Day 15-17

Day 15

We woke up early this morning so that we could get into Colorado Springs before 1p. The grandparents of one of our team members are celebrating their 50^th wedding anniversary, and we wanted to arrive in the Springs early so that he could go to the party. I dedicated my ride this morning to the mother of a woman named Lovedia who was my teller at the bank yesterday. Her mom is currently battling ovarian cancer. Today I will admit was a challenging day for me, but probably not for the reasons I would have expected. A couple of alum gave us a route to follow, which we dutifully did. Less than 10 miles into the trip we ran out of road. The pavement turned into packed dirt and then into gravel. This lasted for 16 miles. Our first rest stop was somewhere in the middle of the gravel, and ironically, in front of one of the only driveways on that stretch of road. We continued on our way but then found out that the alum we thought were going to come meet us were not going to meet us any longer…and we were supposed to get on bike paths for the last 20 miles. Great. We pulled over in a random park and fortunately a few mountain bikers rode by so we were able to ask for directions. They told us the path would be gravel for a mile or so but then would be paved the rest of the way. Turns out the path was unpaved for about 6 more miles or so and he gave us the wrong directions. Fortunately, however, he realized this and met up with us a short while later on the path to lead us the rest of the way. To put it nicely, I was rather annoyed the whole route. I don’t feel safe at all riding on gravel and when the bike path turned out to be 6 miles or so, I slowed down to crawling speed (if that). We finally arrived at the Residence Inn in Colorado Springs, and fortunately our drivers had secured us lunch (graciously donated by California Pizza Kitchen). The two alum who had written the directions rolled up a few minutes later. One introduced himself to me, and I informed him (nicely) that he now had 20 people who didn’t like him. He laughed and said that his year, he had to drive that day and all the riders were annoyed with him when they finally got to the hotel, and last year people were annoyed with him as well. The other alum rounded the corner of the trailer a few minutes later and said, hey man, I heard you succeeded in getting another year of riders not to like you! We all laughed at that. Unfortunately, it turns out that the gravel road we traversed is basically the only road to take (unless we went 30 miles or more out of the way) and the bike paths are the safest way into the Springs. After a some food and showers a group of us headed out to check out Garden of the Gods. It was nice to do some sightseeing, and I think everyone enjoyed playing outside, not on bikes. We headed back to hotel when we were done and another alum and some of his friends made us dinner. It was delicious. One of the alum that had given us directions also helped us determine a Challenge for our route…Denver to Boulder via the top of Mt. Evans. Previous years have had the Dees Lake Challenge, but this year people want to push the limits a little more so we’re starting Challenges early.

Day 16

The alum redeemed themselves today by riding with us from Colorado Springs to Denver. I dedicated my ride to Katie Anderson, a childhood friend who died of cancer when I was young. The hotel fed us a continental breakfast and after ride dedications we were on our way. Seven miles into the ride we hit were at the top of a hill at 7500ft elevation, which was the highest point we had reached on our journey yet. One of the riders seemed to be suffering from a bit of altitude sickness and I had her sag for the rest of the day (stopping every mile or less because one feels like nausea seems like a good reason not to ride in my opinion). After that hill we were on a series of long downhills and rollers and the miles quickly passed. After our last rest stop we basically split into two different groups and one of the alum led each group…and we went on more bike paths. I was very impressed with the bike paths in Denver however. They were great. We arrived at the church at which were staying in the early afternoon. We grabbed some lunch and then about half the team headed to the REI and the swimming hole in front of it. The water was pretty chilly (snow runoff) but it felt great. When I was in REI I had stopped to talk to the people at the information booth about places to swim and the woman there informed me that the swimming hole would be cold and have somewhat strong currents due to all the snowmelt this time of year. She and I chatted for awhile and she told me about her adventures in Glacier National Park, where the team will be in a few weeks, and I shared with her about Texas 4000. We returned back to the church after our swimming adventures and the alum that had ridden with us that day cooked us a delicious dinner. Afterwards, one of them helped us finalize the directions for the Mt. Evans Challenge some of us will be taking tomorrow.

