Bicycle Tour of Colorado 2009 Part 2

In which I discover much wind

Putting your butt on a bicycle seat makes you a weather god.  You instantly gain the ability to control wind direction (always against you) and speed (twice as hard as before you started riding), as well as the power to produce rain/snow/hail.  The only defense for a cyclist is to be as prepared as possible for anything that goes wrong, because Murphy’s Law guarantees it will.  Now, weight being a big deal to a cyclist, Murphy’s Law also says that if one expends the energy to drag along everything one might need to deal with any possible contingency, one won’t ever need any of it.  It’s a theory that, put into practice often seems to work, but sometimes fails spectacularly. 

Day 2 was a good example of this.  I knew it would be pretty tough; 91 miles over Grand Mesa (summit 10,389 ft) with roughly 7,000 feet of climbing, and the Mesa is an infamous weather generator.  I had armed myself for this tour with an extra large seat bag in which I could stow all my bad-weather gear, plus all my usual repair kit, so I was doing my part in the Murphy’s Law tug-of-war.  So far, the day was beautiful; perfectly clear and warm, and for the moment, the only wind was a light breeze blowing up the hill.  The real climbing began at Cedaredge on the south side of Grand Mesa, with 20 miles and 2,000 ft already done.  Only another 20 miles and 4,000 ft to the top, and then we’d be almost halfway there. 

The slow grind gave me some time to observe and occasionally converse with my fellow riders, which in turn allowed the part of my brain normally occupied with minutely observing my body’s suffering to be somewhat distracted.  There were a number of riders that I would see nearly every day.  Easiest to spot was Sting-Ray Bill, an apparently well-known guy who rode the whole tour on a ‘60s vintage chrome Schwinn Sting-Ray; 20-inch wheels, banana seat with sissy bar, five-speed stick shift and all.  There were various groups of riders in matching jerseys, or sporting silly helmet ornaments or the like.  There were any number of couples on tandems, including a pair that must have been in their mid to late seventies.  So, there is hope for us middle-age crisis types.  I had a good time chatting with people as I passed, or was occasionally by them, although the conversations became more like an exchange of fatigued grunts as the day wore on.  A couple days later, I overheard two guys talking about this climb.  One guy, who apparently had not ridden it, was asking the other what the scenery was like.  The other guy said “I don’t know.  The only thing I saw was this little patch of pavement with a skinny tire in it.”

Somewhere around the 9,500 to 10,000 foot elevation point is where I tend to start being affected by the altitude.  It gets cooler, and my fingers and toes start to go numb.  Today, this was just a mile or two from the top.  I was struggling with fatigue but kept pushing on up the last bit.  The weather had stayed very nice; clear skies with only some occasional light cross winds.  Aid Station 2 was right at the top of the Mesa, where the “Elevation 10,389 ft” sign is.  Mountain tops often act as weather dividing lines, so things were different here; the wind was whipping up from the other side pretty strongly, making it much cooler, but the sky was still clear.  I immediately put on my jacket and went to re-fuel.  Because I was already a bit cold and numb, I wasted no time and quickly started down. 

One of the tricky bits of this 20-mile descent, at least up at the top, is not crashing due to trying to take in the spectacular views.  Lots of riders were pulled over at the side taking pictures.  I had no camera, so I just tried to concentrate on the road, which has some dicey spots here at the top; roughly patched sections, a cattle guard, and little or no shoulder.  I was hoping to set a new personal top speed record this day, but there were strong crosswinds that came from various directions as the road wound around the curves, making it somewhat scary in a few spots.  Believe me, there are few things more disconcerting than a sudden blast of wind catching your front wheel while you’re flying around a curve at 35-plus mph. 

Naturally, as the route flattened out over the last 30 miles, the wind continued to blow right in our faces.  The temperature was now about 90 degrees and the route took us onto the shoulder of I-70 for about five miles.  As I hit the town of Palisade at around 15 miles from the finish, I caught up with a small woman struggling into the wind.  Never one to miss an opportunity to be gallant, I asked if she wanted to draft behind me.  She gratefully accepted and proved to be a good tough rider, and better than most at staying on a wheel.  We were both in a similar state of tired misery, but we had a very nice long chat, which made the hot, boring, seemingly interminable, ride into and around Grand Junction (with a headwind in every direction, of course) just a bit more tolerable.  And, in the end, of all the several pounds of ‘contingency’ stuff I carried around all day, I had needed only my jacket for a short time.

