The day started with the earliest wake up we have had, 4:30 am, ate breakfast at the ranch and packed the cars. The twist to this morning is the roads out of the ranch are all dirt so we racked our bikes to a nearby town called Victor. We were all warned that we had two mountain passes today. They said the first one through the Teton Pass was going to be very steep and wow was it intense. 10-13% grade up hill the whole time for 6miles. It went by pretty quick though our legs were still fresh and my pace line with the other Sam and Max powered up it and were the first to reach the top. It was an amazing climb, beautiful views of the mountains and we saw a couple deer in the trees that followed us up the mountain for a bit too. About a mile from the top we saw a sign saying 5 miles of 10% grade and I almost fell over I was so sad, I had never pushed my legs so hard on the bike or been so winded but we passed the sign and turned the corner to see the view over the crest of the pass open up, the mountains and hillsides were so beautiful. We realized then that the sign was warning us about the downhill. After lots of pictures a car drove up with two people, we realized one had a disability and someone struck up a conversation, this man's father passed away recently and they were there to let a father's day balloon go in his memory, they loved what we were doing and we git a group picture with the guy, Scott. Also at the top we took a picturewith these Victor is sstatements in honor of a crew members sister who has Marfan Syndrome and the National Marfan Foundation. The downhill was a little scary but so fun. Because of how steep and windy it is no team has ever done the descent but out crew guys decided we were going to be the first. They put us in one long very spaced out pace line with a car ahead and behind the whole group. We cruised down at about 30-35 mph, feathering the brakes the whole way but it was awesome, I would glance back when I could and just see this massive group of cyclists rolling down the hill behind me. We did block some traffic but only a few cars, our Logistics Coordinator Zack said that one car tried to pass our huge group but the car right behind Zack who had a bike rack on his car swerved out to keep the guy from passing, very cool to have strangers look out for us on the road.
After the descent we had a nice tail wind for most of the ride as well as some rain all the way to lunch at this gorgeous viewpoint of the snake river and the Tetons behind it, we were so close to them. I fell in love with the Tetons, they are one of the newest mountains in the country and so amazing, they just shoot out of the ground so quick, it looks awesome. Ate lunch we ran into a lady traveling the opposite direction road tripping to Seattle who was clost to a lot of Pi Kapps at North Carolina when she was in school, she, as well as us were amazed that we just happened to run into each other. Niw she teaches kids with disabilities to swim which is why she was headed to Seattle. At lunch Max had to rack because of bike problems, his back wheel barely would spin. We rolled out of lunch and got some more tail wind to push us to the base of our next pass at which the rain staroto really come down hard. This one was a killer, we were getting close to rack time with a lot of miles to cover so we were moving as fast as we could. Hit the hill like we had rockets on our back and kept a solid pace of 8-9mph which is quick. Turns out the climb went on forever with so many false peak ms and curves that makes you think it is over. Unfortunately we never made it to rack point because of time but we, along with Hayden Evan and Scott were the furthest two pace lines and made it probably 17 miles up this climb. It was a struggle but so amazing, one of my favorite rides and it was great riding with Sam, we had a wide shoulder the whole time so we could talk a lot more. Overall we made it 78 miles and pushed harder than we have ever before so I was very happy with what we got done.
We arrived in Dubois Wyoming around 4 and went straight to showers and dinner at the small local church. This little down is very western and really cool but we didn't have much time to explore. Tomorrow is another 100+ mile day but a 6am wake up!
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