Day 17

Today the team rode from Denver to Boulder. In reality, only about half the team actually rode the whole distance. The other half us went up Mt. Evans. Mt. Evans is one of the 14,000+ft peaks in Colorado and is home to the highest paved road in North America. It lies west of Denver, and as such, was sort of en route to Boulder. We have some very strong cyclists on the team this year, and they have been itching for some challenging terrain. We had wanted to ride up Pikes Peak, until we discovered that you can’t ride up it anymore. In an effort to figure out another challenge for us to do in Colorado one of the riders started asking the alum we had ridden with in the last couple days for a few recommendations. They suggested Mt. Evans. To say this mountain is regularly ridden by cyclists might not be exactly correct, but it is not uncommon to see cyclists on the roads leading up the mountain. The alum warned us that it took him 7 or 8 hours of solid riding to get from Denver to the top of the mountain and informed us that storms tend to roll in the afternoon. Knowing this we decided we needed to leave early. We set our alarms for 4a. Ten of us decided to go. I would like it to be known that two of the ten were girls. My understanding is that in the past no women have participated, but this year, we’re changing that too. Last night, everyone made sure their cold weather gear was laid out and that they had plenty of food, an extra water bottle and whatever else they needed. This morning everyone got up and quietly got their stuff packed up, finished last minute things on their bikes and had a quick breakfast. Though the whole team wasn’t going on the trip, the 10 of us still circled up for ride dedication. In my opinion, this was the most emotional ride dedication yet. People were excited and scared and nervous for this trip all at the same time. And today, especially, we needed the ride dedications. One rider broke down and started crying and another put his arm around him to comfort him. This is what it means to be a teammate. I dedicated to Shelley Ichisita, a woman a couple years older than me who I was coaching in triathlon a few years ago who is a cancer survivor. Before a race, Shelley would always tell people in the tri group to ‘kick butt and take numbers.’ Today, with a 14,000+ft peak in my path, I found strength in her advice. We rolled out at 5:40a and headed towards the mountains. We stopped a few times because one of the guys was having trouble with his bike, until we finally called one of the riders from the other half of the team and told him to meet us in Idaho Springs so we could switch out his bike. We still haven’t figured out what the strange noise is. After the second stop and phone call, we started up Lookout Mountain. We weren’t actually expecting this climb at all, but why not. At the top we saw the memorial for Buffalo Bill before descending the other side. A few downhills later, we had our first major spill of the trip. A rider took a turn to close and ended up in the other lane before going over his handle bars. He got away with a scraped and bruised elbow though and got right back up and started riding again. We had a bit of a scary descent for a couple of miles on the shoulder of a highway (cyclists go on this on a regular basis, but its still a little scary because you reach pretty high speeds), at which point I led us off at an exit because I was a little worried about being on that road. Fortunately, the exit was the perfect one at which to exit, because just under the highway was the county road and bikeway for which the alum had told us to look. We were still on the right path! About four hours after we started, we finally arrived in Idaho Springs and we stopped at a gas station to refill our water bottles and have a large snack. The alum who recommended the route to us had told us to refill here and that we should be able to make it to the top on that. We still had about 30 miles to go until the top. We switched out the aforementioned rider’s bike and were on our way. One of the most impressive things to me about the day at this point was that the group stayed together. We commenced our climb and stayed together for the first six or so miles before the group began to split up. Idaho Springs is at 7500ft elevation, and the next main stopping point on the road to the top is Echo Lake, about 13 miles further up the road at 10,600+ft elevation. The group got strung out a little bit, but we all reconvened at the lodge in good spirits. After warming up in the lodge and refilling our water bottles, we heard ‘whoa, we’re half way there…’ blasting from the radio in the lodge. We started laughing (we were actually half-way up the mountain at that point) and decided this was sign that we should get on the road. We paid our entry