Day 3 was possibly the most boring bike ride I have ever done in the Colorado mountains.  I did not do the optional loop through the Colorado National Monument, as beautiful as it is, because I have done it before, and wanted to have something resembling a break.  That left a straight 63 miles from Grand Junction to Montrose on the shoulder of US Highway 50.  Yes, it’s a nice wide shoulder, but the scenery is mostly desert, and the car and truck traffic roaring by at 75 mph got old in a hurry.  Oh, and the screaming teenagers in Delta that tried to run us off the road in their cracker-mobile were a lot of fun too. 

Of course, my good buddy Mr. Wind kept me company all day.  It blew strong and steady, anywhere from about 60 degrees to the right to dead ahead the whole time, and it got stronger as the day went on.  Smaller riders like me get beat up in the wind worse than bigger ones; it’s just plain physics.  So, any time a group of big guys comes along, I try to jump onto the back and keep up.  Sometimes it works out, and I become part of the group, even taking some turns at the front, and sometimes they are just going too fast for me to keep up, and I’m on my own again.  That’s pretty much how this day went. 

After three long days on a relatively new saddle, I was seriously butt-sore, and by the time I reached Montrose, I needed meaningful relief.  So, after checking into the motel, I grabbed the plastic bag in the ice bucket and filled it at the ice machine.  I then set my improvised icepack on the bathroom floor, dropped my shorts, and sat on it.  Ahhhhhh.  After that, I was able to hobble across the road to a nice little Mexican restaurant and had an excellent lunch. 

My support unit had been having a nice hike in the Colorado National Monument, and joined me at the motel later.  At dinnertime, we went over to the high school where the campers were, and found my wife’s coworker.  He was with some other riders and we decided to go to dinner together.  Unfortunately, they were all on foot, and it turned out that all of the decent places to eat were a bit too far to walk, especially for tired legs.  My wife and I had a car, but not enough room to take everyone, so in the end we parted company with the others and drove several miles to a nice place that was recommended by our hosts from the first night.  As we went, we kept seeing little groups of hungry-looking cyclists wandering the streets, desperately looking for sustenance. 

Day 4 started and ended ugly.  It was 93 miles from Montrose to Crested Butte (8085 ft) over Cerro Summit (7,950 ft) and Blue Mesa Summit (8,704 ft); about 6,500 feet of climbing altogether.  First off, the ride bible had the wrong elevation profile printed (they had actually printed Day 6’s profile), giving the impression that the first 18 or so miles were all downhill.  In fact, there was about 2,000 feet of climbing in just the first 12 miles or so.  Adding injury to insult, right at about mile two, as soon as we turned onto Highway 50, wham! nasty wind right in our faces.  I desperately tried to jump onto several groups that went by, but I wasn’t even warmed up yet, and they were all going way too fast for me.  Immediately put into a very bad state of mind, this was as close as I got the whole trip to actually considering taking a sag wagon.  I kept going, managing to convince myself that the wind would die down when we got out of this valley.  After about 10 miles, at the top of a rise, I stopped to take a nature break and a few minutes to stretch.  I felt a little better after that, and the wind had indeed abated somewhat.  But, I was feeling really beat up from my effort and then looked at my computer to see that it had taken me an hour to get this far.  ARRRGGGHH! 

I spent most of the rest of the day trying to recover from the bad start, but it was tough.  It got hot, and the winds plagued us most of the way.  After the less than spectacular descent off Blue Mesa Summit, US 50 goes along the edge of Blue Mesa reservoir and follows the river valley generally, so it was relatively flat most of the way into Gunnison.  Turning up CO 135 for the last 27 miles, it is also fairly flat for most of the 10 miles to Almont, and we actually had something like a tailwind for a bit.  The elements were apparently determined to make us earn our rest day, however.  With about 17 miles and 900 feet of altitude to go, the headwinds showed up once again.  This time, I was able to draft behind several different riders, leapfrogging past them, including a couple of the groups that had burned past me early in the day.  So there.  I was so ready to get this over with and start my rest day that I found myself pounding along, briefly drafting behind and then passing everyone I came across, despite the wind. The last mile or so into town is downhill, but the wind was strong enough that I had to pedal against it the whole way.  Man, I hate when that happens.

 

Mr. WeirdWrench (aka Paul Wollerman) has been a bicycle enthusiast all his life (just ask his mother). He started riding the (often unpaved) roads of Jefferson county and the surrounding area immediately after moving there in 1970 on a ten-speed he cobbled together out of parts. He worked in the bike biz as a mechanic and shop manager off and on from 1973 – 1990, including a three-week trip through Hell as a team mechanic on the 1981 Coors International Bicycle Classic (won by Greg LeMond, by the way). Moving on to more lucrative pursuits after that, (i.e. a real job with weekends off) he had a lot more time to pursue being an actual cycling enthusiast, which he has remained ever since