Back From Gunnison

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Okay, sorry it's been so long since I updated. I returned from my ride on Monday night and was just too tired and unmotivated to write about it on Tuesday, but I'll give it a shot now.

So I suppose one could characterize my trip as a series of peaks and valleys, both literally and figuratively. From the beginning: I left Telluride at 10:40am on Saturday, June 2, which was later than I intended to leave but not too late according to my calculations. The ride between here and Montrose is almost exclusively downhill; the only significant climbing is a 14 mile stretch between Placerville and the top of Dallas Divide, where the gradient never gets above about 6% and I'd say averages close to 3%. I've done that ride before and it went pretty well despite the heavy trailer. About halfway up that climb a cyclist going in the other direction pulled over to my side of the road and stopped for a bite to eat. We chatted for a minute and he said he was riding in a loop from Montrose, which would put him over 100 miles by the end of the day. I told him my plan was to head for the Crested Butte area, camping that first night in the Black Canyon. He said that was a really beautiful place. Great!

At some point along the ride I got hungry and remembered a Quiznos in Montrose and developed a massive craving. It was pretty much all I could think of for the last 30 miles into the city. When I finally stopped to eat I looked behind me and saw some rather threatening clouds gathering, and they appeared to be moving east, which was where I was going. I ate a little quickly so I could get back on the saddle and stay ahead of the weather. This is when things started to go badly.

The moment I left the Montrose city limits I bonked. "Bonking," for the uninitiated, is the cyclists' term for hitting the wall. I simply couldn't make my legs spin, even though I didn't exactly feel fatigued, just unable to put any force into my pedalling. It was as if eating lunch had actually sapped all the strength right out of me. The next seven or so miles were a constant, though mild, climb of between 1% and 3%, but I couldn't go faster than about 5mph. I couldn't really figure it out either, which was extremely depressing. I couldn't find fault with my nutritional intake nor could I pin this disastrous performance on how I rode the previous 70 miles. It's quite demoralizing.

Eventually I dragged myself up to a convenience store at the turn off to the road up to the Black Canyon National Park. This was just before five o'clock. The very nice and helpful woman behind the counter there inquired of my plans and I told her where I was headed ultimately and that I wanted to be able to set up camp by 6 or 6:30. She told me I could continue up the road that I had been on and face a very tough seven mile climb followed by a seven mile descent to the Cimarron campground (which had been my plan at the start of the day), or I could climb five miles ("easy compared to what you've already done today," she said) up this other road to the North Rim campground. What would you do?

Of course I opted for the shorter, easier climb. First off, on what planet is an average 8% (peaking at 12%) climb easy? There are automobiles that can't get up that kind of grade! Secondly, it wasn't five miles, it was over seven. Took me more than TWO hours to get up there, as I never recovered from my bonk, going no faster than 4mph. It was also 94 degrees in the sun with no breeze. I silently cursed every car and motorcycle that passed me in either direction. And then, to top things off, this was the "beautiful" scenery I had at my campground. There was also no place to purchase firewood (collecting it was verboten) or food or water. The campsites were also very close together, so I got to listen to the bickering of a young car-camping couple for the rest of the evening. Okay, I feel slightly better now that I've finally vented some of that frustration. Final stats for that day:
84.18 miles
7:13:12 ride time
Avg Spd 11.6 mph
4786' vertical gain
Avg Climb 3%
Max Climb 12%
~9hrs from door to campsite

So, on to Day Two:

Sorry, this is turning into a tome. The rest of it should take less to explain though. Maybe. Okay, so I left the next day feeling exactly the same as I did when I was struggling up that hill. Didn't recover a bit, even though I slept decently enough. Oh well, I thought, at least I've got a nice long descent from the campground back to the highway to start me off on the right foot. When I got back to the bottom I stopped in that store again for some more food and water. The same woman was there but I didn't mention my aggravation from the previous day. One thing about long distance cycling is that you have a tremendous amount of time with nothing but your own thoughts. It sort of forces you into a Zen state of mind. You learn to let things like that go very quickly and easily. It serves no purpose to be angry about challenges past; you need to prepare yourself for those upcoming, and in this case, I knew my next challenge was waiting for me with baited breath.

