Day Off – Lake Tahoe, CA – 21 miles
We woke early so Matt, Colin, Scott, Jesse, Dustin, Shane and I could head for the marina first thing this morning. Shane’s friend Beth works at the marina and was able to get us several two-man kayaks for a ride on the lake before it got too busy. We began heading for the west side of the lake, towards an area known as Emerald Bay that Beth had told us about. About an hour into the ride we realized the harm that comes with working only one set of muscles on a daily basis. Our arms were not ready for such activity and we made it about 2/3 of the way to the bay before deciding that open water kayaking on such a big body of water was not the kind of rest we were looking for on our day off. We therefore grabbed some lunch and headed back to the beach for some relax time. We spent most of the day hanging out on the beach and at a coffee shop in town until dinner time. We started riding back to the church when I saw someone walking down the side of the road in the same direction we were heading. “That’s funny” I thought, “that looks just like Brian from Reno.” As we passed I looked back and sure enough, Brian was back in town. We walked back to the church with him and found out that since we were staying in Tahoe for an extra day due to a schedule change, he had come back with Dean and Tiffany for a short vacation. They had brought their ski boat along as well and were offering to take people out on the lake the following day so we signed up for an early ride before the wind picks up too bad.
During dinner we had our final AH meeting where we decided what to do with the money we had raised. It is a challenging task to get two people to agree on a point much less thirty one, but after several rounds of debate and narrowing down of affordable housing groups, we figured an appropriate division for the funding so that all groups who filled out grant requests got at least a small portion fulfilled.
Day Off – Lake Tahoe, CA – 30 miles
We woke early today to get on the water by 8:00 in the ski boat that Dean brought down. Brian was our tour guide for the day as Luke, Paul, Mike, Colin and myself put forth our best efforts at wakeboarding. Somehow I was able to get up a few rides despite my lack of water sports since junior high. We spent two hours taking turns and ended our ride with a circuit across the lake into Emerald Bay which was absolutely gorgeous. After the afternoon on the boat, we checked out downtown Tahoe which was way too touristy, but we managed to find a great burger place for lunch before returning to the church for a short rest.
During the afternoon, I went on a solo ride around the lake to Emerald Bay again to get a view from higher up. The road to the bay had one of the sharpest curving roads I have ridden on so it was exciting going back down, but at the top I found a trailhead to Cascade Falls. The trail was about two miles and didn’t take too long to reach the falls which was a small bubbling stream until it reached a shear 80-foot drop at which point the water spread out and rushed down the mountainside to a smaller lake below. The ride down was a blast and waiting at the church was a great dinner prepared by Hoops and Dragonslayer of eggplant parmesan. A great way to end a day off.
Day 49 – Jackson, CA – 91 miles
It seems we haven’t ridden our bikes in about a week even though it was only two days off in Tahoe. Regardless, everyone awoke ready to tackle what was promised to be an intense riding day through the Sierras. The ride was clearly broken into two parts, before and after the lunch break. Before our mile 37 lunch break, we attacked three major passes. The largest pass was Conner, with a summit of 8,600 feet. Despite the outrageous amount of climbing that we did in the first 37 miles, there was very few complaints to be heard as the scenery was out of this world. We stopped at a few points just to sit on the side of the road and enjoy the views (while catching our breath). The morning was capped appropriately when Colin and I were bombing down a 3 mile hill into lunch and an enormous (I mean huge, like… really) wolf darted across the road in front of Colin, narrowly avoiding an intense collision. A wolf of this size would not only have won the bike vs. animal contest, it would have chowed down on Colin’s face afterwards, but the only exclamation that I heard was “OH YEAH!!!”
After lunch, we expected about 50 more miles of the same, but after a relatively short climb we began our descent from around 8,000 feet. We had been told in the past that it was all downhill after the Sierras and we would laugh along as if we were in on the joke. Apparently no joke, after the Sierras it is literally downhill to the ocean. For 50 miles, excluding a few very minor hills, we dropped over 7,000 feet to Jackson at an elevation of 1,200 feet. The day got even better when we took a stop at a gas station to regroup and a kindly woman bought The Boys and Jesse cool beverages. Since we look all fancy outfits make us look like super intense cyclists, the cashier even gave us all free doughnuts. Best break ever. We finished the ride into Jackson where we stayed at the St. Patrick Church and were treated to a delicious BBQ at the park by the Sacramento Optimists club.
Day 50 – Davis, CA – 60 miles
With our days on the road swiftly drawing to a close, the Boys decided to do something a little different for today’s breakfast. Wakeup was set for 5 am so we sneakily rose at 4:30 and took over the kitchen to whip up a world-class french toast meal. A special thanks to Jane Duddenhoffer for financially backing our treat, which started the day off to a great start. The ride itself started by 6:30 despite the mess we made in the kitchen, and was finally warm enough to skip arm warmers before the sun came up. Ah the familiar joys of low-elevation cycling. The first 10 miles of the ride were absolutely gorgeous rolling countryside as we made a few short climbs and descended into the central California basin. When we came upon the Hwy 16 junction, I realized that I had dropped the pack and was alone. After a few minutes of waiting, I decided to push on but ride slowly, assuming they would catch up with me in no time. By mile 25 there was still no sign of the pack so I took a rest stop at a gas station and chalked the stop for the group. 10 minutes later there was still no sign of the group and I was beginning to get worried that something was wrong when Brian and Nikki rode by. They had passed the pack earlier and apparently Jesse had gotten a flat and Shane’s chain fell off. Relieved, I decided to ride on to lunch, stopping several times to chalk fun messages for the sweeps, who were Caitlin and Colin today.
We enjoyed lunch by another air base and so we were treated to the second private air show of the trip while munching on our PB&Js, a sure-fire crowd pleaser. Though some of our riders can’t even stand mention of peanut butter’s gooey goodness, I have managed to retain my love for it’s versatility in everyday life. The only thing I am looking forward to after this trip is getting an enormous tub of creamy JIF that I can use for everything, and not the peanut butter soup we’ve been enjoying since June.
After lunch we rode a short way further into Sacramento where we visited the capital building and the office of the Governator himself. We were unfortunately not able to meet Mr. “I’ll be back” but we were wrangled by the head of the California Bicycle Coalition who led us across the street to a meeting in progress at the Department of Transportation meeting. Somehow I was swept into action and was elected the group spokesperson so I gave a short presentation to the board on Bike & Build, as well as how our trip had gone thus far, now that we are so close to the coast. After the meeting we went to Old Sacramento where we entertained ourselves walking the streets, eating free taffee samples, and trying on silly costumes at the various shops.
We got back on the road to head for Davis, got about a half mile and were stopped by the Red Bull advertising car for free drinks and a photo from the sales rep. Another half mile brought us to a bowling alley and, in normal Bike & Build fashion, couldn’t pass up an opportunity for ridiculousness. Molly, Caitlin, Colin, Jesse, Brian and myself therefore donned even more amazing shoes than we were already wearing and hit the lanes for an hour. After our games, we finished the ride swiftly following a bike path that paralleled I-80 all the way to Davis, where we took up residence in the Hickey Gymnasium. Our dinner was provided by the Davis Cycling Club tonight in a park just off campus. Several of our riders are going on a ride with the club tomorrow morning to see the countryside. Dustin and I spent our evening in a bookstore downtown planning a ride and hike in west Sacramento County. Nothing like a bit of strenuous physical exertion on your days off!
Day Off – Davis, CA – 50 miles
The group slept in this morning until around 8 am, when we had to move our bags out of the UC Davis gym and to a church 3 blocks down the road. We hefted our bags into our new home, grabbed a quick breakfast, and hit the road for our day’s adventure. Dustin, Scott and I enjoyed about a 25 mile ride west towards Napa Valley through a plethora of fields and farms growing everything from peaches and pears to tomatoes and strawberries; gotta love California variety. We reached a small line of mountains and found the trailhead to a hiking trail that circled a preserve owned by UC Davis. The hike was hot and steep but the views of Lake Berryessa were well worth our efforts. We traveled along a ridge around 1,600 ft above the surrounding countryside, eventually descending away from the blue-within-blue waters and back to our bikes. The ride back was quick with only a short lunch stop in Winters. The evening took us to a delicious Tai restaurant for dinner, followed by a college pub where we commandeered their projection screen to watch the opening ceremony to the Olympics. USA!
Day Off – Davis, CA – 5 miles
Today was the first true day of rest I took on essentially the entire trip. Woke up late, watched the Olympics, checked out the farmer’s market, and generally lounged about. I broke up the afternoon with a quest to In-n-Out burger for my first “Double Double Animal Style” which was everything I hoped it could be and more. As I was on dinner crew for the week, Colin, Hoops and I went soliciting food options for the group. We thankfully had 15 burritos donated by Chipotle, received three meal vouchers for a burger joint and several free cones of ice cream from Baskin Robins. Our feast was completed with the traditional spaghetti dish a la bike and build. Day ended with more Olympic events and a relative early bed time to prepare for our attack on Napa Valley tomorrow morning.
Day 51 – Napa, CA – 79 miles
Dustin, Colin and I awoke at 5:00 am this morning, an hour before the rest of the riders, to get an early start on the day into Napa. We left the parking lot right as the group awoke, having forgone a delicious breakfast prepared for the rest of the group at 7:15 am by the Davis Bike Club. We quickly made our way to Lake Berryessa where we had a mile 30 snack break at a reasonably scenic overlook. We wasted no time and got back on the road to finish our climb over a small coastal mountain range and into the valley. I did not expect the valley to appear as soon as it did as we could see another mountain looming over the final ridge, but we suddenly burst out of the trees and into the northern section of the valley on hwy 128 at Silverado Trail. The scenery was absolutely phenomenal for the entire ride through the valley, and we took our time weaving through the vineyards on our way up to St. Helena. In the city, we grabbed lunch at a KFC, the only fast food joint in the valley it appears, and stopped at a wine shop to inquire about which vineyards to visit. With our recommendations in had we headed back south towards Napa proper. As we were making way towards the Mumm Vineyard, the first of our recommended stops, the golden aura of the Sutter Home Vineyard came into our sights. Without any hesitation we swooped in for the fist tasting at a fine and revered establishment. The day only turned up from there as we were treated to an in-depth tour of the Mumm Vineyard, enjoyed fantastic cabernets at the Plumpjack winery and poked around in the Clos de Val estate. The Plumpjack Vineyard was a highlight as it seemed to be owned and operated by no one over the age of 25. The atmosphere was very hip and trendy and likely to be set up by the same people who brought us Fat Bastard wines. Our evening accommodations were provided by one of Amy’s friends and we all enjoyed a feast of Pizza Hut pies for dinner.
