Maybe it's the jeans or the shoe string tie around them, but it doesn't seem like Rich Orton spends a lot of time on a bike.
"That means I don't ride a bike very often," Orton said.
For a special occasion he's willing to change that by meeting up with a handful of his former coworkers for a 20 year reunion to ride bikes along the recreation path through Glenwood Canyon.
The path is located along I-70. It's a 12 mile stretch of interstate that Orton and a group of around 100 people have a unique perspective on.
Ralph Trapani, a former C-DOT Project Manager says the group of people helped build the I-70 Glenwood Canyon corridor way back in 1992. He says they are all engineers and CDOT employees.
"[They are] some of the best engineers and designers in the world," Trapani said.
Thousands of cars a day travel the stretch of road, which was built to update the two lane highway built in the 1930s.
Now the four lane interstate is considered an engineering marvel where art meets science.
The group is celebrating the 20 year milestone by seeing the canyon on two wheels, instead of four. They rode bikes along the Colorado River, stopping every now and then to tell stories. Some of those stories included how construction of the layered and elevated interstate didn't always go as planned.
"The bridge had to be jacked three inches to the east, which is hard to do," Orton said.
The same can be said about Orton's bike ride after hitting a wall.
"Yes, it was me," Orton said. "I got distracted watching the kayaks.
Orton says it's still worth it for the chance to see the I-70 Glenwood Canyon corridor 20 years later by taking a ride down memory lane.
"It's been wonderful," Orton said. "[It's] just wonderful."
The I-70 portion through Glenwood Canyon was completed on October 14, 1992. It was one of the final pieces of the interstate highway system to open to traffic.
It's also one of the most expensive rural highways per mile built in the United States. The 12 mile stretch cost $490 million dollars, which would be about $800 million today.
(KUSA-TV © 2012 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)