To start off we found out that there were only 11.5 miles to Cimarron as opposed to the 20 we thought that we had to do. Ok so good so far. We also were ready to go within 20 minutes of our planned leave time. Alright still good.
Side note I wish I had a picture of where we stayed last night. It was a pretty sweet spot located near black canyon hidden away by trees, grass, and bushes. We were nearly impossible to find. Yea stealth camping!
Anyways, as we left camp and started our climb to the first of three summits of the day we ran into some craziness. Headwind+hills+still semi asleep = some very slow going. Wholly cow! Four miles of uphill took us 45 minutes of constant sweat filled huffing and puffing. But... We did it! Crerro summit you may have drained my energy to cerro but I still won. Hahaha
After the summit we hit five glorious miles of downhill. I was in heaven. The downhill itself ended with us in the little town of Cinnamon I mean uhh Cimarron. After a Quick sugar filled snack break and we were off again.
From Cimarron we headed to two summits which actually don't seem to have been named so I can't tell you where they are exactly but, I can tell you an important lesson. Just like headwind and hills aren't a good match so also sugar and exercise are a bad combination. Can you say sugar rush crash! A good leason learned. I like protein yes I do. I like long sustained energy how about you? Woohoo!
Needless to say we made it over the all three summits and got to enjoy some quality time on the bikes. The rest of the day consisted of slow climbs totaling about a thousand feet of climbing over 50 miles. To put it in perspective that's like jogging a 5k when you are in pretty good running condition...or at least it would have been except while we took a break for lunch a storm crept up. We had a choice. Continue at a decent pace and get stormed on I or use what now had become tailwind(yay!) and push hard. We opted for the second, which was awesome and gave us an incentive to do a 15 mph pace. We made it from Gunnison to Sargents in 2 hours. Yes!
Which brings us to now. I am in a cabin. Prepping mentally for tomorrow. Tomorrow we climb monarch pass an 11,312 foot in elevation behemoth. we'll start out with 10.5 miles of climbing of nearly 3,000 feet. Fingers crossed we won't have any headwind l, but if we do it's only ten and a half miles we can do that.
Also other side note in the cabin next to ours is a dude named Tom. He is on his 60's and riding solo across the country with 80 lbs of gear! What a boss! Apparently we have been really close to him this entire time because we have a somewhat similar route and almost exactly the same timeline. Crazy!
Anyways hope all of y'all are doing well! I'm off to bed
~Paulie Olly Oximspree
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