By Bill Plock
A small group of people gathered with a reporter, Seth Boster, with the on-line magazine, the Denver Gazette who wanted to learn more about why people love to ride Lookout Mountain so much. He wanted to know how we felt about its safety, what could be done to make it better and learn some history and share experiences of riding the famed, arguably the most popular ride in Colorado.
Chuck Haraway and Rick Brune, who between the two have ascended Lookout around 6,000 times have started to bring more awareness to all things Lookout. Their good friend Ray Bolton climbed it 7,915 times before he passed away in 2020 due to Covid. Chuck and Rick have dedicated a website, https://cyclinglookoutmountain.com/ in Ray’s honor. The website has some great history about the mountain and lots of interesting facts and information.
The group also included Megan Hottman of Hottman Law and Charlie Myers, the head of Bike Jeffco. One of ideas kicked around was hosting an open gathering at the coffee shop on top once a month, or maybe quarterly to build more community with neighbors, cyclists, walkers, hikers, skateboarders and anyone who loves and cares about the experiences on Lookout Mountain.
We discussed the need for “3 feet to pass” signs, talked about how important it is for cyclists to not pass cars on the downhill going the speed limit, how we wish maybe there were restrictions on cars passing cyclists on corners like on Flagstaff. We dreamed of having car free days like what happens in the Garden of Gods once in a while. But we know there are a lot of users of the road and we emphasized the need to play well together–thus the coffee idea.
Here is video with Ray Bolton talking about why he loved riding Lookout Mountain so much. Its a bit sad to watch as one of his goals was to be the oldest known person to ride up Lookout which is thought to be 85. He never got that chance…
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