorite cycling venue for many riders on the front range and for many visitors to the Denver area. Many of the motorists are from out of town and sport the red fleet vehicle Colorado license plates that you see on rental vehicles. It really is up to the recreationally-interested users among us to stay safe on the mountain because many of these drivers are not familiar with mountain driving. But they are not the only drivers who cross the yellow line on blind corners in order to squeeze past a cyclist- sometimes at unsafe speeds. We cyclists, skateboarders, runners, walkers and pedestrians admiring the views never fare well in contact encounters with vehicles (crashes). If you are wondering how patient a driver needs to be on the mountain, I suggest you take your car over there on a Saturday or Sunday morning in the summer and carefully negotiate the non-automobile traffic. Then consider that many drivers might never have been cyclists in their lives and have never known the momentary terror that a cyclist feels just before getting crushed by a vehicle with the grossly disproportionate advantage of weight, power, speed….and sometimes anonymity.

Please enjoy your visits to Lookout Mountain and keep the late Ray Bolton in mind. He had his share of spills on Lookout, but they all involved wildlife encounters. He advocated avoiding vehicles at all cost- even if it meant wrecking one’s self with no ultimate responsibility for the motorist.

I shall see you in the spring on the mountain after a Cycling Lookout sabbatical.

Thanks to all of you who have given me profiles this inaugural website year. I’ll be back soon.

Start Wednesday, December 29, 11 AM, 23 degrees
Finish Noon, 27 degrees
Cyclists on descent 3
Vehicles on descent 7
Runners/walkers 1
Ratio of cyclists/vehicles 1 to 2.3

Chuck Haraway

Consecutive LOM days 3
LOM laps 2021 255
LOM laps lifetime 3256 (Third behind the late Ray Bolton- 7915 and Rick Brune- 4,000+)