RTR Day 4: Montrose to Crested Butte

June 18 — Montrose to Crested Butte

92 miles

7:25 ride time

10:55 elapsed time

Started at 6:30

Well, what do you think? Can we ride 92 miles? It is, I think, going to be a looooooooooooooong day.

New strategy: breakfast on our own, in the tent. Bagels and cream cheese (lotsa carbs!). A Naked Juice fruit smoothie for me. For Carol, an experiment: a Monster energy drink.

And then we were off.

RTR 2008 Day 4, Montrose to Crested Butte

When we woke up, the wind was already blowing. Not such a good sign. Jill, who has ridden this stretch before (at least as far as Gunnison), had warned us of the winds and counseled an early start. Riding out of town, we were all greeted by a stiff wind tunneling right down out of the hills east of Montrose. I was in my small chainring, perilously close to being out of gears altogether, riding on the flat.

Except, of course, that it wasn’t flat; we were immediately on a ramp headed up to the first climb of the day, Cerro Summit. The wind had us at a practical stand-still. We were all hunkered down, glued to the wheel in front of us, everyone looking for some sort of draft. It’s so hard, with this many riders — finding other people riding at your pace, and riding consistently, not slowing down, speeding up, weaving, swerving, whatever. I’d find a little pack to settle in with for a few minutes, but then they’d falter and I’d have to pass and go looking for the next pack. Carol was out somewhere ahead of me; I felt like I was riding through sand.

I was struggling not to become completely discouraged; we weren’t even climbing and I couldn’t keep my speed over 10mph. Ninety-two miles? See ya some time around midnight. Wind. It totally blows.

Then the road started tipping up more, and we were climbing up to Cerro Summit. It’s a long, winding ramp that doesn’t look like much, but after four or five miles of it … geez, what a slog. But the pay-off was a sweet downhill into the Cimarron River valley, which was just beautiful. And did I mention that it was downhill?

Unfortunately, another climb was in the offing, this time a 7-mile grunt up to the top of Blue Mesa Summit. But thank god, the wind had quit by now. I made it to the top, passing Carol along the way, and waited for her there.

She got to the top and put her bike down next to mine; I was chatting about the climb and so on, and she wasn’t saying anything. She sat down on a wood fence and was just silent. It hadn’t really been an awful climb; mostly just annoying because it was so dang long and around every curve there was just more of it. But she looked cooked. After a few minutes, she told me that she had totally bonked shortly after Cerro Summit; that she had broken out in a cold sweat on the climb up to Blue Mesa Summit and was now feeling nauseous and really shaky. It was the Monster energy drink; it had given her a huge “up” at the beginning of the day but had now dropped her like a brick. Not good. SOOO not good. MANY miles to go. I felt just terrible for her.

We took a long break until Carol felt like she could get under way again. Now we had another nice, long downhill and I hoped it would give her a respite until she started to feel better. I was feeling good; I would just pull her, for a change.

We came down into another beautiful, narrow river canyon when the State Patrol stopped us. We stood over our bikes on the shoulder for five or ten minutes, wondering what was going on. In true mob fashion, weird rumors started coming back down the line: maybe there had been a bad accident up ahead, and they didn’t want us to see it. I hadn’t seen any accidents yet during the week, although in the bathroom in Montrose I had seen a woman with some bandaging on her shoulder and leg, covering road rash from the crash earlier in the tour.

But as it turned out, we were waiting for a trailer with a wide load to come up the canyon. Just not enough room for all of us!

The rest of the day was awfully long. I kept glancing in my rear-view mirror (mounted on the side of my helmet) to make sure Carol was right behind me. On a long stretch along the Blue Mesa Reservoir I heard her say, Look, we’ve got a tailwind. And sure enough, the grasses along the side of the road were all bending their heads toward the east. It was a huge psychological boost. And with the two climbs behind us, now we were making good time.

We got to the aid station at Sapinero shortly after noon. It had turned hot and although the wind was blowing in the right direction, it was still drying us out. The landscape around the reservoir was open, rocky, and baking in the sun. We scrounged a scrap of shade at the aid station and got something to eat; Carol was still pale, quiet, and feeling very poorly. I was truly wondering if she should considering taking the sag wagon; we had over 50 miles to go.

I led the way to the next aid station, at mile 55, where the DJ was set up and the general party was going on. By this time the wind was blowing whitecaps on the reservoir; still going our way, thank god, but it was so hot and dry. Carol was just spent. We saw a road that curved around the east end of the reservoir and headed back into the wind; it was just too horrible to image that we’d soon be there. Meanwhile, we heard the DJ over the sound system offering a free T-shirt to anyone who would jump in the reservoir; next thing you know, a woman had totally stripped down and was heading into the water. A very popular choice, judging from the roar of approval.

Carol pulled on a lightweight long-sleeve shirt to give her some protection from the sun and reluctantly got back onto her bike. She told me later that she had very nearly decided to sag, but warrior that she is, she gave it another go. Almost immediately we came around a curve to see that our road continued on straight to the east, NOT doubling around the reservoir and back into the wind. We both cheered. We now came into a lush green valley where the Gunnison River flowed into the east end of the reservoir, and shortly after came out onto a high plain blanketed in sagebrush and covered over by the most enormous blue sky.

RIde the Rockies 2008, somewhere west of Gunnison

You know how in the West you come upon those high, open places where you can see the road ahead of you for miles and miles and miles? That’s very intimidating when you’re on a bike.

But the tailwind held true and I kept pulling us along and the miles rolled by until we came into Gunnison. Carol was hanging in; covering up from the sun had helped revive her. We took a shade and rest break, I got my first flat tire on the road just north of town heading up toward Crested Butte, and we re-grouped one last time at the final aid station, still 19 miles from the day’s end.

That last 19 miles was a killer. I was just worn out and the aid station did little to help that. Carol felt better now and offered to take over the pulling and I gladly let her. I had pulled us for 45 miles and was used up. We had lost our tailwind; the wind was now coming down the valley and although there weren’t really any hills to speak of, it was a long, constant uphill until we finally hove into CB.

Tomorrow, however, is a rest day — a beautiful, shining dream to contemplate on those last endless miles. Plus, total bonus, we have two glorious days in a condo up in Mount Crested Butte (the ski resort area) awaiting us. Perfect timing. We showered at Crested Butte High School and changed into our “civvies,” got some food and beer at the community feed (we learned our hard lesson in Telluride: eat as soon as you can), and then finally caught a shuttle bus up the mountain and got checked into the condo.

What a day.

RTR Day 3: Telluride to Montrose

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.)