You know the old Windows desktop background with the rolling hills, you ever woant to see that in person? Well thst is what i did today for 115 miles. That background picture is apparently really an unedited picture from this are, the Palouse of Eastern Washington. It was beautiful.
I rode with Hayden and Preston, neither of which I have had a chance to ride with this summer. I knew from previous days and talks that both were strong cyclists so I was excited to get the chance to go out with them. We started as the first pace line in the morning and were keeping a great pace, making quick and efficient crew stops for water and snacks then we hit the big rolling hills and would climb up maybe 600ft of elevation and have 1 to 3 mile long downhills that we could cruise down at just about 40mph so our average speed was really on track to make our rack time which was 105 miles by 1. Then we got red flagged (where we catch up to the lead van and there is no crew member beyond him to mark a turn or set a crew stop) so we had to sit and wait for a van to catch up which ate away at our time to get to the rack point. We realized we had some time to make up so we were moving quickly and at just before 11 Preston caught something nasty through the sidewall of his tire and popped a tube. We scrambled to fix it and ended up using a dollar bill (common cycling trick) to protect the tube from the damaged sidewall and by the time we were on the road again a pace line had passed us and gotten about 3 miles up from us and we had 2 hours to cover 36 miles to get to rack point, 18mph average and we had just hit sone tough terrain with a lot more climbing. So we hauled, put all our energy into the rest, went 110% pushed 22 to 24mph on flats and 35+ downhill and 9 to 13 downhill. We eventually caught up to the first pace line but got red flagged again, we had 10 miles to cover in 20 minutes. They were thankfully lenient about the rack time cuz we just barely missed it but put everything we had into the ride. At that point they racked everyone except the 6 of us and we continued to push on. The last 20 miles were the hardest I have ever ridden and possibly the hardest I have pushed myself physically. Throughout the day my bike was iffy about shifting down gears in the front so I had already ridden a few big hills in my big ring, then the last hill came along, a very steep Incline, and it wouldn't shift, I was already dieing but struggled through the first half in the big ring and at the stop sign manual just moved my chain to the lower gear to make it to the end. I could not have done it without Preston and Hayden, the whole ride the encouragement and positivity was amazing, they got me through those miles and we made it to Pullman on time lead by the other pace line with Cameron who goes to school here at WSU and was flying their flag behind him to the top.the team was proud of us and it felt great, I just hope as the summer goes on more guys will be finishing these hAnotherard days with us. Another amazing memory for the books today on the road.
The friendship visit was with an organization called families together which helps families care for kids with disabilities by essentially social networking, sharing tips, finding professional help, working together as a family to provide care and assistance. It was very cool to see so many families and the event and the amount of effort that every member of tje family puts in.
Tomorrow we head 80 miles to Spokane and we will finally be able to do laundry and get our first day off!
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