Day 52 – San Rafael, CA – 47 miles
We were handed our cue sheets today and were shocked to find that we had a 65 mile ride ahead of us. I had looked at a map the day before and figured that our ride couldn’t be more that 40 miles at most. We found out that we were being routed in an more “scenic” direction since the most direct roads were very large and scary according to our local, Amy. The boys decided that we had taken on some pretty hectic roads and wanted an adventure on our final full day of riding so we rechecked the maps and headed off for San Rafael. We found our way onto one or two “no-bicycle” roads but survived with minimal incident and no incarceration. We would hate to have Dustin deported so close to the west coast. We even stumbled on a bike route that ran next to hwy 101 next to San Francisco bay so we were able to completely avoid on of the major roads. We stopped around mile 35 when we entered the town and grabbed some breakfast at a bagel shop before getting thoroughly lost in the city due to a few road closures and a cue sheet that may not have actually led anywhere at all. Eventually we ran into another group that had taken the shortcut and caught up with us, so Marc gave us better directions to the host. Our original plan had been to tackle Mt. Tam or Meur National Forest when we got into town but we learned that the Presbyterian church we were staying at for the evening had arranged a private pool and gourmet pizza lunch for us to relax at. We all had a blast relaxing and working on removing our tan lines, and returned to the church late in the afternoon for an amazing cookout and sing along by the church quartet after our final presentation of the summer. As it was our last night outside of the city, Dustin and I rolled out our sleeping bags on the back porch overlooking the San Francisco Bay and Richmond Bridge despite the surprisingly cold weather. Once I closed up the face-hole for my sleeping bag, I slept like a baby despite excitement over our big day tomorrow.
Day 53 – SAN FRANSISCO, CA – 19 miles
Final Day!!!!! We packed our bags for the last time this morning and suited up, taking care of chores as well as a clean out of the van and trailer. In light of the 19 mile ride into San Francisco we decided to forgo cue sheets and the gentlemen of P2SF ditched our spandex for hot pants. Sporting our mid-thigh tan lines proudly, we made our way south as a pack of 31 exstatic cyclists. Big smiles were all that motorists saw as we snaked our way, slowly due to outrageously steep hills, closer and closer. At last we came around the bend of our final climb to see the Golden Gate bridge disappearing into a thick bank of fog. It seemed surreal after having talked about it for so long to finally feel our wheels bump onto the bridge. We took so long making the crossing that by the time we finally reached the beach on the other side, family and friends had been waiting for a few hours more than anticipated. With much ado the pack ran their bikes down to the water, and splashing into the breaking waves of the Pacific Ocean. Variable levels of enthusiasm for the ocean followed as riders felt their toes going numb, but everyone was so excited to reach the finish that plenty of splashing and swimming took place.
Once we all calmed down and finished taking a hundred pictures each, we popped some Champagne courtesy of Colin’s Parents and enjoyed a picnic lunch on the beach. The group dispersed for the afternoon to explore as much of the city as possible. We headed to the Haight-Ashbury district and poked around in the shops, taking a detour to climb up into Buena Vista Park which overlooked the city. Finally we made our way back to our host for two nights in the city, the Jewish Community Center, were we settled in and had our end-of-the-summer banquet. The catering was delicious and we had the county supervisor as a keynote speaker. Finally Colin and Jesse unveiled their slideshow they had been slaving over for the past few nights which brought back many of the fond memories we had all shared over the course of the trip.
Though I’m glad to be getting back to real life, I will miss the day-to-day excitement of our summer’s adventure. I’m looking forward to getting back to the Habitat site in Gainesville and getting to work with fellow rider’s who spent the summer on other routes. I have had a blast and hope that P2SF ‘08 stays in contact. While we may not have always been the closest of groups, I was lucky to have spent the summer with so many outstanding people who I learned so much from. Yaddah Yaddah, highschool graduation speech. [Cue Green Day “Good Riddance”]
-This is Brent Finklea signing off. Its been real, America.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
The End is Near
After 71 days of cycling, building, sleeping on mats, changing locations nightly, eating 4+ PB&Js per day, climbing, coasting, meeting new people, taking showers with a hose, going on adventures, consuming my weight in ice cream, pot luck dinners, spandex, wearing the same clothing for several days in a row, always being slightly unsanitary, avoiding potholes, jumping sewer grates, waking before the sun comes up, bodies in motion, living out of a 4,500 cubic inch bag, flat tires, finding chain grease constantly on my hands, and legs, and face, arm warmers, singing silly songs, playing 20 questions for hours on end, mountiains, plains, rolling hills, oatmeal for breakfast, cliff bars, saddle sores, camelbaks, diner milkshakes and burgers, and sleeping on the floor next to 30 other wonderful people, our journey has finally come to it's close. Tomorrow bright and early we will wake to make our sub-20 mile ride across the Golden Gate Bridge and down to the Pacific where we can seal our efforts with cold water and hot sand. I would like to appologize again for the delayed updates over the last week. They are mostly written but are stored on my computer which has been comandeered by Colin, Mo and Jesse in order to make a end of trip slide show since it is stocked with many of the riders' photos. If you care to read through the final days of our adventure, I will be posting them as soon as possible (I will be back in Tampa on Saunday morning and can complete any tragglers at that time if not sooner) and if I can figure it out, a file with all the posts in Word document form.
I would like to give a pre-emptive thanks to all of you who have followed us this summer and provided support to our riders. I have enjoyed hearing from all who followed the trip through this journal of events. I began writing as a way to remember the day to day events later on, and I am always delighted and shocked to hear when people other than my family and friends have been reading. I wish the best to all of our 2008 riders and look forward to the reunion rides and adventures we have spent the summer plotting and scheming.
San Fransisco, here we come.
I would like to give a pre-emptive thanks to all of you who have followed us this summer and provided support to our riders. I have enjoyed hearing from all who followed the trip through this journal of events. I began writing as a way to remember the day to day events later on, and I am always delighted and shocked to hear when people other than my family and friends have been reading. I wish the best to all of our 2008 riders and look forward to the reunion rides and adventures we have spent the summer plotting and scheming.
San Fransisco, here we come.
Monday, August 4, 2008
From The Far West
Day 48 – Lake Tahoe, CA – 75 miles
Sweep day number three! We left the hills of Reno bright and early today with four more riders than usual. Dean, Brian, Tiff and Lisa all donned their spandex and shined up their carbon-framed beauties for our journey into Tahoe. Lake Tahoe, for those of you out of the loop, is the nation’s second deepest lake located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains at 1,645 ft deep at it’s deepest, with a surface elevation of 6,229 ft, and a surface area of 191 square miles. Jesse volunteered to sweep with me which was amazing because we had a lot of fun despite our lengthy ride. We were re-routed halfway through the ride due to construction on the hwy 50 pass over the mountains, so we took an alternate route that boasted an eight mile, 9% grade climb which slowed the pack down remarkably well. We still managed to make it into town without too much issue and joined the quicker riders on the southern beach of the lake. One of Shane’s friends from Ithaca, Beth, now lives here in town so we met up with her and she showed us an awesome beach away from the crowds that locals use. We lounged on the beach for the rest of the afternoon, relaxing and throwing sticks into the water for the many dogs that people brought to the beach. Dinner was not provided for the evening, so we went to Safeway and stocked up on burgers that we grilled at Beth’s house. We all had a blast and hit the sack by midnight so we’d be ready to check out the town on our day off tomorrow.
Picture Update: Blogger hates me and after 30 minutes of work I still cannot upload photos. A new method of photo sharing will be explored as soon as time permits. My appologies to everyone, I know the multi-media portion of this blog is a highlight.
Sweep day number three! We left the hills of Reno bright and early today with four more riders than usual. Dean, Brian, Tiff and Lisa all donned their spandex and shined up their carbon-framed beauties for our journey into Tahoe. Lake Tahoe, for those of you out of the loop, is the nation’s second deepest lake located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains at 1,645 ft deep at it’s deepest, with a surface elevation of 6,229 ft, and a surface area of 191 square miles. Jesse volunteered to sweep with me which was amazing because we had a lot of fun despite our lengthy ride. We were re-routed halfway through the ride due to construction on the hwy 50 pass over the mountains, so we took an alternate route that boasted an eight mile, 9% grade climb which slowed the pack down remarkably well. We still managed to make it into town without too much issue and joined the quicker riders on the southern beach of the lake. One of Shane’s friends from Ithaca, Beth, now lives here in town so we met up with her and she showed us an awesome beach away from the crowds that locals use. We lounged on the beach for the rest of the afternoon, relaxing and throwing sticks into the water for the many dogs that people brought to the beach. Dinner was not provided for the evening, so we went to Safeway and stocked up on burgers that we grilled at Beth’s house. We all had a blast and hit the sack by midnight so we’d be ready to check out the town on our day off tomorrow.
Picture Update: Blogger hates me and after 30 minutes of work I still cannot upload photos. A new method of photo sharing will be explored as soon as time permits. My appologies to everyone, I know the multi-media portion of this blog is a highlight.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Utah and Nevada - At last
First off, my appologies for the lack of update. Internet has been sketchy on our long traversing of Utah and Nevada but we have finally resurfaced in Reno, and should be in contact from here on out. Pictures will not be posted yet because connection is rather slow when you are hijacking it from nearby buildings. Hope everyone enjoys.
-Brent
Day 38 – Green River, UT – 54 miles
Today’s ride was kicked off with a delicious French toast breakfast provided by our hosts at St. Pius X Catholic Church. It was delicious and one of our best breakfasts of the trip by far. Thanks! As for the ride itself, we tore across the red sandy Utah terrain at a pretty brisk pace as an entire group. Since it was a shorter ride we stopped about mile 28 for a break with the trailer, the entire pack arriving within about 5 minutes of the lead group. After our rest, we hopped on I-70, as it was the only non-dirt road heading west. This was a good interstate experience as there were actually few cars on the road and a wide shoulder. Not only that, but the pavement itself was smoother than anything we had ridden on in about 5 states, a very nice change. The boys were clipping along nicely until about 10 miles out of Green River, we turned around to shout at Scott just as him and Shane had a collision and went down hard, skidding across the asphalt. We skidded to a hault and ran back to where they were lying on the pavement. Fortunately neither was injured too badly, though both were pretty scraped up with road rash and Scott was sporting what seemed to be both a sprained wrist and a sprained ankle. We patched both up as best we could, by which time the entire pack had caught up to us so there were about 20 riders milling around on the shoulder of the interstate. The van came to pick up the guys and their bikes and take them into the city to get cleaned up. Down two riders, Dustin, Colin, Sarah, Paul and I continued on towards Green River. We decided we didn’t want to be on the interstate anymore and Dustin had seen a side road on his maps that headed to the city, so we got off at the next exit. The road we finished the ride on turned out to be the most broken and bumpy road I have ever been on that was technically “paved.” I’m pretty sure all of our bikes will require realignment before tomorrow’s ride as everything must have been shaken loose.
