Distance: 141.44km
Time: 5h03m05s
Avg Spd: 28.0km/hr
Climbing: 1,581m
I can say with some certainty that today's ride was the toughest of my life. I suppose it didn't help that Mark Kiemel and I decided to hit it with some intensity, but there was a lot of climbing and a good deal of head wind. The stats show how tough it was.
I intended to ride with Joel, Marc and Rachel today, but Marc was on sweep, as was Brandon, my usual riding partner, so a bunch of us all waited around until the sweep duties were completed. When we rolled out of camp just after 7am, we had a group of nine riders. The roads we were on today were not great, either. There is plenty of oil & gas work around here, and we were told by a state trooper today that over 500 pickup trucks with the orange flags drive our road every day to check on the sites and do work. And there was certainly no shortage of trucks. Generally speaking they were actually quite courteous and gave us enough room whenever possible. However, because of the excessive traffic we decided to split up the group to make it easier on the drivers to get around us. I paired off with Mark K (Bearded Mark) as the two of us are good climbers. We rode well together until the last SAG stop. With about 25km left to ride, Mark bonked. Not enough food coupled with heat and strenuous effort forced him to take a nap in the SAG van. After 20 minutes he still wasn't up to ride, so we agreed he would wait for the next group of guys to come by and he would ride in with them. I took off on my own hoping to make it to camp under the 5-hour mark. Strong headwinds and a flat tire with 15km to go meant I didn't make my target - but 3 minutes over ain't half bad.
The scenery today was again, fantastic. Entering the mountains in northern New Mexico feels like returning to Kelowna. The mountains and greenery looks the same, but there are way more rocks. And things are much, much greener than we've seen in the past few days.
Today was also crossed the Continental Divide! This is the place where the direction water flows changes. West goes to the Pacific, East goes to Atlantic or the Gulf. It wasn't much to see except a sign on the side of the road...
Today was made even more interesting as the tractor that pulls the gear trailer was in Farmington for repairs to its A/C system. It was promised to be done by noon, but that wasn't the case. I arrived at camp around 2:30pm, and the gear trailer didn't end up rolling in until 5:45pm. That meant three hours of hanging around camp waiting. Everyone was too tired to do much, so we set up our tents, then lounged in the shade waiting for our clothes and shower stuff to arrive so we could clean up. It was warm - about 30C, and everyone was completely beat by the ride.
We're staying tonight at a real campground (or RV park, I suppose) - Little Creel Lodge. It's a neat little place just off the highway. It's not too busy, but all the Sea to Sea gear and people take up a good 50% of the open space. There are hot showers, laundry, a creek, tennis courts, and (most importantly) WiFi!
Tomorrow will be an easier day. And by that I mean I'll have to take it easier as my legs probably won't recover for another 3,000ft of climbing at the pace I rode today.
Alright, I've got a few emails to write, so that's it for tonight. Guaranteed I'll be sleeping well tonight. And won't be woken up early by those pesky peacocks!
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