The last day of Ride the Rockies was a bit bittersweet. For sure, I was ready for it to end. I was tired after Wolf Creek Pass the day before compounded with 450+ miles we had ridden in 6 days. But, in a way, I didn't want it to end either. The day was not terribly difficult, but it promised to be hot and breezy. The route map, the elevation, and a commentary on the route follow.
"81 miles and approximately 1600 feet of climbing. You will have 50 miles of virtually flat roads as you head north out of Alamosa. The San Luis Valley is a wide expanse of ranch and agricultural land at 7500 feet. It is flat. It is typically dry. It has fairly cool mornings. It can have searing hot days. Towns are few and far between so be sure to carry water. If it weren’t for the fact that the valley is surrounded by beautiful mountains, I’d say we were in eastern North Dakota or southern Texas. It doesn’t get flatter than this. Hope the wind is not coming from the north.
After mile 50, you have about a 20 mile climb up to Poncha Pass. The grades on this pass don’t exceed 7% and spend most of their time in the 4% to 5% range. In other words, this is a good pass to complete after six days or riding. It will provide nice scenery, good views of the valley, enough of a climb to keep the climbers happy, and shallow enough climbs to keep the tired moving forward without super human efforts. It’s a great way to end a long trip and should not prove to be too difficult. Enjoy Salida… it’s a cute little town with good food. Congrats. You made it." Source: http://www.mybicycleroutes.com/rtr2010.html
As you can see from the map and the elevation profile, we had 35 miles of flat, straight roads. The road is called the gun barrel road, for obvious reasons. As we left Alamosa, LUke and I got in a group of about 6 riders, 3 of whom were sharing the wind breaking duties. I was sitting in the back enjoying the tow. We averaged 20 mph + for the first hour or more. It was great.
At one point, I noticed the shadows and told Luke to drop back and get a picture. He is way more risky with his iPhone than I am. He dropped back, drug his phone out his jersey pocket and the bag it was in, and took this picture.
I realized that Luke had stopped and taken lots of pictures of me. I told him to slow down and I rode ahead and took a couple of pictures of him to prove that he was actually there.
As we rode up the valley, we could see the smoke from the fire that was still burning.
The terrain was pretty flat, not very interesting. But, we had a tailwind and had a high average speed as we headed north toward Poncha Pass. The climb up the pass was not too hard, and the rest stop at the top was a welcome sight. We knew that from there it was essentially downhill to Salida and the finish line.
We enjoyed another speedy descent and cycled into Salida. Caroline and Jynelle arrived just about the same time we finished. Here is a picture of us just after we finished.
We had a beer, wandered around the area seeing if there was anything tempting to eat. Finding nothing, Luke and I decided it was time to shower one last time in the shower trucks. We went to get our bikes to ride over to the trucks, and lo and behold, Luke had a flat tire. We had ridden 540+ miles and had just finished a high speed descent. When we are done, with only a 4 block ride to the showers left, we had a flat. Ironic, and a bit lucky.
I'll write one more post with some final thoughts.
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