We still managed to arrive in town shortly after noon, and spent the rest of our afternoon bumming around town. Green River is a small city that in the heat of the day could be mistaken for a ghost town. We were fortunate to find a coffee shop with amazingly comfortable couches that many people crashed on for a bit. Heat kills, I hope we wake up at 2:30 am tomorrow to beat the heat on our first of two back to back century rides across the Utah desert. Three cheers for coppertone!
Day 39 – Torrey, UT – 109 miles
The theme for today was “Beat the Heat.” The arid climate we are riding in is not a good place for cyclist to be spending long hours in the sun. We woke at 4:00 am and with some pushing, we were on the road by 5:30 am, headlights and taillights flashing. It was fortunate we got out so early since we had a decent climb out of town that took us until around 6:30, when the sun finally crested the mountains to the east. We enjoyed a mostly flat or downhill ride to lunch at mile 50, seeing two badgers along the way and a an assortment of desert plant life. We decided not to take the side trip to Goblin Valley State Park after Marc told us that it was a 22 mile detour. Several members of the team who were riding behind us did not get this message however and took the turn leading to a 130+ mile day. Some of these riders finished the day around 8 o’clock pm while a few had to be picked up before the final climb into Torrey because it was getting too late. After lunch we continued on our way through the desolate terrain, at which time I got my second flat of the trip. Luckily I have had a decent amount of practice in changing tires by now, and it did not cause much of a setback. The ride led us through Capitol Reef State Park which had some beautiful canyon views and even provided a decent swimming hole by a small waterfall. We were so excited by mile 94 that we had a place to swim, we ditched our bikes and ran down in our shorts to the water where several local kids were jumping off the waterfall into the water below. Naturally as soon as Colin, Jesse, Mike and I saw this we had to follow suit while Dustin took some amazing pictures shown below. Our fun was unfortunately brought to an end by the arrival of a park ranger who pointed out a sign telling us we can’t have any fun of any sort inside the park perimeter. Go figure.
Back on our bikes we quickly (relatively speaking) ascended into Torrey where we stopped at Slackers at a tip from the kids at the swimming hole to get shakes and burgers. Needless to say the food we received was unreasonably delicious and a wonderful addition to the pasta dinner we would be making for ourselves later in the evening. At our host we found a lack of showers so Colin and I set off to inquire with locals about a place to get the grime off. After an hour of searching and several failed attempts (RV parks requested $5 a shower, yeah right) we returned to the church, dejected and prepared for our punishment of the icy cold hose on the front lawn. I can only describe this experience in the words of Grace: “It is like being molested by a polar bear.” I could not describe it any better. After lots of shivering and clenched teeth we retreated to the church where our quarters were so small, people were sleeping both on and under pews, while still crowding one another. With Bike and Build, there is no such thing as personal space. I love it.
Medical Update: Scotty and Shane took today off to ride in the van and heal their wounds. Shane has some pretty intense road rash and Scotty went to the clinic where an x-ray revealed he had a fractured ulna, aka a broken wrist. They were able to fit a splint on him though and said he would be able to ride on as soon as his bruised ankle starts feeling better.
Day 40 – Panguitch, UT – 111 miles
Today we slept in to the late hour of 4:40 am because everyone needed their beauty rest. We were still on the road by 6:00 am to a surprisingly brisk temperature of around 50 degrees. Definitely unexpected but welcomed with open arms. We had covered a cheerful 1.5 miles when Matt got his first flat of the day. Dustin, Colin and I were riding with Matt, Luke and Mike today as Shane and Colin were spending another afternoon recouping from their “pavement encounter” on the ride into Green River. No big deal, we patched it quickly and went on our way. The morning held lots of climbing as we rose to over 8,000 ft by mile 25. We cranked out another quick 25 miles getting to lunch, mostly downhill but with a few decent climbs along the way, and Matt’s second flat in the middle of the major climb. Most of the afternoon passed swiftly and without much to tell. We took a break at mile 84 where we found an abandoned building to seek shelter in. After another stop for the official second lunch at mile 92 we were chased by storm clouds into a canyon where we were sheltered from the wind. Exiting the canyon, we found that the fates were not favoring us and the wind had shifted so that the storm was once again bearing down on us. Almost on cue, Matt struck irony gold with his third flat of the day. We patched it as quickly as we could but still managed to get a little wet, though the bulk of the storm was being held at bay. We rode into town as quickly as we can, trying to avoid being soaked, but so thankful that it was overcast and not the unreal heat from the day before.
Our host, the “Social Hall” of Panguitch, did not have showers and our only option was to use the showers at a rodeo about 2 miles away. Our desire to not set foot on a bicycle for the rest of the day kept us from making the commute, instead taking sink showers as best possible and looking forward to better facilities tomorrow. Hygene really has seemed to take a back seat to convenience and I am ok with that. Hope my bad habits don’t carry back to Gainesville too much.
Day 41 – Milford, UT – 82 miles
Relative to our previous rides, today was short and swift. We awoke at 5:00 am to be on the road by 6:30, backtracking our way ten miles to SR 20. As Scotty and Shane were back on their bikes this morning because Scott managed to attach aero bars to his bike so he can ride with the soft cast while Shane was toughing out the road rash. Scott took it slow with sweep while the rest of us tried to make it as short a day as possible, riding with the Slayers for the first 25 miles of the day. There were some significant climbs up to the 25 mile mark, along which I found my best souvenir yet: the rattle off of a road-kill rattlesnake. On the descent into lunch at mile 45, Colin and I combined our forces to try and break new speed records with different tuck and drafting techniques known as “the slingshot.” With a little help and some pretty steep drops, I am proud to say that I finally reached my 50 mph goal. Some riders manage this on an almost daily basis (though how eludes me) but be it an untrustworthy speedometer or an insufficient body mass, I have been unable to do so until now. The rest of the ride was spent at top speed getting to Milford where the father of Colin’s roommate was able to score us hotel rooms! Not just the 6-to-a-room style at the Riverfront in Lawrence. We are talking about 10 singles and 20 doubles. I don’t even know what to do with all the space I have available. After two months of sleeping on the floor next to several other people, I feel quite secluded and I’m both loving it and kind of missing the company in an odd sort of way. Nonetheless, we passed our afternoon all packed into Colin’s room eating chips and salsa while watching the Yankees dominate the Red Sox. I am not a big baseball fan but I definitely enjoyed a relaxing afternoon inside, safe from the intense storms that rolled into town in the early afternoon. Some downtime is exactly what everyone needed and I think we will be ready to tackle tomorrows ride starting bright and early.
-Ecstatic to be in a real bed
Day 42 – Great Basin National Park, NV – 91 miles
We pealed ourselves out of our wonderful beds this morning as usual and set off for Nevada. We had a surprising 4 major climbs over the course of the ride: three ridges and a climb into Great Basin National Park. Our first shock came when we passed over the first ridge and saw the straightest and road that must have ever been build stretching from the pass, down and across a barren valley, and up and over another ridge about 18 miles away (we clocked it). I’ve never felt so out of place in a certain terrain. There was a similar valley over the next pass and one house in each of the valleys. It is impossible to tell distance in such surroundings. We spotted the lunch trailer from the top of the second ridge and guessed it was maybe 3 miles away. 8 miles later we finally pulled into the small clearing where the trailer was parked, go figure. The rest of the ride was fairly quick after the third ridge climb. We passed the Nevada border around mile 78 and descended into a small town at the foot of the park where we stopped for about an hour to enjoy some ice cream in the shade. It began clouding up so we packed it up and made for the 8 mile climb into the park. The climb was about 8% grade so it took us close to an hour to reach our campsite, just in time for the clouds to open up and the storming to begin. Thank goodness Paul had been their earlier and set up our tents already. Luke made a roaring fire to keep us warm as the temperature dropped and we attempted to make our burrito dinner in the rain. Slightly soggy, we polished off all the beans and rice swiftly and most everyone was out cold by the time the sun snuck behind the mountains.
Day 43 – Ely, NV – 74 miles
The day began about 5:45 with our usual wakeup call. Everyone packed up pretty quickly despite the remaining wetness from last night’s rain. The group split up during route meeting into three parts for the day: those who were heading strait for Ely, those who wanted to check out the famous caves the park had to offer, and the Dustin-Marc duo that went to conquer Mt. Wheeler, Nevada’s highest peak at about 13 thousand feet. I tagged along with the spelunking team and headed for the visitor center. We got a early-bird tour at 8 o’clock of the cave system which was fascinating as well as frigid, at a constant 50 degrees. After the cave tour we grabbed a quick bite of breakfast before heading out for the day. The boys were all split up because Shane was on sweep, Colin woke up sick and so took the van to Ely, Dustin was climbing a mountain, and Scott was taking it slow because of his arm. Therefore, I decided to take my second solo ride of the summer to see how much physical improvement I made. I left the visitor center for the park around 10 am for the long 48 mile ride to lunch including two big passes and an outrageously long valley crossing. It was fun and I managed to catch up with 6 riders from the original group before reaching lunch at the peak of the second pass, though I realized the value in having a group to talk with or pace your ride against. I finished the ride from lunch riding with Hoops, Grace and Molly into a ridiculous headwind. With some pushing we made it to our host at Ely in time to avoid the looming rain clouds, where we set up camp in the basement filled with what appeared to be a yard sale in progress. We took showers at the truck stop again, which I’ve discovered are not as bad as you would expect. Anything is welcome after two days of riding without cleaning off.
Colin and I met up with Jesse and Neal on our way back from the showers in order to settle my cravings for Chinese food and offer some protein to supplement our otherwise carb-packed diet. We enjoyed a second dinner about an hour later back at the church of (surprise surprise) spaghetti!!! In good carb-loading fashion we tucked in and hit the sack soon there.