fees to get into the park and headed up the last 14 miles (or so we thought). We got pretty spread out, but everyone kept plugging away at miles. Five or six miles up the road, I passed my boyfriend. He caught back up and we rode together for a little bit before he fell back again. I passed Summit Lake without stopping (it was at Mile 9). With about two miles to go my boyfriend caught up with me and passed me. I had a feeling it probably annoyed him to pieces that I was in front of him, but whatever gives you motivation to get up the hill faster works. The sign at Echo Lake had said that there were 14 more miles until the top, but as the Mile Marker 14 approached, I observed that I was still in fact not at the top. The top was actually over 15 miles from Echo Lake. I was the third person on our team to arrive at the top. As I was approaching the parking lot, I noticed that the two riders in front of me hadn’t stopped at the top…there was a trail that went up even higher and they had gotten off their bikes and were carrying them up to the top. Not to be out done, I hopped off my bike and started hiking up behind them. One by one the other riders trickled in and made their way up the trail with their bikes. Our bikes really had no business being up there but it just looked more hard core. We took pictures of us holding our bikes over our heads with views of the Rocky Mountains in the background. The view was phenomenal and there were airplanes flying at our eye level! Our final shot was of eight of us mooning the camera (maybe the lack of oxygen was getting to our heads?). At this point we noticed a few mean looking clouds rolling in and we were starting to get really cold. We quickly scrambled down the paths with our bikes and as we got down our last rider rolled into the parking lot…all 10 of us made it up to the top. It was getting colder and colder so we quickly started our descent. The roads on the top part of the mountain are not particularly great. They are buckled in many places and have potholes/drainage holes…and there is no guard rail. Within a couple miles of starting our descent, the temperature had dropped even more and it wasn’t helping that we were going downhill and exposed to the wind. Then it started snowing. The front riders pulled in at Summit Lake and the rest of the group quickly followed suite. I rolled in and they took one look at me and said, so we have to stop right? I said yes. People were going to get hypothermic, the road conditions were not. good and it just didn’t look like a smart idea. Everyone was happy to get off the road. We walked our bikes over to a shelter, and fortunately, there was a park ranger there. She let us load all of our bikes into the back of her truck and then helped us find rides with other visitors in the park to get back down to Echo Lodge. Four families helped transport the 10 of us back down to the lodge. I rode with a group who was visiting from the UK, and we got to exchange stories about being up in the mountains and riding bikes. They also gave me a donation when I got out of the car and wished us luck on our trip and with raising funds. Once back at the lodge, we unloaded our bikes, lined them up under the porch and went inside to grab food. We called one of our drivers for the day and asked her to head up the Echo Lake with the van and trailer to retrieve us. In the meantime, we sat in the lodge, enjoying a very late lunch and lots of coffee, tea and hot chocolate. The restaurant let us sit by the heater too, so we could thaw. At one point, the power went out, but fortunately, it was after we’d eaten. We recounted over and over what had happened on the mountain and what everyone was thinking about while they were riding. Most of the group got shirts, hats or stickers that said they had climbed Mt. Evans. The van and trailer finally arrived and we took a few last shots of the ten of us in front of Echo Lake before heading down the mountain and towards Boulder. We arrived in Boulder around 10 or 10:30p, and our hosts had saved dinner for us. We enjoyed the leftovers and passed out immediately. I have to say, I had a great day. About six hours into the ride I started to feel great. People give me a hard time on a somewhat regular basis about never riding hard with the group and saying that I might not be able to outlast people after all. After passing those people on the hill and being in better spirits than anyone at the top, I don’t think people will say anything to me anymore. I still haven’t figured out exactly what it is about my body, but I tend to do better the more challenging the conditions. My legs felt great all the way up the mountain, and I wasn’t bothered by the altitude (though I can always do without cold weather). The ride today was my kind of ride. I look forward to the next challenge.