Gunnison to Salida
66 miles
Today was a much better day of climbing. Again I paced myself carefully to make sure I could get to the top. I couldn't help but compare my mindset at today's "7 miles to the summit" sign to Monday's seven-miles-to-go sledgehammer. I knew I could make it today. I was steady and healthy. My back began hurting at about 28 miles, and as I recall, that's been pretty consistent the past few weeks.
We had a little drafting incident on the climb this morning before Brett took off to tackle the mountain at his much faster pace. He had been letting me draft behind him to help me save some energy for the steep part. We came upon a group of drafting cyclists that included a 14-year-old who probably is just learning to draft. One of the cyclists in the group pulled to the left side, a definite no-no on a narrow two-lane road with next to no shoulder and a long line of experienced drafters behind you. The next rider in the line stopped right next to the first rider, and the kid stopped right next to him.
Shouts went out from behind us. "Go right!" "Don't stop!" Anger ensued as everyone had to slow.
I felt bad for the first group because they probably didn't know any better. But I also know that's how you learn. That's how I learned two years ago. You get yelled at one time in front of a big group of professional-looking riders, and you never make that mistake again.
I also was pretty ticked at the guys behind us who yelled. Brett and I had to slow, too. We had no choice. Anger doesn't make the situation go away. It doesn't fix anything. Plus, the yellers are experienced enough they should have been able to anticipate something like this in a large cluster of riders. They were being lazy. They didn't want to clip out of their pedals. They didn't want to experience a drop in their daily speed average.
Can you tell I'm still a novice??? I always side with the underdogs.
I don't think today's climb was as hard as anything I did in 2003, excluding Cottonwood Pass, which was just plain fun and not hard to me at all. The only discouraging part of the climb was thinking I'd need to stop only one more time when I was two miles from the summit. I had to stop a second time when the summit was in full view. I wish I could have pulled that last tiny second without stopping, but I did make it, and I felt good at the top.
The descent was a little annoying. Some vehicle that didn't know how to go around cyclists ended up creating a 15- or 16-car bottleneck that log-jammed about 30 cyclists, including me. I went through some brakes there.
Then Brett and I had our second bad restaurant experience of the trip so far. These tiny towns don't quite know what to expect from an onslaught of 2,500-plus, I think. The fast food restaurants seem to handle it okay, but the sit-down restaurants seem aghast and highly understaffed. It seems no one tells them in advance that cyclists like to chow down on pasta, and lots of it, during a big ride.
We waited in line for 90 minutes, on a list to be put on a waiting list. Don't ask me how that system works.
Finally, a family of locals charged in right to the front of the long line and placed an order as if no one in line existed.
We ended up leaving and searching for another place to eat, finding most restaurants equally as crowded with hungry, waiting cyclists.
I understand why restaurants must cater to locals. That's who supports them year round. But it's not like we showed up unannounced. They've known for months we'd be here tonight. It's really amazing to watch them get whacked out because they get so busy. Or watch an employee who has the night off come in and quickly leave in fear of being asked to stay and work.
We finally found a restaurant without a line. We waited another 45 minutes for our order, then ate it and headed back to the school, much later than we'd intended. En route, we passed the couple who'd been in line behind us at the first restaurant. They had just finished eating. We finished eating before them at a completely different restaurant!
We're down to one shower truck now, presumably because the schools we'll be staying at from here on out have showers. I shudder at the thought of cold showers. Or lines 12 or 13 people deep at the shower truck. It's a good thing we have only two days left. In more ways than one.
bikemaster: jrnylst at att dot net