Day 44 – Eureka, NV – 84 miles
Today was a four-pass day. Not too long, but plenty of vertical to keep us busy. The ride itself was fairly non-descript. More of the same on hwy 50. Only real events to relate are with respect to motorists we met on the road. At our lunch break we were stopped at the top of the second pass when a white Jetta pulls up next to us and a couple gets out. Generally Dustin and I seem to be the meet and greet team whenever someone is curious about what we are doing, so we mosied over the see what the issue was. The couple turned out to be Dean and Tiff with the worlds cutest Pomeranian puppy, Gracie. They were a pair of cyclists who had seen our group along the road and wanted to take a break on their drive back to Reno. We explained what we are doing and commented that we were going to be in Sparks in a few days, just outside of Reno, but didn’t know where we were staying yet. After talking to the friendly couple for about a half hour, Tiff said she would try to help us find lodging and food during our build day break. We exchange information and cross our fingers that we may soon have a lawn to pitch a tent on and maybe, just maybe, a single shower we can all share.
Our second encounter was when a car passed us farther down route 50 with someone clapping and shouting “go bike and build!” Now we are used to random excitement from strangers but most don’t know who we are, so Dustin pulls over to introduce himself. Small world, because as it turns out the driver was a bike and builder who just finished the central US route a few days earlier and was driving back east. Weird.
In town we were given the opportunity to shower at the community pool, where we got talking to the head lifeguard/manager of the pool. She offered to let us sleep in the facilities as they were indoors and handed me her keys to the building, under the agreement that I leave them under a rock outside when we went to leave. We decided to sleep with the group in the tents but we did use the pool building to watch the Big Labowski first. Eureka really is appropriately named “the friendliest city on the loneliest highway.
Day 45 – Austin, NV – 70 miles
Today’s ride was largely uneventful, attempting to leave bright and early though the dawn brought such a cold that we took refuge in a diner for an hour after route meeting until it warmed up enough to brave the ride. Once again the desert proved it’s unappealing nature with 60+ degree temperature swings over the course of the day. Within an hour of the sun coming up it was up to 75 degrees and an hour later it was a full heat. We took it slow today as it was a shorter day with only two passes – so we thought. Turns out the second pass was actually a double which had a false pass at about 6,400 feet followed by one at 6,600 feet. It was quite a climb but we were rewarded with an amazing downhill into Austin in which Matt sat on my rear wheel and we bombed down around a series of sharp twists and turns that were way too exhilarating. We reached the bottom of the hill and the church/RV park (unique combo I know) where we were greeted with a barrage of water balloons from the slayers and others who had arrived first. Fortunately for us we were under attack by cyclists and not baseball players and so only one or two balloons found their targets. The accommodations were fine but cramped because renovations were taking place and stuff was everywhere. The weather was great so several people even pitched tents outside. We enjoyed some of the finest burritos I think bike and build has ever made and promptly headed for bed, preparing for our final planned century of the trip.
Day 46 – Fallon, NV – 114 miles
Today’s ride merits a small novel unto itself, but it seems when I go to write down the day’s events I can only recall a few notable moments. The point is that it seems we were on our bikes forever, though we were still stuck in Nevada landscape. We began the day with a 4:30 wakeup call into the brisk desert morning weather. It didn’t seem too cold at first but we began with a steep descent that left us zooming into a valley that was around 50 degrees according to my thermometer. The sun was up by this point but it wasn’t until we began our only major pass of the day around mile 21 that it finally got warm enough to remove layers. Colin still wasn’t feeling quite right today due to the stomach issue that’s been passed around over the recent weeks, so we kept it in low gear and made plenty of snack breaks along the way. Highlights for the day: (1) Mile 63 we hit the “shoe tree.” This is a tree out in the middle of nowhere that motorists took the time to stop and discard massive quantities of old sneakers, boots, and even high-heels onto the branches. (2) We were given a private air show as we crossed the training grounds of the naval air base. Jets streaked overhead and performed ridiculous maneuvers while we chugged along on the winding road below. A few jets even fired a few blanks or flares during the fly-bys. (3) After an explosive flat tire blew on Jesse’s bike, we cut across a large expanse of salt flats. This is a sandy area where nothing grows because the salt is so concentrated you can see the crystals glinting from the road.
We somehow made it (somehow) to our hosts at the United Methodist Church around 5:15, just in time to enjoy a quick shower at the community pool across the road before a delicious dinner of sloppy joes, corn, beans, and fresh watermelon was served. We were so hungry that most of had to go lay down directly following the meal because we chowed down so much. Now for a brief night’s sleep before the final ride of our intense 10 day stretch across Utah and Nevada. Reno here we come.
Day 47 – Reno, NV – 71 miles
Today we finally returned to civilization. We enjoyed a delicious breakfast of fresh fruit, eggs and muffins, three things that blow our usual breakfast of solidified oatmeal out of the water. We finished out our time on Hwy 50 (finally) and got onto I-80 in the town of Fernley. We took a quick snack break, finishing off the muffins from breakfast, and then Luke and I got on the interstate and bolted for Sparks. We made it in short order to Sparks where we met up with the rest of the group and our host for the weekend Tiff at a quick stop just off the road. We found out there that the reason we hadn’t seen anyone following us on the road was that there had been an accident back at a construction area in the road and that several riders were detained by the highway patrol for over an hour before they could complete the ride. Luckily no one was seriously injured, though several riders got in the van to nurse wounds and road rash. We jumped on a bike path that ran through town and into the heart of Reno, eventually arriving at Idlewild Park where a picnic lunch was waiting for us courtesy of local sandwich shops that was set up by Dean and Tiff. We enjoyed the beautiful weather for a bit, eventually making our way to the house of Marilee where several of us were to be staying for the weekend. She was amazingly generous to let 8 strangers take over her floor space for 48 hours and can’t be thanked enough. While at the park we had met Brian, a friend of Dean and Tiff, who took Dustin, Colin, Jesse and I to the river nearby for a dip before dinner. We got back just in time for delicious burritos donated by a local shop. We watched clips from past stages of the Tour de France while we munched which was amazing because everyone actually got really excited. Nothing like bike nerds having fun. After dinner we hit up the Blockbuster and enjoyed a private showing of The Usual Suspects before passing out for the evening. Perfection.
Build Day – Reno, NV
We awoke bright and early at 5:45 am for our half day 7 – 11 am build. The build itself went well with most people working on siding, painting or sheetrock. I forgot how frustrating hanging sheetrock can be if not done properly, but it was nice to see the house come a little closer to finish. I saw one of the saddest sights of the trip today unfortunately, as the habitat house two down from the one we were working on had been recently broken into and burned down, only a week before the expectant owner was to move in. I can’t believe someone could be so malicious and spiteful. Dustin and I mused over possible motivation for such an attack on either the individual, the organization or the community as a group. Its easy to see how such an act could take the wind out of the sails of a habitat chapter, and I can only hope that it does not put too much of a dark cloud over the good that the volunteers are trying to accomplish.
After the build we all convened at a park in downtown Reno. We had some time to kill so several of us went with Brian to the Cal Neva for a real Nevada gambling experience. We enjoyed learning the finer points of Blackjack from a friendly dealer and played for quite some time with some wins and some losses. As soon as the dealer’s break came and a new stony-faced dealer took over, the game sped up 5 fold and we all quickly found ourselves devoid of a chip stack. Regardless, we had a great time a returned to the park just in time to enjoy a donated lunch of gourmet pizza while we watched tubers and kayakers frolic in the river that flowed by.
We stopped by a bike shop on the way back to the house to stock up on tubes and for a new tire because my back wheel decided that it only had enough rubber for around 4,500 miles. Such a shame, but we did a serious bicycle maintenance session in the front yard to get our chariots tuned up for the final push to the Pacific. Dinner was a delicious Italian smorgasbord supplied by several local restaurants held at Dean and Tiff’s house. We discussed grant applications over dinner and continued to debate which housing organizations would receive the $9,000 we have left to give after the majority of our fundraising went to fully fund a house in Providence. After dinner entertainment took place in the cul-de-sac in the form of double dutch, pogo-sticking and finally a poi demonstration by Dean and Brian. As fire is always a big hit, two guys swinging flaming balls on the end of chains was enough to get our blood pumping. Before jumping into the ‘ol sleeping bag, I rode down to blockbuster to drop off the movie we rented last night, and in the process got a phenomenal view of the city lit up against the backdrop of the Nevada mountains. It was an beautiful sight, almost a miniature Las Vegas as seen from a low flying plane. I am glad we are back to civilization though I know I will soon be missing the vast expanse of nothing that was our last 10 days of riding.
-Brent
Day 38 – Green River, UT – 54 miles
Today’s ride was kicked off with a delicious French toast breakfast provided by our hosts at St. Pius X Catholic Church. It was delicious and one of our best breakfasts of the trip by far. Thanks! As for the ride itself, we tore across the red sandy Utah terrain at a pretty brisk pace as an entire group. Since it was a shorter ride we stopped about mile 28 for a break with the trailer, the entire pack arriving within about 5 minutes of the lead group. After our rest, we hopped on I-70, as it was the only non-dirt road heading west. This was a good interstate experience as there were actually few cars on the road and a wide shoulder. Not only that, but the pavement itself was smoother than anything we had ridden on in about 5 states, a very nice change. The boys were clipping along nicely until about 10 miles out of Green River, we turned around to shout at Scott just as him and Shane had a collision and went down hard, skidding across the asphalt. We skidded to a hault and ran back to where they were lying on the pavement. Fortunately neither was injured too badly, though both were pretty scraped up with road rash and Scott was sporting what seemed to be both a sprained wrist and a sprained ankle. We patched both up as best we could, by which time the entire pack had caught up to us so there were about 20 riders milling around on the shoulder of the interstate. The van came to pick up the guys and their bikes and take them into the city to get cleaned up. Down two riders, Dustin, Colin, Sarah, Paul and I continued on towards Green River. We decided we didn’t want to be on the interstate anymore and Dustin had seen a side road on his maps that headed to the city, so we got off at the next exit. The road we finished the ride on turned out to be the most broken and bumpy road I have ever been on that was technically “paved.” I’m pretty sure all of our bikes will require realignment before tomorrow’s ride as everything must have been shaken loose.
We still managed to arrive in town shortly after noon, and spent the rest of our afternoon bumming around town. Green River is a small city that in the heat of the day could be mistaken for a ghost town. We were fortunate to find a coffee shop with amazingly comfortable couches that many people crashed on for a bit. Heat kills, I hope we wake up at 2:30 am tomorrow to beat the heat on our first of two back to back century rides across the Utah desert. Three cheers for coppertone!
