Wax on. Wax off.
Two days ago we had nasty headwinds. Yesterday, we go favorable tailwinds. Today, we were back to incredibly ugly headwinds.
Wax on. Wax off.
Today was a day best categorized as a grinder. These are the days when you know you're up against it and all you can do is put your head down, point your bike in the right direction and peddle. It's gonna be tough, but you just have to grind it out.
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| Although it looks straight uphill, it was actually only a moderately challenging climb today. The winds, however, were another matter altogether! When reading these elevations, if there's a really steep climb, it'll show up a close to a vertical line. Ditto a steep descent. Everything else is merely between a 3-5% grade. |
This morning started out heading East along the Colorado River and out into the prairies before coming into the towns of Delta and Montrose, our stop for this evening. Along the way, we had our usual array of dead carcasses along the roadside (deer, coyotes and raccoons) as well as cute, live, prairie dogs. Unfortunately, as we would come close to them, they'd always scamper back to the safety of their holes.
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| We actually picked up the Colorado River yesterday, coming into Fruita, but it was in the middle of a steep downhill run so I wasn't prepared to stop and take of picture. |
In truth, the climbs weren't all that hard. Probably about the same as yesterday, although we had more downhill runs to balance out the climbs. As with yesterday, they were slow, steady inclines with nothing too severe.
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| It's hard to show just how strong the winds were today. I could have taken pictures of the bend trees but, by that time, all I wanted to do was get to hotel and finish the day's ride. That flag was blowing right at us, signifying a headwind. |
The prime factor in this being, and I am not exaggerating here, the toughest riding day I've even done, was the winds. What we faced from the time we departed Fruita this morning at 6:50 a.m. were 20-25 mile per hour quartering headwinds (winds coming from an oblique right, between a direct frontal headwind and a crosswind -- so says the aeronautical engineer in our group). And those winds were gusting up to 40 miles per hour throughout the day.
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| I keep mentioning the sag stops and the sag vans. Here's a shot from today's one stop, about 38 miles into the ride. This is where we refill water bottles and grab an array of snacks to keep us going. |
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| It's a blend of trail mix, Chex Mix, fruit and all varieties of granola bars. Not shown but also very popular are the bananas and peanut butter (with or without the bread). |
At one time today, just to test how severe the winds were, early this morning I took a descent, similarly as steep as one I took yesterday coasting downhill at about 30 miles per hour, and just stopped peddling. I wanted to see if the winds in my face would stop the bike altogether. Close! I was barely moving downhill, even with a steep incline, doing only about 6 miles per hour. That's hardly enough speed to keep the bike upright. Later at the sag stop, one of the guys came in swearing he saw pebbles rolling up hill.
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| They're very demanding in the Grand Junction, Colorado City Council. If you want to qualify for a 30th Road designation, you're gonna have to work for it. Until then, you have to settle for fractions! |
Just past the sag stop and just over yet another hill, I finally gazed on the most majestic sight on this ride so far…the Rockies. And apologies for a mislabeled caption on yesterday's ride blog. Those were not the Rockies, but rather Moab. My bad.
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| What a magnificent sight coming over the rise. Just stunning. My smartphone does a pretty good job with pictures, but it couldn't quite capture the clarity of the snowcaps in the distance. |
I'm including two versions of that first sight of the Rockies, a picture above as well as a video. The video is shaky not because I can't keep still. Rather, it'll also show you just how strong the winds were. I didn't bother to try and do a voiceover as I found out in a previous attempt a couple of days ago that the winds just drown out my voice.
After about 50 miles into the day, a bunch of us decided to take a break from the winds as we entered the small but very cute town of Delta. Lots of funky restaurants and a strong bike culture, with bike artwork throughout the town. Lunch was pretty good as well.
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| Coming into the town of Delta. This was just so bizarre I had to stop and take a picture. |
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| Good food and very friendly service. Many of us stopped to take a breather from the winds. |
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| Delta has a huge bike culture. Lots of bike shops, both road and mountain biking. And lots of street art. |
After lunch, it was back on the route for the last 25 miles. It was there I experienced the most amazing and a bit scary situation ever while cycling. I had been riding with Michelle, one of the ride leaders, from the time we left the sag stop, through lunch, and back on the route. At about ten miles before the end, Michelle had to leave the route in order to scope out tomorrow's ride route (apparently, there's road construction up on one of the mountains). Riding alone now, I saw three of our riders about half a mile ahead of me and attempted to catch up with them. As I got within 75 yards of them, we all were now in a narrow channel as the road was flanked on either side by steep hills. It was then that the gusting winds turned from our oblique right to an oblique left. And they sharply increased in speed. So much so that one of the riders in front of me was pushed off the shoulder into a ditch alongside the highway. His companions immediately were stopped in their tracks by the wind and dismounted. Shortly thereafter, I was hit with the same intense winds. It stopped me cold, even though I was still trying to peddle. I unclipped from my peddles, dismounted and held on to my bike for dear life. It took every remaining ounce of my drained energy to stay standing. We all just tucked our heads down and held on as best we could, trying to wait out this brutal gust. About three minutes later, it subsided and we all, now joined (including Al, who'd been knocked into the ditch -- and he was fine, with a new, great story to tell), rode the rest of the way into town and on to the hotel. As we entered Main Street in Montrose, of course, the winds died down to a mere breeze. Wouldn't you just know!
Tomorrow, the first of two days of climbing into the Rockies.
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