Total Mileage: 2455 miles
Happy Fourth of July People!!!
What could be more patriotic than biking across America, flag sticking out of your hydration pack, dressed in a red, white and blue kit while taking in the mountain scenery? It is definitely a hard image to beat (except for my friends who watched the fireworks from the Capitol's rotunda).
We all woke up bright and early because not only did we need to get on the road for our century ride, we also needed to break down tents and shuttle ourselves down the massive gravel driveway. There was an amazing sunrise coming up over the mountain as we scarfed down toasted bagels and espresso.
Marcus has spent the night before, with some help from Kristina, rigging a flag pole to his bike which would hold his 5x8 foot flag. When we made it down to the road we saw what he had been up to, wished him good luck and then my group and I headed off.
We definitely got off to a rough start. First we did battle with some headwinds which is a rough way to start a morning. From there we started climbing and climbing, with a sporadic downhill. Unfortunately with the amount of climbing we also had to deal with less oxygen. This coupled with only eating a bagel for breakfast lead to a serious case of bonking i.e. when you have no energy left and are about to pass out.
The views through the canyons were spectacular. We did come across the Abiquiu Lake which was beautiful.
After what seemed like eons, and to new honest it was only about 35 miles, we came across first lunch. Our group was happy to hear that a lot of people were having as much trouble as we were and while we were at the back of the pack almost the entire team was still at lunch.
After lunch our group headed off this time with Marcus and we made our way over the hills. The one good part about going up is that you usually get a great view on the way down which definitely makes up for the climbs, at least most of the time. The next town we hit was about ten miles down the road and unfortunately Holly needed to be vanned so Marcus, his flag and I took off and Susan and Kristin stayed until the van arrived.
One of the reasons we took off early was because there was a huge storm coming in over the mountains. Normally we would be able to make up time on the road, but the combination of the century ride and the ginormous flag with winds would make it near impossible. We pushed hard and thankfully the storm was running along the mountains which was parallel to our route. While I was able to crush it down the hills, Marcus was able to crush it up them (less wind resistance) so between the two of us we were able to bike at our own pace, but still be efficient. One of the cool things about riding with the flag was the number of honks and fist pumps we got on the road. I think that we ended up with 103 honks for the day - a good motivator for sure.
Lunch stop number two was around mile eighty and we were one of the first groups to arrive. Unfortunately there were a bunch of people who were caught in the storm and the group was pretty split up. De to the impending storm, which apparently had hail, we decided to crank out the last twenty five miles. With about ten miles to go we stumbled upon a horse who had gotten lose. One of the things we have been trying to do is ride a horse so this was fairly close ... Marcus got to ride with a horse. How sick is that photo?
As we arrived at the top of the hill Marcus and I stumbled across a church mission group who offered to gives some water and then after talking with them offered us dinner as well. The group has been coming over the last three years to help rebuild churches on the reservation. We were even given a reinactment of the Decleration of Independence from memory which was pretty impressive. Unfortunately in the middle of the speech, the storm we had been out running all day long finally caught up to us. At that point we took our leave again. Due to the super strong gusts of wind we decided that Marcus needed to take down his flag so Nate, Marcus and I worked double time to fold it up so we could try to beat the storm; he had made it 102 miles which was super impressive. The only thing that stood in our way was a set of three massive rolling hills. Without a flag Marcus crushed them; Nate and I took a little bit longer and about a mile out the sky opened up and started pouring. We finally found the turn into the church and after fifty feet we were literally stuck in the mud. Nate and I carried our bikes a half mile up to what could be our smallest host yet.
With super windy conditions and no running water most of us decided to forgo the hose shower for a baby wipe one instead. Dinner did make up for it, spicy enchiladas, which we scarfed down. While we were eating someone had mentioned that we climbed over a vertical mile which is INSANE.
While there were no fireworks, this will definitely be a fourth that I will never forget!!!
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