The Vegas Ride: Day 4

Another chilly start today, but 53 is better than yesterday's 48! We rolled out of Panguitch at 9a under sunny skies but headed into questionable conditions. I had planned to do the 30+ mile climb by myself but Chris D'Alusio (Director of Advanced Research for Specialized Bicycles) had other ideas. He had done an extra 50 miles yesterday and was looking for a "recovery ride", so he joined me up the mountain. The grade was never more than 6%, so it was nice to have someone to chat with and ride alongside. The miles passed pretty quickly considering it was all uphill. I struggled with breathing at times as we started at 6636' and went up to 10,630'. Glen Adams from Specialized had schooled me earlier on how to get past the dizziness by breathing in deeply through my nose and exhaling through my mouth. That helped for the dizziness and stopped me from panicking, but didn't have any effect on how fast I could turn the pedals! I've learned through the years to ride within my limits so it just meant going a touch more slowly as I adapted to the altitude. Chris and I had a nice conversation and I found out that he spent some time, in his youth, living, racing and making pizza in Philadelphia!

The closer we got to the top, the colder it got. Temps got as low as 39 degrees. At this point it was intermittently hailing and raining, so we were equally cold and wet. We caught up to Doug Emerson of University Bicycles in Boulder CO, as he was having a mechanical issue. We continued on with Doug and the rain and hail was now really pelting down hard. Fog was rolling in so we were losing our visibility as well as our ability to be seen. This is a scenic route and a Sunday, so there was a moderate amount of traffic as well. The top starts to roll a bit, so the ups were matched with some downs and our speeds increased exponentially. It was at this point that I realized I needed to seek out a support van as my brakes were not adequate in the conditions and my fingers were frozen, despite having full-finger gloves on. I was wearing arm and knee warmers, jersey, vest, long sleeved jacket and rain cape, yet was still shivering beyond control.

I realized that it was bad when Chris said "I can't believe they left us up here". (By that he meant, I can't believe they left You up here, as he continued 17 more miles to the bottom after I climbed into the van.) They hadn't left us, they were just up around the corner and out of sight at that point. They had had other frozen riders to pick up and get to the hotel, so there were less support vans. Nancy, our trip planner and fearless van driver, followed Chris down the sketchy descent. We could see his arms shuddering from the cold and he did a controlled weave heading into every corner to scrub the speed that his brakes weren't able to lessen. I sat in the van, shivering, while watching his amazing control and technique on the descent. It was quite a relief once he had descended out of the fog and we could see the ground was dry.

Almost to the bottom, we could see touring riders, poorly dressed, headed up the mountain. I could feel the pain they were about to experience, but could do nothing about it. Back at the hotel, my room not quite ready, I grabbed a peanut butter sandwich and hung out next to the heater while the gals made my bed and cleaned my bathroom. A nice hot shower and a Coke later, I am back to "normal" and ready to set my sights on tomorrow's 118 miler into Mesquite Nevada.