Today we entered our fourth state, as we crossed into
Colorado. Today’s ride was another challenge. There seem to be a lot of those
lately. We needed to cross over the San Juan Mountain Range today and that was the first
order of business today, as the first 21 miles were climb miles to get over two
different peaks, both in the 10,200 foot range. The climb was very steep at
times and I spent most of the time in my lowest granny gear, which means only
about 5-6 mph. So, your head starts calculating how many hours it is going to
take, just to get to the peaks and then we had another 56 miles after that. I
don’t know what my heart rate was beating at, as I can’t count that fast!
The scenery was absolutely breath taking today, especially
during the climb. I am including some pics of the valleys we left behind in our
climb. The route had an old narrow gauge railroad track alongside for much of
the climb miles. It is no longer used, but is being saved for historic
purposes. Adam and I also experimented taking some photos of each other while
riding. After the climb, It was a very steep decent to the valley below. It was
very curvy and the road condition was not the best, so we could not let the bike
go as fast as it wanted to. We had to ride the brakes on and off most of the
way down. After the steep descent, most of the 56 miles left was slightly
downhill and we gained a tail wind for a good part of that section. Adam and I
rode together today and we picked up Joel Stehouwer on one of the SAG stops
after the mountain descent. We got in camp about 2:15.
We are staying at a very nice community recreation center,
with 3 basketball/volleyball courts, an exercise/weight room and several
community rooms. It is very nice. We are
all very tired again tonight. I should mention that some of the bikers behind us after the mountain descent got
caught in torrential rain, lighting, and hail storm. Julie’s SAG station had
the rain, but no hail. My group just had a few sprinkles and stayed just ahead
of the storm. We were glad we pushed it to keep ahead of it.
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