Meet Michael and Cassie Thornton

After enrolling at Denver Seminary, I (Michael) moved to Colorado from Tennessee in the summer of 2013 in my 1995 2-door Toyota Camry with the rear suspension nearly maxed out from my life’s possessions in the back seats and my two bikes hanging off the back. I met Cassie the following summer, we were engaged that fall, and married that winter. The following winter the Denver Broncos won Super Bowl 50 against the Carolina Panthers 24-10, prompting the owner of Tandem Cycle Works to run a sale on some of his tandems. Cassie and I had demoed a tandem from TCW a few months earlier and we then found ourselves skipping out of his Bronco-celebration-sale with a brand new, great entry-level road tandem bicycle made by Eugene, Oregon’s Co-Motion Cycles. We’ve been clocking saddle time tandem-style ever since! Still living on the Front Range, we continue to enjoy riding in the foothills of the Rockies. We tasted high altitude when we section-rode to the top of Mt. Evans from our home in Lakewood over the course of three days, *not* back-to-back. We have also completed a similar accomplishment riding from Boulder to the top of Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. We first heard about Ride the Rockies from two of Michael’s seminary classmates who completed Ride the Rockies in 2017. In trying to answer why we’ve decided to Ride the Rockies, we can identify at least these factors: our love for adventuring in the mountains together, our enjoyment of cycling, and the opportunity of living in Colorado while having the ability to give this great week a shot. This will be our first year attempting Ride the Rockies and we are very excited to share in this adventure with so many cycling and outdoor enthusiasts. Thanks for reading and please cheer us up Independence Pass!