Day 39 – Torrey, UT – 109 miles
The theme for today was “Beat the Heat.” The arid climate we are riding in is not a good place for cyclist to be spending long hours in the sun. We woke at 4:00 am and with some pushing, we were on the road by 5:30 am, headlights and taillights flashing. It was fortunate we got out so early since we had a decent climb out of town that took us until around 6:30, when the sun finally crested the mountains to the east. We enjoyed a mostly flat or downhill ride to lunch at mile 50, seeing two badgers along the way and a an assortment of desert plant life. We decided not to take the side trip to Goblin Valley State Park after Marc told us that it was a 22 mile detour. Several members of the team who were riding behind us did not get this message however and took the turn leading to a 130+ mile day. Some of these riders finished the day around 8 o’clock pm while a few had to be picked up before the final climb into Torrey because it was getting too late. After lunch we continued on our way through the desolate terrain, at which time I got my second flat of the trip. Luckily I have had a decent amount of practice in changing tires by now, and it did not cause much of a setback. The ride led us through Capitol Reef State Park which had some beautiful canyon views and even provided a decent swimming hole by a small waterfall. We were so excited by mile 94 that we had a place to swim, we ditched our bikes and ran down in our shorts to the water where several local kids were jumping off the waterfall into the water below. Naturally as soon as Colin, Jesse, Mike and I saw this we had to follow suit while Dustin took some amazing pictures shown below. Our fun was unfortunately brought to an end by the arrival of a park ranger who pointed out a sign telling us we can’t have any fun of any sort inside the park perimeter. Go figure.
Back on our bikes we quickly (relatively speaking) ascended into Torrey where we stopped at Slackers at a tip from the kids at the swimming hole to get shakes and burgers. Needless to say the food we received was unreasonably delicious and a wonderful addition to the pasta dinner we would be making for ourselves later in the evening. At our host we found a lack of showers so Colin and I set off to inquire with locals about a place to get the grime off. After an hour of searching and several failed attempts (RV parks requested $5 a shower, yeah right) we returned to the church, dejected and prepared for our punishment of the icy cold hose on the front lawn. I can only describe this experience in the words of Grace: “It is like being molested by a polar bear.” I could not describe it any better. After lots of shivering and clenched teeth we retreated to the church where our quarters were so small, people were sleeping both on and under pews, while still crowding one another. With Bike and Build, there is no such thing as personal space. I love it.
Medical Update: Scotty and Shane took today off to ride in the van and heal their wounds. Shane has some pretty intense road rash and Scotty went to the clinic where an x-ray revealed he had a fractured ulna, aka a broken wrist. They were able to fit a splint on him though and said he would be able to ride on as soon as his bruised ankle starts feeling better.
Day 40 – Panguitch, UT – 111 miles
Today we slept in to the late hour of 4:40 am because everyone needed their beauty rest. We were still on the road by 6:00 am to a surprisingly brisk temperature of around 50 degrees. Definitely unexpected but welcomed with open arms. We had covered a cheerful 1.5 miles when Matt got his first flat of the day. Dustin, Colin and I were riding with Matt, Luke and Mike today as Shane and Colin were spending another afternoon recouping from their “pavement encounter” on the ride into Green River. No big deal, we patched it quickly and went on our way. The morning held lots of climbing as we rose to over 8,000 ft by mile 25. We cranked out another quick 25 miles getting to lunch, mostly downhill but with a few decent climbs along the way, and Matt’s second flat in the middle of the major climb. Most of the afternoon passed swiftly and without much to tell. We took a break at mile 84 where we found an abandoned building to seek shelter in. After another stop for the official second lunch at mile 92 we were chased by storm clouds into a canyon where we were sheltered from the wind. Exiting the canyon, we found that the fates were not favoring us and the wind had shifted so that the storm was once again bearing down on us. Almost on cue, Matt struck irony gold with his third flat of the day. We patched it as quickly as we could but still managed to get a little wet, though the bulk of the storm was being held at bay. We rode into town as quickly as we can, trying to avoid being soaked, but so thankful that it was overcast and not the unreal heat from the day before.
Our host, the “Social Hall” of Panguitch, did not have showers and our only option was to use the showers at a rodeo about 2 miles away. Our desire to not set foot on a bicycle for the rest of the day kept us from making the commute, instead taking sink showers as best possible and looking forward to better facilities tomorrow. Hygene really has seemed to take a back seat to convenience and I am ok with that. Hope my bad habits don’t carry back to Gainesville too much.
Day 41 – Milford, UT – 82 miles
Relative to our previous rides, today was short and swift. We awoke at 5:00 am to be on the road by 6:30, backtracking our way ten miles to SR 20. As Scotty and Shane were back on their bikes this morning because Scott managed to attach aero bars to his bike so he can ride with the soft cast while Shane was toughing out the road rash. Scott took it slow with sweep while the rest of us tried to make it as short a day as possible, riding with the Slayers for the first 25 miles of the day. There were some significant climbs up to the 25 mile mark, along which I found my best souvenir yet: the rattle off of a road-kill rattlesnake. On the descent into lunch at mile 45, Colin and I combined our forces to try and break new speed records with different tuck and drafting techniques known as “the slingshot.” With a little help and some pretty steep drops, I am proud to say that I finally reached my 50 mph goal. Some riders manage this on an almost daily basis (though how eludes me) but be it an untrustworthy speedometer or an insufficient body mass, I have been unable to do so until now. The rest of the ride was spent at top speed getting to Milford where the father of Colin’s roommate was able to score us hotel rooms! Not just the 6-to-a-room style at the Riverfront in Lawrence. We are talking about 10 singles and 20 doubles. I don’t even know what to do with all the space I have available. After two months of sleeping on the floor next to several other people, I feel quite secluded and I’m both loving it and kind of missing the company in an odd sort of way. Nonetheless, we passed our afternoon all packed into Colin’s room eating chips and salsa while watching the Yankees dominate the Red Sox. I am not a big baseball fan but I definitely enjoyed a relaxing afternoon inside, safe from the intense storms that rolled into town in the early afternoon. Some downtime is exactly what everyone needed and I think we will be ready to tackle tomorrows ride starting bright and early.
-Ecstatic to be in a real bed
Day 42 – Great Basin National Park, NV – 91 miles
We pealed ourselves out of our wonderful beds this morning as usual and set off for Nevada. We had a surprising 4 major climbs over the course of the ride: three ridges and a climb into Great Basin National Park. Our first shock came when we passed over the first ridge and saw the straightest and road that must have ever been build stretching from the pass, down and across a barren valley, and up and over another ridge about 18 miles away (we clocked it). I’ve never felt so out of place in a certain terrain. There was a similar valley over the next pass and one house in each of the valleys. It is impossible to tell distance in such surroundings. We spotted the lunch trailer from the top of the second ridge and guessed it was maybe 3 miles away. 8 miles later we finally pulled into the small clearing where the trailer was parked, go figure. The rest of the ride was fairly quick after the third ridge climb. We passed the Nevada border around mile 78 and descended into a small town at the foot of the park where we stopped for about an hour to enjoy some ice cream in the shade. It began clouding up so we packed it up and made for the 8 mile climb into the park. The climb was about 8% grade so it took us close to an hour to reach our campsite, just in time for the clouds to open up and the storming to begin. Thank goodness Paul had been their earlier and set up our tents already. Luke made a roaring fire to keep us warm as the temperature dropped and we attempted to make our burrito dinner in the rain. Slightly soggy, we polished off all the beans and rice swiftly and most everyone was out cold by the time the sun snuck behind the mountains.
Day 43 – Ely, NV – 74 miles
The day began about 5:45 with our usual wakeup call. Everyone packed up pretty quickly despite the remaining wetness from last night’s rain. The group split up during route meeting into three parts for the day: those who were heading strait for Ely, those who wanted to check out the famous caves the park had to offer, and the Dustin-Marc duo that went to conquer Mt. Wheeler, Nevada’s highest peak at about 13 thousand feet. I tagged along with the spelunking team and headed for the visitor center. We got a early-bird tour at 8 o’clock of the cave system which was fascinating as well as frigid, at a constant 50 degrees. After the cave tour we grabbed a quick bite of breakfast before heading out for the day. The boys were all split up because Shane was on sweep, Colin woke up sick and so took the van to Ely, Dustin was climbing a mountain, and Scott was taking it slow because of his arm. Therefore, I decided to take my second solo ride of the summer to see how much physical improvement I made. I left the visitor center for the park around 10 am for the long 48 mile ride to lunch including two big passes and an outrageously long valley crossing. It was fun and I managed to catch up with 6 riders from the original group before reaching lunch at the peak of the second pass, though I realized the value in having a group to talk with or pace your ride against. I finished the ride from lunch riding with Hoops, Grace and Molly into a ridiculous headwind. With some pushing we made it to our host at Ely in time to avoid the looming rain clouds, where we set up camp in the basement filled with what appeared to be a yard sale in progress. We took showers at the truck stop again, which I’ve discovered are not as bad as you would expect. Anything is welcome after two days of riding without cleaning off.
Colin and I met up with Jesse and Neal on our way back from the showers in order to settle my cravings for Chinese food and offer some protein to supplement our otherwise carb-packed diet. We enjoyed a second dinner about an hour later back at the church of (surprise surprise) spaghetti!!! In good carb-loading fashion we tucked in and hit the sack soon there.
Day 44 – Eureka, NV – 84 miles
Today was a four-pass day. Not too long, but plenty of vertical to keep us busy. The ride itself was fairly non-descript. More of the same on hwy 50. Only real events to relate are with respect to motorists we met on the road. At our lunch break we were stopped at the top of the second pass when a white Jetta pulls up next to us and a couple gets out. Generally Dustin and I seem to be the meet and greet team whenever someone is curious about what we are doing, so we mosied over the see what the issue was. The couple turned out to be Dean and Tiff with the worlds cutest Pomeranian puppy, Gracie. They were a pair of cyclists who had seen our group along the road and wanted to take a break on their drive back to Reno. We explained what we are doing and commented that we were going to be in Sparks in a few days, just outside of Reno, but didn’t know where we were staying yet. After talking to the friendly couple for about a half hour, Tiff said she would try to help us find lodging and food during our build day break. We exchange information and cross our fingers that we may soon have a lawn to pitch a tent on and maybe, just maybe, a single shower we can all share.
Our second encounter was when a car passed us farther down route 50 with someone clapping and shouting “go bike and build!” Now we are used to random excitement from strangers but most don’t know who we are, so Dustin pulls over to introduce himself. Small world, because as it turns out the driver was a bike and builder who just finished the central US route a few days earlier and was driving back east. Weird.
