June 17 — Telluride to Montrose
65 miles
3:49 ride time
5:30 elapsed time
Started at 8:00
Man, it took us FOREVER to get out of Helluride. This morning, we tried just pulling on our sweats and hitting the breakfast line first, before packing up camp, but were still in line for freakin’ ever. The breakfast was not being managed by the school or a local civic group (that was the best; the Optimists in Buena Vista, for example, had it down to a complete science) but by some caterer. I paid $7 for three pancakes. They were out of coffee. I’ll let that sink in for a moment. They … were … out … of … coffee. Thunder of Zeus! There isn’t a court in the land that would have convicted us for rioting.
Fortunately, there was also a guy with a mobile coffee cart who followed us from town to town. I went back to camp to begin breaking things down while Carol stood in line to get us coffee. We had been in the tent getting dressed for maybe a whole five minutes before I managed to knock my coffee over, soaking sleeping bags, pads, and the floor of the tent, not to mention sacrificing the dang coffee in the first place.
I want to go home now, I said.
Finally, at 8:00, we rolled quite thankfully out of town. Take a look at this beautiful picture:
RTR 2008 Day 3, Telluride to Montrose
Mmmm hmmm. That’s right. Fifteen gorgeous miles of downhill. That, my friends, is the way to start your day.
But it was finally dawning on me: it was just going to take, if we were lucky, two solid hours every day between the alarm going off and actually beginning our day’s ride. Those two hours were going to be frustrating, irritating, and worst of all, take place veeeeerrrrryy early, which is not my favorite thing. But oh, then! Once on the bike, life was gonna be grand.
And so it was with our Glorious Downhill from Helluride. We descended rapidly into a sweet river valley that swept us down to the first aid station in Placerville, which we reached in record time. One of the very lovely things about going downhill is that you can take the pressure off your unmentionables for a nice long while. It was a crack-up watching all the various gyrating and wiggling that we were all doing this morning, after yesterday’s long ride, trying to find that last little spot where we could still comfortably sit. At the aid station we did our usual thing, refilled bottles, ate a banana, I stretched some sore butt muscles a bit, and then we headed out to climb Dallas Divide.
What is a “divide?” Is it easier than a pass? But harder than a “summit?” Who knows. The profile made it look like a bit of a hump. But it turned out to be a sweet, easy climb through some just drop-dead unbelievable scenery.
The happy cows of Dallas Divide
Does that fence look pretty fancy? I heard one of the other riders saying that this whole huge chunk of land is part of Ralph Lauren’s ranch.
I was climbing really smoothly and easily this morning, much to my surprise and delight, and waited here for a couple of minutes taking pictures until Carol caught up with me. It was just a short distance from here to the top of the Divide, where we took another picture break.
Just down from the top was the next aid station, but we were feeling so fabulous that we decided to clip back into our pedals and just keep going. And why not? We had nothing but 36 miles of down, down, down to Montrose. It was a ten-mile whiz down to Ridgway, where we stopped for a bite of lunch at the aid station. I discovered the chicken-casear wrap vendor and life was just awfully dang good. We found a spot of shade in the lee of one of the repair trailers (which were set up at every aid station; good for a quick tweak, lube, or major repair, all free), since it was just about high noon, and relaxed and laughed and just shook our heads over our good fortune to be alive.
Cycling rocks.
Thus fortified we re-mounted, took a left turn and headed north from Ridgway to Montrose. I realized that I had forgotten to put my gloves back on, but then thought it might be nice and a little cooler to have them off. All well and good until about three miles later, when we came upon a section of highway that had just been chipped, but not yet sealed. Now THAT seriously sucked. Not only did we have to proceed very slowly (feeling your front wheel start to wash out in a patch of deep chips is not a nice feeling), but I was just sure that some goof ball coming the other way was going to spray all those nasty little rocks right up in my grille. Suddenly the miles were passing very much more slowly, and the early afternoon was getting pretty hot as we came down out of the mountains.
But a few miles later, it was past. We were back on decent roads, I got my gloves put back on (one of the things gloves do for you is cushion the road vibration; which I sure could have used on the chips!) and although by this time we’d picked up a bit of a wind, it was a pretty easy ride the rest of the way to Montrose.
Reflections on Pulling and Sucking, Part II
It was sixteen miles from the last aid station into Montrose, technically downhill, but pretty flat, so it’s not like you could just coast. You could spin in your big gears, on the big ring, which is a lovely thing, I think, but you gotta keep the legs moving. And, as I mentioned, we were into the afternoon headwinds. So drafting became important.
Carol pulled for miles and miles, and I would occasionally spell her. We came upon a guy who was riding at our pace, and the two of us sat behind him for a few minutes. Carol then moved around him to take the pull, out of politeness. He let her do that for, oh, about 45 seconds before he went back around her and took off. Guys mostly didn’t like having women pull them. Whaaaaaaaaaaat ever.
We were in a small pack of about six riders as we came into Montrose. At each traffic light people in their cars would lean out and say, “Where did you come from today?” and “how far have you ridden?” It was just unbelievably cool to say, “Yeah, Telluride; we rode 65 miles,” and they’d be all, like, Wow! Yeah, baby. THAT’S what I’m TALKING about.
Montrose has hosted Ride the Rockies about a kajillion times; they all know the drill and have it down to a science. At Montrose High School the baggage trucks were actually close to the football field, and the showers in the girl’s locker room had hot water. I think I stood under the shower for about 20 minutes, it just felt so wonderful. We were in relatively early in the afternoon, so had plenty of time to pitch camp and get cleaned up. Extra bonus, the location of the beer garden, entertainment, and community dinner was an easy walk. Montrose loves us!
A little humor from our friends in Montrose!
A really great band was playing at Rotary Park, there was cool grass and shade, and we sacked out and snoozed off and on in the warm afternoon. A couple of cold Fat Tires and sizzling hot brats really put us completely into bliss. Hours later, on our way back to the high school, we hit the local Safeway for some supplies (we’re going to fix our OWN dang breakfast tomorrow morning, bagels and cream cheese, thank you very much) and then finished off the day with a couple of cones at Dairy Queen.
We love Montrose !!!!
(P.S. Carol realized at about 1:00 this afternoon that she was missing staff meeting. She was pretty upset about it. Not.)
