Woodland Park to Colorado Springs, CO (home)

Via Hwy 24 to Manitou Ave. exit, then secondary roads. 21.2 miles.

Our great adventure came to a happy and successful end today. After covering nearly 4,600 miles over roughly 3 and 1/2 months on the road, we completed our transcontinental tandem ride by returning to the home we left in April.*
We both feel like there isn't much that we cannot do, and that alone make it a great trip.

Our emotions are running the gamut: we are happy to have completed what we set out to do, and happy to be back in our own home after spending what seems like an eternity in motels and campgrounds - and generally eating poorly. At the same time, we will miss visiting new places and the challenge of overcoming physical limitations, adverse weather and other obstacles. Mostly though we will miss the people that we met almost daily along the way. From other cyclists who have inspired us to the many good people who have helped us out, invited us into their homes or just encouraged us.

In the next few days I will try to set out some things we learned from this experience, not only about bicycle touring but life. Thanks so much to all you blog readers - we hope that you have vicariously felt part of our trip and that you too will feel motivated to take up an additional challenge of some type.

*As previously explained, we took about a month off the bike beginning on June 22nd, the day after we reached our destination on Cape Cod which completed the eastern portion of our trip.
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