As you could tell by the title, we met some friends. They were familiar, but had grown since we last had an encounter. Meet Decline and Incline. Last time we really saw them was in the sierras as we went through Yosemite. We crossed paths once or twice since then, but today we got to spend some real quality time with each of them.
We woke up around 5:30, and were on the road a little before 7:30. That's when incline stopped by. From Rico, where we spent the night, to lizard head pass, up about 13 miles and 1500 ft of climbing. It really wasn't too bad though, the grade wasn't too bad and we talked most o the way up so time passed quickly, and so did the miles. Really, we pushed hard today, we were focused on the uphills and took advantage of the downhills, and made some great time! But back to the story. Once up the pass, we looked around and took a few pictures, it is absolutely incredible how big everything is, there are mountains in every direction and they are just towering above us. We didn't stay long though, we had a mission, to get miles, so we kept going, and it was a nice long decent. About 20 miles of some sweet quality time with decline. Once at the bottom, we had to get over another pass called the Dallas divide. Another 13 mile stint of a little over 1500 ft of climbing. All along the way we were just in awe of the mountains and the forests. It's absolutely amazing and no picture can do it justice, y'all just have to come out here and see it in person. After summit-ing we had another decline for a long time, we descended into ridgeway, and stopped for lunch. We had gone about 60 miles by 1:30.
At lunch I had a buffalo burger with Swiss cheese, sweet red pepper relish, lettuce, and bacon. And Dave had a ranch burger, I'm not sure what was in his, but I can tell you that mine was delicious! I can't tell a huge difference between buffalo and beef though. We were on the road again by 2:30, and continued downhill to Montrose. But it was hardly noticeable, mostly felt like flat, but it's better than uphill!
Once we got to Montrose, we stopped by cascade bicycles to get Dave more struts for the rack in case his broke again. However, the guy was able to fix it up and put 2 more struts on the rack. So now Dave has 3 struts, they shouldn't break now! (Fingers crossed)
We got out of the bike shop around 6:30 and were going on our way to Cimarron, our final goal for the day, but after sitting in the bike shop, our bodies had shut down. We went about 4-5 more miles and are now right by the entrance of black canyon national park.
All in all, today was a great day, very encouraging, pretty hard, and well done by all. It was a huge huge HUGE blessing and answered prayer. We have been trying to do a lot of miles the past week or so, but have been unable to due to me mechanical issues. Non bad, but unforeseen and time consuming. But today we got in over 90 miles. In the Rockies! So we didn't quite hit our goal, but we did as well as circumstances allowed.
On a side note, when we were just about to leave the bike shop, we meet two other tourists. They however are hard core. Y'all back home think we are roughin it, these two brothers have biked around THE WORLD! They have been at it about 15 months, yup more than a year, and have about a month left. That is amazing to me!
Alright, we'll thanks again for all of your help, encouragement, prayers, and support. We really appreciate it. Alright y'all have a good one! See ya later!
-Tom
And now pics
Some of our scenery in the Rockies
Us at the top of lizard head pass
And last, but certainly not least. I am the proud new owner of...
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