Today was one of those days that you are glad to get behind you. It lived up to all of our expectations – lots of climbing, cloudy and cool all day and wet – not from rain, but from heavy fog and an occasional sprinkle of rain. I think we got pretty lucky with the weather, it looked last night that we might have rain all day. The ride was hard enough as it was and the lack of a steady rain at least made it bearable. This was Day 8 of our last 9 day riding blocks. We are all tired and ready to get to our last Rest Day after tomorrow’s ride into Corning, NY.
The day started with a 5:15 wakeup given our scheduled 7:15 rollout. After a quick breakfast yet again of powdered eggs, microwaved frozen sausages and some cereal, we prepped our bikes and debated on whether or not to wear a light rain/wind jacket. I opted to keep mine in my back middle pocket of my jersey and I’m glad I did because we started climbing just a mile out of the gates. One bad thing about climbing so quickly without the opportunity to warm up is that you get to taste your breakfast twice – its bad enough the first time but again while you’re climbing and out of breath? Not a pleasant early morning experience.
Our first stop was around mile 19.5 and it felt like we had already been on the road for hours – but is wasn’t yet 8:45 AM. We knew it was going to be a big elevation gain day but the sometimes steep and punchy climbs out of the gate make the time go by slowly. But, by the time we hit our next SAG stop at mile 39, the good news was that we had already done over half the climbing for the day – our legs were feeling it too.
One thing I have learned about riding in cool and misty weather is that it is easy to not hydrate properly and I fell into that mistake again today. You still sweat – even though you’re not wet with sweat. It wasn’t until I got to the lunch stop at mile 53 that I realized that I was behind on my hydration – I had barely finished 1 water bottle and we were over 3 hours on the road. I had some catching up to do but usually by then, it’s too late. By late in the ride, I was feeling a little weak and I realized I hadn’t done a good job of fueling either.
We had a SAG stop at mile 70 as we geared up for the big 2.4 mile 800 foot climb above the Kinzua Dam on the Allegheny River. This was our biggest sustained climb of the day and it came at mile 75 just as we were feeling the effects of the 14 of 17 climbs we had completed to that point. It was a long climb and I was really hungry at that point, but we had only about 15 miles to go after the descent.
As we rolled in around 3:45 this afternoon, I saw that there was an Arby’s less than 250 yards away. So, I stopped and walked in there with all my gear on and got myself a Turkey Bacon Ranch sandwich to go and finished the ride carrying my bag in hand to the Holiday Inn Express. Our guides got a kick out of that but I HAD to eat! But today was a long day with over 6,000 feet of climbing over 101 miles. I was in the saddle for 7 hours 22 minutes. After some recovery we had a nice group dinner at Togi’s Family Restaurant where I ate yet again and topped it off with a chocolate milkshake.
Tomorrow we head to to 12th state – New York! I am looking forward with great anticipation to our Rest Day in Corning. I think I’ll sleep well tonight.