After enduring "Beartrap Canyon the day before"
As we ate breakfast looking toward the direction Winston was in and the direction we were heading, we saw flat ground and maybe even what looked like promising downhill and it got our hopes up. Hoping for the best, we headed out into a headwind, but hoped it was only because we were at the top of a pass. We soon found out otherwise as we headed downhill, we had to pedal against at least a 20 MPH headwind that continued to get worse as time passed. We had 25 miles to the food cache JC had put out a few weeks earlier and we wondered at times if we would make it that far. The wind gradually made it up to what we guessed was about 50 MPH headwinds and we battled on. At one point I was blown off the road and couldn't get back on my bike because the wind kept blowing me off of it. After about 5 hours we made it to the cut-off for Winston and decided it wasn't worth going to the cache as it was into the headwind and we didn't want to waste any more time.
As we headed toward Winston, we slowly got a tailwind and man it was nice! It was well earned and deserved. We rolled into Winston to find the general store open and got some food to eat. Mick and JC got these huge chili dogs and I opted for BBQ sandwich and ice cream. While eating it started to rain and the store owner said there was a major storm headed our way. We didn't tarry long and at the top of the pass outside of Winston we were greeted by hail and maybe a little snow and freezing temps to go with the wet roads as we prepared for the downhill.
The downhill was a blast, we had a 40 mile descent into T or C and soon the cold wet weather changed to hot dry desert. As we cruised to T or C we were not even needing to pedal. JC and Mick had 1x drive trains while my older bike had a triple on the front with a 9 speed rear and I had a lot of top end compared to the beasts they were riding. My 2.25" tires also made for easy rolling on pavement. I was going 33 MPH without pedaling heading down this section. We rolled into a town and the speed limit was 35 and I was going close to 40, super nice!
When we got to T or C we had over 350 miles and a 70 mile day. We feasted on Mexican food and beer and reminisced about the trip because we were hoping to finish the ride the next evening as we were missing our families and were weary.
Comentários