"Cookie Monster," he says and, probably prompted by the frown on my face, explains that it's his trail name. "Through hikers and bikers usually have one. But you can't name yourself, somebody else has to". I'm not convinced but soon after this I meet Raven and Freebird. This is real and now I'm jealous. There's a secret club in the mountains and I'm not part of it.
It's about time I started handing out the frowns, I thought. I have received a good number of them since I started my cycle adventure southwest of Denver on the Colorado Trail. The serious mountain bikers - those on the bikes with stripes - frown at my bike. My "adventure bike" has racing handlebars on a steel frame with a rigid fork.
On a single track at almost 13,000 feet (4,000m), it does seem a little out of place, I guess. "You're riding the Colorado Trail with that?" they'd say, and leave me with a mixed feeling of stupidity and pride. The bikepackers - those with the ultralight gear - frown at my load. My traditional cycle-touring bags are wide and puffy and probably not best suited for the overgrown paths that I find myself on.
But these bags are light. After a warmup loop around the Rocky Mountain National Park I was back in Denver and, sort of, acclimatised. Here I found a post office and dumped about half my gear in a box, wrote my address in Arizona on it, and handed it over with nervousness and excitement. I was now able to pick up my bike. I had a feeling that this would be an important feature on my tour.
SO MUCH OPEN SPACE
The Colorado Trail runs from Denver to Durango covering almost 800km over eight mountain ranges along an average elevation of 10,300 feet (3km). Almost the entire trail runs through National Forests. As a South African expat, I admire this most about the Southwest: so much public land, so much nature, so much space.
A 20-minute ride gets me to Waterton Canyon, where the trail officially starts. That all-too-familiar set of emotions - anxiety and excitement - start to build up. For me, it's the best way of knowing that a good adventure awaits.
With the trailhead at Waterton closed for maintenance, I have to find an alternative way in, through and over Roxborough State Park. After about three hours I stumble into the canyon with a white face.
That was too steep, too rocky and definitely not for cycling. But it's not part of the Colorado Trail, I try to comfort myself. A group of college student hikers, who also just made use of this alternative way in, are all lying on the side of the trail smoking cigarettes without breath.
The sight of somebody coming down this path on a bike stokes their admiration. Please don't be impressed, I want to tell them, I don't think I'm going to get far.
That's the thing about taking on these adventures. You can do all the research you want, but you will only know if you can do it once you've completed it. You go in knowing that it typically ends in only one of two ways: you finish, or you give up.
Regardless of how rough the road ever gets, giving up always seems to be the harder option. Sometimes, that puts you in a very awkward position.
But I'm not there, just yet. I continue over the next mountain - more steep trails, more rocks, more hot sun - and find a spot for my tent along Bear Creek, the forest equivalent of finding a town called "Springfield". The place is perfect, not only because of the tranquil setting but also because I can hear faint voices - the hikers I passed earlier.
They seem to have set up camp just a few yards back. This is my ideal wild camp: alone in the woods while knowing that help is not too far away should, say, the bears, come knocking.
The Colorado Trail moves through a few Wilderness Areas, where bikes have to take detours. Constant rolling hills and intense headwinds turn my first detour - which I expected to be very relaxing - into one of the toughest on the tour. Late afternoon I'm relieved to find a country store in the high-altitude basin area of South Park.
I discover that the store is actually a bar, with a little grocery area (opened on request). The dark interior smells of old booze and sweat (or is that just me?) and is filled with day-drunk men. The entire scene - slurred voices in check shirts inside a timber-slatted building surrounded by a somewhat uninspiring landscape - seems straight out of a South Park episode. "They took our jobs!"
THE CITY/MOUNTAIN DIVIDE
The next day gives me hope, with trails that I can actually cycle on. It is here that I meet Cookie Monster. He sits next to a creek with his two dogs, Maple and Juno.
