[after Ray spills a box of toothpicks on the floor]

Raymond: 82, 82, 82.

Charlie: 82 what?

Raymond: Toothpicks.

Charlie: There’s a lot more than 82 toothpicks, Ray.

Raymond: 246 total.

Charlie: How many?

Sally Dibbs: 250.

Charlie: Pretty close.

Sally Dibbs: There’s four left in the box. – Rainman

 

I got up this morning and there was frost on my tent. It was undoubtedly the coldest morning of the ride thus far. We are heading south but I think fall / winter rides faster than us plus we tend to go higher in elevation in Colorado. The problem is deciding how to dress. It tends to heat up quickly, especially when you are climbing. I tend to try to put less on than most of the others, no arm warmers, and just a light jacket but with full finger gloves and ear protection. It is 41 degrees when we start – birth!

Sluggish, that is how I feel. It is flat to start and soon we are a dirt road and gradually start a 16 mile climb to Stempel Pass. The last 4 miles are supposed to be very rough and 20 -25% grade. Here I am way outclassed by most of the other riders who have superior climbing and descending skills. I descend like granny from the Beverly Hillbillies or maybe worse. Everyone passes me. I must walk a lot in the steep spots especially if there are a lot of ruts and rocks and other paraphernalia.

We then get a decent downhill and overuse my brakes. I know that I am woefully underprepared for this ride from an MTB perspective. I should have done a lot more riding under more adverse circumstances. Hind sight is 20 -20.

It is slow going and I bang up my leg some more on my pedal. It is hard to mount the bike on an incline with loose rocks, soil or gravel under the wheel. If I can avoid dismounting, I am much better off. I tend to ride alone quite a bit. I can hang with the faster group on the easy stuff and tend to ride faster than some who like to stop and drink coffee. That’s ok but I try to double check my Garmin often as it is rare to see other people on these fire roads.

AT lunch break there are a few other riders but the speed demons and been and gone. The second half of the day consists of more climbing but not as bad as the first half of the day and less technical descents. Great, I can go faster and don’t white-knuckle the breaks. One of the best parts of today’s ride is the last 10 miles which is all downhill into Helena on tarmac. Speeds over 30mph. I am a little lost coming into town but spot Brad at a service station and ride in with him. It is 5:00 when I roll into the hotel which will be the last for a spell. The fast group was in at 3:00 but I walked a lot, grannied the descents and took a lot of photos. I eat and drink a lot, shower and then go for dinner with an International Group: Deron and Paul from the UK, Kate from Australia, Petra, Avert and Ari from Holland and I.  It was a hard day but supposedly even tougher tomorrow. I am banged up, knee hurts and just plain exhausted. We will see how tomorrow goes.

Thanks for reading

Tailwinds

Chuck – riding fro The Backstoppers