In town we were given the opportunity to shower at the community pool, where we got talking to the head lifeguard/manager of the pool. She offered to let us sleep in the facilities as they were indoors and handed me her keys to the building, under the agreement that I leave them under a rock outside when we went to leave. We decided to sleep with the group in the tents but we did use the pool building to watch the Big Labowski first. Eureka really is appropriately named “the friendliest city on the loneliest highway.
Day 45 – Austin, NV – 70 miles
Today’s ride was largely uneventful, attempting to leave bright and early though the dawn brought such a cold that we took refuge in a diner for an hour after route meeting until it warmed up enough to brave the ride. Once again the desert proved it’s unappealing nature with 60+ degree temperature swings over the course of the day. Within an hour of the sun coming up it was up to 75 degrees and an hour later it was a full heat. We took it slow today as it was a shorter day with only two passes – so we thought. Turns out the second pass was actually a double which had a false pass at about 6,400 feet followed by one at 6,600 feet. It was quite a climb but we were rewarded with an amazing downhill into Austin in which Matt sat on my rear wheel and we bombed down around a series of sharp twists and turns that were way too exhilarating. We reached the bottom of the hill and the church/RV park (unique combo I know) where we were greeted with a barrage of water balloons from the slayers and others who had arrived first. Fortunately for us we were under attack by cyclists and not baseball players and so only one or two balloons found their targets. The accommodations were fine but cramped because renovations were taking place and stuff was everywhere. The weather was great so several people even pitched tents outside. We enjoyed some of the finest burritos I think bike and build has ever made and promptly headed for bed, preparing for our final planned century of the trip.
Day 46 – Fallon, NV – 114 miles
Today’s ride merits a small novel unto itself, but it seems when I go to write down the day’s events I can only recall a few notable moments. The point is that it seems we were on our bikes forever, though we were still stuck in Nevada landscape. We began the day with a 4:30 wakeup call into the brisk desert morning weather. It didn’t seem too cold at first but we began with a steep descent that left us zooming into a valley that was around 50 degrees according to my thermometer. The sun was up by this point but it wasn’t until we began our only major pass of the day around mile 21 that it finally got warm enough to remove layers. Colin still wasn’t feeling quite right today due to the stomach issue that’s been passed around over the recent weeks, so we kept it in low gear and made plenty of snack breaks along the way. Highlights for the day: (1) Mile 63 we hit the “shoe tree.” This is a tree out in the middle of nowhere that motorists took the time to stop and discard massive quantities of old sneakers, boots, and even high-heels onto the branches. (2) We were given a private air show as we crossed the training grounds of the naval air base. Jets streaked overhead and performed ridiculous maneuvers while we chugged along on the winding road below. A few jets even fired a few blanks or flares during the fly-bys. (3) After an explosive flat tire blew on Jesse’s bike, we cut across a large expanse of salt flats. This is a sandy area where nothing grows because the salt is so concentrated you can see the crystals glinting from the road.
We somehow made it (somehow) to our hosts at the United Methodist Church around 5:15, just in time to enjoy a quick shower at the community pool across the road before a delicious dinner of sloppy joes, corn, beans, and fresh watermelon was served. We were so hungry that most of had to go lay down directly following the meal because we chowed down so much. Now for a brief night’s sleep before the final ride of our intense 10 day stretch across Utah and Nevada. Reno here we come.
Day 47 – Reno, NV – 71 miles
Today we finally returned to civilization. We enjoyed a delicious breakfast of fresh fruit, eggs and muffins, three things that blow our usual breakfast of solidified oatmeal out of the water. We finished out our time on Hwy 50 (finally) and got onto I-80 in the town of Fernley. We took a quick snack break, finishing off the muffins from breakfast, and then Luke and I got on the interstate and bolted for Sparks. We made it in short order to Sparks where we met up with the rest of the group and our host for the weekend Tiff at a quick stop just off the road. We found out there that the reason we hadn’t seen anyone following us on the road was that there had been an accident back at a construction area in the road and that several riders were detained by the highway patrol for over an hour before they could complete the ride. Luckily no one was seriously injured, though several riders got in the van to nurse wounds and road rash. We jumped on a bike path that ran through town and into the heart of Reno, eventually arriving at Idlewild Park where a picnic lunch was waiting for us courtesy of local sandwich shops that was set up by Dean and Tiff. We enjoyed the beautiful weather for a bit, eventually making our way to the house of Marilee where several of us were to be staying for the weekend. She was amazingly generous to let 8 strangers take over her floor space for 48 hours and can’t be thanked enough. While at the park we had met Brian, a friend of Dean and Tiff, who took Dustin, Colin, Jesse and I to the river nearby for a dip before dinner. We got back just in time for delicious burritos donated by a local shop. We watched clips from past stages of the Tour de France while we munched which was amazing because everyone actually got really excited. Nothing like bike nerds having fun. After dinner we hit up the Blockbuster and enjoyed a private showing of The Usual Suspects before passing out for the evening. Perfection.
Build Day – Reno, NV
We awoke bright and early at 5:45 am for our half day 7 – 11 am build. The build itself went well with most people working on siding, painting or sheetrock. I forgot how frustrating hanging sheetrock can be if not done properly, but it was nice to see the house come a little closer to finish. I saw one of the saddest sights of the trip today unfortunately, as the habitat house two down from the one we were working on had been recently broken into and burned down, only a week before the expectant owner was to move in. I can’t believe someone could be so malicious and spiteful. Dustin and I mused over possible motivation for such an attack on either the individual, the organization or the community as a group. Its easy to see how such an act could take the wind out of the sails of a habitat chapter, and I can only hope that it does not put too much of a dark cloud over the good that the volunteers are trying to accomplish.
After the build we all convened at a park in downtown Reno. We had some time to kill so several of us went with Brian to the Cal Neva for a real Nevada gambling experience. We enjoyed learning the finer points of Blackjack from a friendly dealer and played for quite some time with some wins and some losses. As soon as the dealer’s break came and a new stony-faced dealer took over, the game sped up 5 fold and we all quickly found ourselves devoid of a chip stack. Regardless, we had a great time a returned to the park just in time to enjoy a donated lunch of gourmet pizza while we watched tubers and kayakers frolic in the river that flowed by.
We stopped by a bike shop on the way back to the house to stock up on tubes and for a new tire because my back wheel decided that it only had enough rubber for around 4,500 miles. Such a shame, but we did a serious bicycle maintenance session in the front yard to get our chariots tuned up for the final push to the Pacific. Dinner was a delicious Italian smorgasbord supplied by several local restaurants held at Dean and Tiff’s house. We discussed grant applications over dinner and continued to debate which housing organizations would receive the $9,000 we have left to give after the majority of our fundraising went to fully fund a house in Providence. After dinner entertainment took place in the cul-de-sac in the form of double dutch, pogo-sticking and finally a poi demonstration by Dean and Brian. As fire is always a big hit, two guys swinging flaming balls on the end of chains was enough to get our blood pumping. Before jumping into the ‘ol sleeping bag, I rode down to blockbuster to drop off the movie we rented last night, and in the process got a phenomenal view of the city lit up against the backdrop of the Nevada mountains. It was an beautiful sight, almost a miniature Las Vegas as seen from a low flying plane. I am glad we are back to civilization though I know I will soon be missing the vast expanse of nothing that was our last 10 days of riding.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Red Rocks
Day 37 – Moab, UT – 85 days
Our last day in Colorado brought an outstanding ride of changing scenery. We had an extended descent for the first 26 miles of the ride, heading directly west towards the La Sal Mountains and dropping close to 1,000 ft in elevation. On either side of us was a sheer faced canyon which sported red-rock walls and a wide valley for us to ride down. The group was pretty bunched up at first so the Boys of Summer (Dustin, Colin, Shane, Scott and Myself as we were dubbed by the other riders) decided to step up the pace and we flew through the ride much quicker than usual. At mile 36 we entered Utah, our third to last state, and did the traditional taking of silly pictures at the state sign. We enjoyed two substantial climbs over the day up to an elevation of about 7,300 ft as we passed the La Sal Mountains to the south around mile 50. We descended for the majority of the ride that remained, and as we rounded the mountains and began to head north, we officially entered the Utah desert. Scenery changed almost instantly it seemed to an arid red sand and stone terrain that led us down into some phenomenally beautiful canyons that were rather narrow and wound across the countryside towards Moab. We arrived in town by 1:30 and enjoyed some time off by checking out the main street and all the fun a medium sized city could offer that we hadn’t seen since Ft Collins.
For dinner, our hosts at St. Pius X Church set out a great spread of hamburgers and hotdogs followed by our usual presentation which my group was in charge of this week. Afterwards we had a Bike and Build version of “Coffee Talk” with the priest who was a founder of the Moab Housing Coalition. I very much enjoyed the round table discussion of the roots of not only poverty housing, but homelessness and general social distress. It was fascinating to hear everyone’s input as well as those from individuals outside of our team. Having discussions such as these has been one of my favorite parts of the trip relevant to our cause. Dialogue is what our mission is all about. Opening peoples’ eyes to the social problems we are facing domestically and inspiring them to take individual action. I can’t wait until our Affordable Housing meeting on Thursday to continue the discussion.
Our last day in Colorado brought an outstanding ride of changing scenery. We had an extended descent for the first 26 miles of the ride, heading directly west towards the La Sal Mountains and dropping close to 1,000 ft in elevation. On either side of us was a sheer faced canyon which sported red-rock walls and a wide valley for us to ride down. The group was pretty bunched up at first so the Boys of Summer (Dustin, Colin, Shane, Scott and Myself as we were dubbed by the other riders) decided to step up the pace and we flew through the ride much quicker than usual. At mile 36 we entered Utah, our third to last state, and did the traditional taking of silly pictures at the state sign. We enjoyed two substantial climbs over the day up to an elevation of about 7,300 ft as we passed the La Sal Mountains to the south around mile 50. We descended for the majority of the ride that remained, and as we rounded the mountains and began to head north, we officially entered the Utah desert. Scenery changed almost instantly it seemed to an arid red sand and stone terrain that led us down into some phenomenally beautiful canyons that were rather narrow and wound across the countryside towards Moab. We arrived in town by 1:30 and enjoyed some time off by checking out the main street and all the fun a medium sized city could offer that we hadn’t seen since Ft Collins.