I set out along Highway 50 E again -- and again it was constantly uphill -- now wishing that this damned trailer would just leave me alone and drag someone else down. The climb up Cerro Summit towards Cimarron was tough, as my behind-the-counter friend warned, but I have to say (even though my Zen-enlightened mind has allowed me to release the anger) I would much rather have tackled it yesterday and at least killed off some of the miles. Oh well, live and learn.

At one point shortly after I began the really steep part of the climb I was surprised by a couple on a tandem bike that had come up from behind and overtook me, surprised because I hadn't seen them in my rear view and thought that I probably should have. Evidently they were going very fast and I was going very slow. As they passed and we exchanged pleasantries they asked if I had come from Ouray yesterday, and they said they saw me at some point. I wasn't able to figure this out any further because they didn't slow down to chat but just kept on going. Under normal circumstances I would have thought this a bit rude, but I was going VERY slowly and they were just out for a nice athletic climb (and descent; I caught a glimpse of them on their way back down). Made me wish the damn trailer would do some pedaling too.

The rest of that day was fairly uneventful, with another climb fairly close to Cerro Summit and similar in profile and then a blessedly flat 20 miles or so from Blue Mesa into Gunnison, most of which was very pretty, following the glacial Blue Mesa Lake. The only other interesting thing was coming across a few big-horned sheep grazing next to the road.The funny thing about this was on the way back I saw this sign at the exact same spot:
Probably the only time I've ever seen wildlife crossing at a wildlife crossing.

So I made it to Gunnison and was too tired to write anything down. I stayed at a KOA campground within city limits, which was entirely uninteresting. Obviously I decided that I couldn't make it the 15 or so miles up to the Taylor River campgrounds that I wanted to get to.

The next day (Monday) I decided to turn around and head back. I've been hosting Open Mic Night at a bar in Telluride on Wednesdays and had always planned on being back in town by Tuesday, so I gave up on Crested Butte. Truthfully, I didn't consider it a tremendous blow to my ego or anything, I figured I did the best I could and with more time I would have made it.

Somewhat surprisingly, I felt good when I started out. I was able to maintain a pretty good pace on the flats outside of Gunnison, going 15-20mph on the same road that had reduced me to a molasses-paced 6-7mph just a few hours before. I honestly have no idea why. I didn't feel some new jump in my legs or anything, I was just able to pedal closer to the way I normally do. Of course, I figured that the first hint of an uphill grade would pound me to dust once again. But while the climbs I encountered did slow me down quite a bit, none of them did the same kind of damage as the day before. And it's not like they were any easier, the grades and distances were pretty much the same, but I was going slightly faster up them and with less difficulty. I don't know why.

I felt so much better that I not only rode past the previous day's starting point, not only rode back through Montrose, but rode all the way to Ridgway, a scant 37 miles from home (all of which is uphill with about 2,000 vertical gain though). Ninety one miles total for the day. So I felt good about that.

Now, my plan was to find a cheap motel in Ridgway, as I desperately wanted a shower and a nice bed to sleep in. Turns out, there ain't no such thing. Every local I asked virtually (or actually, in a couple of cases) laughed in my face at the idea. I didn't really want to spend $100 on a room. I also couldn't face the prospect of riding seven more miles uphill and out of my way to get to the nearest campground, especially after I had convinced myself in the miles between Montrose and Ridgway that I was gonna get to shower soon. So I wussed out. I called up my friend (and future roommate) Andy, who drives a Ford F150 and convinced him to ditch the friend from out of town that was visiting him to come pick me up. I felt really bad about it, for many obvious reasons -- to have come so far to not ride the last stretch was the biggest -- but, may God strike me down for saying so, I feel the shower and the night spent in my own bed absolved me of those sins.

Okay, I can't believe how long this post has gotten. If anyone has actually read this whole thing, I thank you, and I apologize for the imposition, you can go back to your life now. I'll post more photos later, though I didn't actually take very many. And I know some questions were asked in comments while I was gone, I promise I'll answer them shortly, but right now I have to get ready for Open Mic. My left hand is still partially numb and playing the guitar is going to be problematic...