Like many through-hikers you meet on long-distance trails, his rugged look and relaxed pose make it seem like he lives in the forest. While filtering water and filling our bottles we talk about life in the forest and that contrast between the city and mountains - for me the most distinct experience here.
You spend five days in the wilderness and start longing for people and activity and then, after only a few days in the city, you wish for the mountains again. Get the timing and balance right and you pretty much have the perfect life.
A smooth and winding trail takes me to cool Breckenridge. I enter a lively town on a summer and Friday evening high. Local bands are playing and the food trucks are out.
IT'S TOUGH AT THE TOP
The Great Hunger - as I'd like to call it - is now upon me. During The Great Hunger you are never really full. You stop eating only because it feels wrong and gluttonous. Then you get up, continue and start thinking about your next meal. It is comforting, however, to know that your body has become aware of the fact you are burning around 6,000 calories per day.
It's hard to tell if summer in "Breck" is the low or high season. The ski lifts stand still but the buzz remains and everybody is outside. This is Colorado, the weather is perfect, there is so much to do outside and everybody is taking full advantage of it all the time. I want to live here. So does everybody else, the locals tell me.
From Breckenridge I continue over the Sawatch Range where a bunch of Colorado's Fourteeners are. These are mountains higher than 14,000 feet that enjoy a kind of cult status around these parts. At the foot of Mount Ouray (13,961 feet, shame) the reasonably good cycle conditions that I've enjoyed so far come to an abrupt halt.
For two days, I do very little other than push, carry, sweat and swear. With the trail on top of the continental divide, the surface is a combination of loose rock and giant boulders along very steep gradients.
For the first time on a cycle tour, I cannot see any reason to carry on, so I start looking for a forest road on my map. Yes, I am going to abandon the tour and, yes, I'm giving up! I will return with my backpack one day. I carry on slowly and - luckily - don't find this road.
So I settle for the next best solution: a good night's rest. This usually works well, and particularly well when you wake up in the San Juan Mountains, about as beautiful as a mountain landscape can get.
Higher elevations also mean that I spend three days above the 12,000 feet mark - and the tree line. Outside the "Conifer Tunnel" the views open up. Rugged and rocky peaks slice through green, soft rolling hills with lakes, rivers, and creeks filling the spaces between. Every turn and every peak brings a new moment of awe.
A very slow ascent gets me to the highest point of the trail at 4km. Not much of what I did to get to this point can be described as "cycling" but my bike and I made it to the top. That's what counts, right? Right?
TRAIL BY FIRE
With wildfires raging near Durango it becomes clear that I will not be able to finish the trail. The feeling is somewhat bittersweet: I have come all this way, but I also know what lies ahead. I leave the trail at Stoney Pass and, with a drop of 1,500 feet (457m) over only 4.8km, practically freefall back into civilisation.
Telluride is my last stop where my wife, Annheliza, will join me for a week's cycle tour around Southwest Colorado's Alpine Loop before we head back home.
I've been in the mountains for over a month now, and it feels like I can carry on forever.
Still no trail name though and I realise that maybe the fire ban is to blame. Where else can these baptisms take place if not next to a campfire?
But I do now remember that Annheliza has a trail name. It was there in the Peruvian Mountains - during a particularly severe stint of The Great Hunger, on a long ascent in a wide Andes valley - that she was opening up yet another snack and I, officially, named her ... The Cookie Monster.
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE YOU GO
WHERE IS THE TRAIL?
Colorado, USA
HOW LONG?
782km
HOW TOUGH (ON A SCALE OF 1-10)
Nine, according to bikepacking.com.
THE TERRAIN?
Ranges from smooth single track to rough gravel, which makes even hiking a challenge.
NEED TO KNOW
It takes an average of three weeks to do the trail. I'm sure some do it in one week. There are no permits necessary but you can make a donation to the Colorado Trail Foundation.
MORE INFORMATION
Visit the coloradotrail.org. Maps and information books are available from the Colorado Trail Foundation, National Geographic and bikepacking.com...