For dinner, our hosts at St. Pius X Church set out a great spread of hamburgers and hotdogs followed by our usual presentation which my group was in charge of this week. Afterwards we had a Bike and Build version of “Coffee Talk” with the priest who was a founder of the Moab Housing Coalition. I very much enjoyed the round table discussion of the roots of not only poverty housing, but homelessness and general social distress. It was fascinating to hear everyone’s input as well as those from individuals outside of our team. Having discussions such as these has been one of my favorite parts of the trip relevant to our cause. Dialogue is what our mission is all about. Opening peoples’ eyes to the social problems we are facing domestically and inspiring them to take individual action. I can’t wait until our Affordable Housing meeting on Thursday to continue the discussion.
Day Off – Moab, UT – 35 miles
Days off from any activity are meant to be relaxing and a change of pace. So to mix things up Colin, Jesse, and myself woke up at 5:15 and left the church by 5:50 am on a quest for Arches National Park before the sun came up and started baking the land. The ride in was gorgeous despite two climbs that took us upwards over 1,500 ft on our 16 mile ride to the Windows section of the park. We spent about an hour walking around this area, exploring and taking pictures of the enormous holes created in the sandstone by water and wind before Scott, Sarah, Shane and Shannon showed up and we all continued exploring. We were debating on if we wanted to bike further into the park since it had gotten so hot by that point, when Marc and friends showed up with the van, so we bummed a ride down to Delicate Arch, the formation featured on all Utah license plates and the most photographed of all arches. After getting dropped off back at the Windows, we hopped on our bikes and sped back down to Moab where we gobbled down some lunch, entertained showers, and enjoyed a leisurely afternoon wandering around town and taking care of the various things that we needed for the coming 10 days of consecutive riding. All things bicycle related break after a certain amount of use, we have discovered. The mouthpiece of camelbacks are notorious for springing leaks or tearing, which mine finally did (despite the ridiculous mold colonies growing inside it, aka my pets) so I had to pay a visit to the local bike shop for replacements. We finished the day with another amazing meal, this time of fried chicken provided by our hosts before hitting the hay and getting rested up for tomorrow’s assault on the Utah highways.
-Monsieur Finklesteinowitz
Days off from any activity are meant to be relaxing and a change of pace. So to mix things up Colin, Jesse, and myself woke up at 5:15 and left the church by 5:50 am on a quest for Arches National Park before the sun came up and started baking the land. The ride in was gorgeous despite two climbs that took us upwards over 1,500 ft on our 16 mile ride to the Windows section of the park. We spent about an hour walking around this area, exploring and taking pictures of the enormous holes created in the sandstone by water and wind before Scott, Sarah, Shane and Shannon showed up and we all continued exploring. We were debating on if we wanted to bike further into the park since it had gotten so hot by that point, when Marc and friends showed up with the van, so we bummed a ride down to Delicate Arch, the formation featured on all Utah license plates and the most photographed of all arches. After getting dropped off back at the Windows, we hopped on our bikes and sped back down to Moab where we gobbled down some lunch, entertained showers, and enjoyed a leisurely afternoon wandering around town and taking care of the various things that we needed for the coming 10 days of consecutive riding. All things bicycle related break after a certain amount of use, we have discovered. The mouthpiece of camelbacks are notorious for springing leaks or tearing, which mine finally did (despite the ridiculous mold colonies growing inside it, aka my pets) so I had to pay a visit to the local bike shop for replacements. We finished the day with another amazing meal, this time of fried chicken provided by our hosts before hitting the hay and getting rested up for tomorrow’s assault on the Utah highways.
-Monsieur Finklesteinowitz
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Of Splashes and Bluegrass
Day 35 – Montrose, CO – 65 miles
Today we recovered from our past three rides through the Rockies, and it couldn’t come at a better time. A relatively short ride gave us plenty of time to enjoy ourselves along the route after an amazingly late wakeup of 7:00 am. Sam heard from a local that there was a great reservoir along our route for the day so at mile 15, twenty two of our riders pulled off to explore a park along the reservoir. After some searching and a fifteen minute hike, Luke and Paul found a rock outcropping that we all clambered down to do some cliff jumping. Now this may sound a little bit dangerous, but trust me we are professionals and checked the water before making out 25-ish foot descents into the brisk water below. We spent about two hours practicing our flying abilities, drawing a small crowd of boaters to watch, and taking ridiculous pictures in mid-air. Though the water was cold it was perfectly refreshing on a hot day, and we had to eventually peel ourselves away so as to make it in a somewhat timely manner to lunch.
The ride was pretty flat and followed a reservoir for about the first thirty miles, but there were two pretty decent climbs and descents involved. The first of which began around mile 30 as we caught up to a group of 7 fully-loaded touring cyclists from the North Carolina area. We rode with them to the top of the hill, and I’m ashamed to say that I felt more out of breath by the time we reached the top than the other group looked. We enjoyed about a 5 mile descent, stopping halfway for lunch and completing the run at top speed to try and avoid storms that were very threatening and even started to sprinkle before we made it out of harms way. One more 4 mile climb followed and we reached the top about mile 50 to have our first view of a strait shot out of the Rockies. We were all so excited to see flat land laid out in front of us that we got into the tightest tucks possible and bombed down the 15 miles descent into Montrose, at some points reaching speeds in excess of 48 mph.
As an evening treat for a week well done, we all piled into the party van and went downtown to catch the 10 o’clock showing of Dark Knight which was AMAZING. Everyone had a blast and crashed as soon as we got back to the church to get ready for tomorrows build.
Build Day – Montrose, CO – 0 miles
We went into today’s build with the impression that there were not going to be many jobs available for us to do. We were proven wrong and stayed very busy all afternoon doing jobs such as putting windows into one house, installing insulation, framing a second house, raising the walls and putting up the plywood around it. Katie, Paul and I were put to the task of building a shed behind the house being framed. This turned out to be a much larger job as I anticipated as we were building it essentially as a smaller version of the house, doing everything from building a foundation to framing walls. We had a bunch of fun and returned to the church for showers before the Habitat chapter threw a block-party event for us in which there was a pot-luck feast and live bluegrass band playing all the essentials. We all had a blast dancing and practicing our spoon-playing abilities and it seems everyone is revitalized and ready to tackle a few more ride days on our way into Utah.
Today we recovered from our past three rides through the Rockies, and it couldn’t come at a better time. A relatively short ride gave us plenty of time to enjoy ourselves along the route after an amazingly late wakeup of 7:00 am. Sam heard from a local that there was a great reservoir along our route for the day so at mile 15, twenty two of our riders pulled off to explore a park along the reservoir. After some searching and a fifteen minute hike, Luke and Paul found a rock outcropping that we all clambered down to do some cliff jumping. Now this may sound a little bit dangerous, but trust me we are professionals and checked the water before making out 25-ish foot descents into the brisk water below. We spent about two hours practicing our flying abilities, drawing a small crowd of boaters to watch, and taking ridiculous pictures in mid-air. Though the water was cold it was perfectly refreshing on a hot day, and we had to eventually peel ourselves away so as to make it in a somewhat timely manner to lunch.
The ride was pretty flat and followed a reservoir for about the first thirty miles, but there were two pretty decent climbs and descents involved. The first of which began around mile 30 as we caught up to a group of 7 fully-loaded touring cyclists from the North Carolina area. We rode with them to the top of the hill, and I’m ashamed to say that I felt more out of breath by the time we reached the top than the other group looked. We enjoyed about a 5 mile descent, stopping halfway for lunch and completing the run at top speed to try and avoid storms that were very threatening and even started to sprinkle before we made it out of harms way. One more 4 mile climb followed and we reached the top about mile 50 to have our first view of a strait shot out of the Rockies. We were all so excited to see flat land laid out in front of us that we got into the tightest tucks possible and bombed down the 15 miles descent into Montrose, at some points reaching speeds in excess of 48 mph.
As an evening treat for a week well done, we all piled into the party van and went downtown to catch the 10 o’clock showing of Dark Knight which was AMAZING. Everyone had a blast and crashed as soon as we got back to the church to get ready for tomorrows build.
Build Day – Montrose, CO – 0 miles
We went into today’s build with the impression that there were not going to be many jobs available for us to do. We were proven wrong and stayed very busy all afternoon doing jobs such as putting windows into one house, installing insulation, framing a second house, raising the walls and putting up the plywood around it. Katie, Paul and I were put to the task of building a shed behind the house being framed. This turned out to be a much larger job as I anticipated as we were building it essentially as a smaller version of the house, doing everything from building a foundation to framing walls. We had a bunch of fun and returned to the church for showers before the Habitat chapter threw a block-party event for us in which there was a pot-luck feast and live bluegrass band playing all the essentials. We all had a blast dancing and practicing our spoon-playing abilities and it seems everyone is revitalized and ready to tackle a few more ride days on our way into Utah.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Taste the Rockies
Day 32 – Granby, CO – 64 miles
Today was one of the most beautiful and scenic days I have been fortunate enough to witness in my short 21 years of life. We awoke at the ripe hour of 4:30 am to get our gear packed up and get into the park before the gate guards arrived and began charging $10 a head. Not a very good price when there are more than 30 of us going through. Before we even left the church parking lot though, we were greeted by a friendly ungulate in the form of an enormous elk walking by. He did not seem too bothered by us gaping at him so we got in close and took a few good pictures before setting off on our skyward journey.
We made it into Rocky Mountain National Park by 6:45 am, early enough to elude the watchful eye of park rangers and began our ascent of Trail Ridge Road, the highest continuously paved highway in the United States. Amazingly enough, we made pretty good time up the entire 20 mile climb, averaging between 6 and 8 mph on most of the sections. The views were incredible up the entire ride, so I will not even begin to attempt a description, but everyone’s cameras seemed to be out as much as not. Highlights of the ride include playing in the snow at the peak of the mountains, Dustin sledding down the snow embankment on his rain jacket, seeing a marmot for the first time, an enormous herd of about 50 elk in the tundra, riding above the Timberline, an amazing descent out of the park, standing on the continental divide, and nearly running into an enormous bull elk I spooked while plunging down a big hill. It was amazing that it took us about four hours to reach the top of a 20 mile climb to 12,183 ft, and about 40 minutes to descend out of the park. It was also surprising to see how many cyclists were out for the day riding the course for fun. Definitely more than your average ride. All in all the day was beyond amazing, and it seemed we couldn’t keep our jaws from hanging open at the views we were catching. It was even sweeter too because we felt we earned the rewards by paying in sweat. I’m sure the day will go down as one of, if not THE greatest ride of our summers.
Day 33 – Leadville, CO – 103 miles
Today we decided it would be a good idea to ride a century in the Rocky Mountains. To accomplish this task, we awoke at 4:30 am to get an extra-early start on the day and learned that it is cold in the morning when you are in the mountains. VERY cold. As we sped away from the church shortly after 6:00 am, I checked the temperature on my cyclocomputer to discover an ambient temperature of 38 degrees! This is cold enough when standing still, but add a 20 mph wind chill from the bicycles an you have a recipe for freezing. I cannot describe how cold we are, as even the Canadian on our trip was frozen solid. Fingers and toes that were exposed to the air ached in a way that I have never even experienced in a snow-skiing setting. After a blustering 10 miles we reached the next small town as a group and immediately fled into the first diner we saw and decided to wait out the cold. Enormous mugs of hot chocolate and fantastic breakfasts were enough to instill courage in us to head back outside 45 minutes late into now 50 degree weather. Since the sun had come up, the temperature quickly rose as we made our way towards what we believed to be our impending doom. Nothing is worse than thinking that a huge climb is coming. We had been told to expect two large climbs over passes during the day, so we were constantly on edge looking for the road to head off over mountain peaks where they were likely buried in snow still. But to our relief, no such climb came until very late in the day. We spent most of our day riding in the valley between mountains, stopping once for a slurpee break when we saw a gas station on our route. We even were fortunate enough to spend several miles on bike paths today. Colorado has gained even more points in everyone’s eyes because it is so bicycle friendly.
At our second lunch stop after a beautiful ride through a canyon, we met a representative from SRAM (a bicycle components company) who was helping out at a Specialized Bicycle fair where buyers from all over the world come to test out bikes from the same company who sponsored us this year. After a few pictures, we got back on the road and finally found our climb. We headed up for several mile, eventually reaching the summit of Fremont Pass at 11,318 ft where Climax Molybdenum was located. An interesting point about this pass we learned, was that it was the western bound of the Louisiana purchase in 1803, and therefore the westernmost part of the United States. We crested the pass and flew down the next 12 miles into Leadville, the highest incorporated city in America at 10,200 ft. Our host for the night provided an incredible chili dinner which everyone devoured after our long century ride. Its just hard to believe that in a few short hours we will be waking up to do it all again. Yikes.
Day 34 – Gunnison, CO – 119 miles
Once again we must prove our level of hard-core in an unnecessarily long day of riding. A 119 mile ride is very long in any terrain, but in the Rocky Mountains it becomes a whole different ball game. We began in Leadville a little later than yesterday in order to avoid the frigid cold and allow the sun to warm things up a bit, but it was still mid-50s when we shoved off on the day’s ride. We started things off quick with a 40 mile dash to the first lunch stop. I say dash because it was mostly downhill or neutral terrain and I had an average speed of 22 mph when we pulled into our stop. This was only broken by not one, but two flats at mile 20; one for Matt and one for Shane. At least we are getting very fast at our flat-changing.
After lunch, the ride was pretty quick, with some beautiful scenery of the surrounding mountains. We passed both Mt. Harvard and Mt. Yale which are part of the collegiate mountains. At about mile 58 we passed through a small town and the road turned up in the beginning ascent of Monarch Pass. After passing over Trail Ridge Road, we figured that everything else would be a breeze. Monarch Pass proved us very wrong. We climbed for about 15 miles at a grade that was much steeper than that in Rocky Mountain National Park in many places. Eventually, after spending far too much time in our granny gears, we reached the summit of 11,312 ft at mile 75 to find Mo camped out with supplies for more PB&Js as well as a small shop where we feasted on hotdogs for a change of pace and a celebration for cresting the top.
Back on our bikes, we bombed down the mountain at an average of 35-40 mph, covering the distance that took us about two hours on the way up in less than 20 minutes going down. Nevertheless, there is still nothing as exciting as rocketing around corners at those speeds. Definitely worth the climb. The remainder of our epic day was spend pounding out the miles over rolling hills as we headed west through a valley towards Gunnison and eventually Utah. When we arrived in Gunnison, we had expected to be camping out on the campus of Western State University, but to our delight found that Jess had scored us a place to stay at a nearby church. As we had a bit of light rain on our ride into town we were beyond excited for this news. Dinner was hosted by the local Habitat chapter and was definitely some of the best food we have received on the trip. Eggplant Florentine was served if that is any hint on the quality of grub laid out. Great end to a tiring day. Oh yeah, and I showered for the first time in 48 hours and 220 miles. Best feeling in the world.
-Sir Used-To-Smell-Like-Feet-And-Wet-Dog
Today was one of the most beautiful and scenic days I have been fortunate enough to witness in my short 21 years of life. We awoke at the ripe hour of 4:30 am to get our gear packed up and get into the park before the gate guards arrived and began charging $10 a head. Not a very good price when there are more than 30 of us going through. Before we even left the church parking lot though, we were greeted by a friendly ungulate in the form of an enormous elk walking by. He did not seem too bothered by us gaping at him so we got in close and took a few good pictures before setting off on our skyward journey.
We made it into Rocky Mountain National Park by 6:45 am, early enough to elude the watchful eye of park rangers and began our ascent of Trail Ridge Road, the highest continuously paved highway in the United States. Amazingly enough, we made pretty good time up the entire 20 mile climb, averaging between 6 and 8 mph on most of the sections. The views were incredible up the entire ride, so I will not even begin to attempt a description, but everyone’s cameras seemed to be out as much as not. Highlights of the ride include playing in the snow at the peak of the mountains, Dustin sledding down the snow embankment on his rain jacket, seeing a marmot for the first time, an enormous herd of about 50 elk in the tundra, riding above the Timberline, an amazing descent out of the park, standing on the continental divide, and nearly running into an enormous bull elk I spooked while plunging down a big hill. It was amazing that it took us about four hours to reach the top of a 20 mile climb to 12,183 ft, and about 40 minutes to descend out of the park. It was also surprising to see how many cyclists were out for the day riding the course for fun. Definitely more than your average ride. All in all the day was beyond amazing, and it seemed we couldn’t keep our jaws from hanging open at the views we were catching. It was even sweeter too because we felt we earned the rewards by paying in sweat. I’m sure the day will go down as one of, if not THE greatest ride of our summers.
Day 33 – Leadville, CO – 103 miles
Today we decided it would be a good idea to ride a century in the Rocky Mountains. To accomplish this task, we awoke at 4:30 am to get an extra-early start on the day and learned that it is cold in the morning when you are in the mountains. VERY cold. As we sped away from the church shortly after 6:00 am, I checked the temperature on my cyclocomputer to discover an ambient temperature of 38 degrees! This is cold enough when standing still, but add a 20 mph wind chill from the bicycles an you have a recipe for freezing. I cannot describe how cold we are, as even the Canadian on our trip was frozen solid. Fingers and toes that were exposed to the air ached in a way that I have never even experienced in a snow-skiing setting. After a blustering 10 miles we reached the next small town as a group and immediately fled into the first diner we saw and decided to wait out the cold. Enormous mugs of hot chocolate and fantastic breakfasts were enough to instill courage in us to head back outside 45 minutes late into now 50 degree weather. Since the sun had come up, the temperature quickly rose as we made our way towards what we believed to be our impending doom. Nothing is worse than thinking that a huge climb is coming. We had been told to expect two large climbs over passes during the day, so we were constantly on edge looking for the road to head off over mountain peaks where they were likely buried in snow still. But to our relief, no such climb came until very late in the day. We spent most of our day riding in the valley between mountains, stopping once for a slurpee break when we saw a gas station on our route. We even were fortunate enough to spend several miles on bike paths today. Colorado has gained even more points in everyone’s eyes because it is so bicycle friendly.
At our second lunch stop after a beautiful ride through a canyon, we met a representative from SRAM (a bicycle components company) who was helping out at a Specialized Bicycle fair where buyers from all over the world come to test out bikes from the same company who sponsored us this year. After a few pictures, we got back on the road and finally found our climb. We headed up for several mile, eventually reaching the summit of Fremont Pass at 11,318 ft where Climax Molybdenum was located. An interesting point about this pass we learned, was that it was the western bound of the Louisiana purchase in 1803, and therefore the westernmost part of the United States. We crested the pass and flew down the next 12 miles into Leadville, the highest incorporated city in America at 10,200 ft. Our host for the night provided an incredible chili dinner which everyone devoured after our long century ride. Its just hard to believe that in a few short hours we will be waking up to do it all again. Yikes.
Day 34 – Gunnison, CO – 119 miles
Once again we must prove our level of hard-core in an unnecessarily long day of riding. A 119 mile ride is very long in any terrain, but in the Rocky Mountains it becomes a whole different ball game. We began in Leadville a little later than yesterday in order to avoid the frigid cold and allow the sun to warm things up a bit, but it was still mid-50s when we shoved off on the day’s ride. We started things off quick with a 40 mile dash to the first lunch stop. I say dash because it was mostly downhill or neutral terrain and I had an average speed of 22 mph when we pulled into our stop. This was only broken by not one, but two flats at mile 20; one for Matt and one for Shane. At least we are getting very fast at our flat-changing.
After lunch, the ride was pretty quick, with some beautiful scenery of the surrounding mountains. We passed both Mt. Harvard and Mt. Yale which are part of the collegiate mountains. At about mile 58 we passed through a small town and the road turned up in the beginning ascent of Monarch Pass. After passing over Trail Ridge Road, we figured that everything else would be a breeze. Monarch Pass proved us very wrong. We climbed for about 15 miles at a grade that was much steeper than that in Rocky Mountain National Park in many places. Eventually, after spending far too much time in our granny gears, we reached the summit of 11,312 ft at mile 75 to find Mo camped out with supplies for more PB&Js as well as a small shop where we feasted on hotdogs for a change of pace and a celebration for cresting the top.
Back on our bikes, we bombed down the mountain at an average of 35-40 mph, covering the distance that took us about two hours on the way up in less than 20 minutes going down. Nevertheless, there is still nothing as exciting as rocketing around corners at those speeds. Definitely worth the climb. The remainder of our epic day was spend pounding out the miles over rolling hills as we headed west through a valley towards Gunnison and eventually Utah. When we arrived in Gunnison, we had expected to be camping out on the campus of Western State University, but to our delight found that Jess had scored us a place to stay at a nearby church. As we had a bit of light rain on our ride into town we were beyond excited for this news. Dinner was hosted by the local Habitat chapter and was definitely some of the best food we have received on the trip. Eggplant Florentine was served if that is any hint on the quality of grub laid out. Great end to a tiring day. Oh yeah, and I showered for the first time in 48 hours and 220 miles. Best feeling in the world.
-Sir Used-To-Smell-Like-Feet-And-Wet-Dog
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