Double Pass Triumph

It was a little harder getting out of bed this morning at 5:00--but I did. We were heading to Avon from Buena vista--a 75 mile ride. It was a double pass ride--Tennessee and Battle Mountain. At the start we were hit in the face with punishing 35 mile per hour head winds. It was a tough way to start out the day. By the end of the first 13 miles to the aid station, most of us were exhaused. It was a slow grind with a gradual climb--but add in the headwind and a tough day yesterday and it seems impossible.

My crew and I trudged on another 13 miles--the wind was a bit less, but the fatigue was already there. When I do Ride the Rockies, I always want to summit the passes and don't necessarily care if I ride every mile. I've done that before and know I can if I choose that but I have to have fun. This is a vacation so it should have a modicum of fun. So I sagged to the next aid station (10 miles) and enjoyed lunch in Leadville. It was great getting off the bike and recentering my thinking. I still wanted to climb. So I mounted up and headed up Tennessee Pass. It was a nice pass with turns and some good climbs with an a fun down hill here and there. I came upon John and Rich (two other handcyclists) who had started out 30 minutes or so before me. They were riding together so I just got in a groove and caught up with them. We all summited about the same time. We got our picture by the summit elevation sign--as expected. It was a 10,500 ft. pass and not a bad climb. I was looking forward to the downhill--which was fast with lots of winding turns and bad pavement. I wasn't looking forward to the bad pavement or turns, but a downhill is a great payoff for hours of hard work. I headed out and began picking up speed quickly--I had to slow down a bit to negotiate the turns. I was anxious to see how the bike handled at higher speed. I got up to 43 MPH which was pretty fast for the poor pavement and winding turns.

It was very sobering when we riders were signaled to slow down and practically stop. A rider had gone down and was severely injured. As I rolled past him laying there in a puddle of blood, I sent up a quick prayer that he would be okay. It turns out that he didn't survive that crash. I heard that this was the first death on RTR since 2006. This should make people more aware when decending those passes. But I'll probably still see people doing stupid things like drafting vehicles and crossing the double yellow line. I know I will think twice before I let it go full tilt.

After that decent it was time to climb Battle Mountain. We had done this pass before but from the other side. The massive walls of rock just radiated heat from them as I slowly grinded up that mountain. One man was walking his bike up and was going about the same speed as I was!! It got alittle annoying so I geared up alittle and left him while I made it to the top. There was no celebration--just the next descent. The thought of that rider who had gone down weighed heavily on my mind. I didn't try to set any speed records just got down to Minturn and then on to Avon where we were staying.

I felt proud of my accomplishment of making those passes today. The fact that a fellow rider died today--made it a sad day. The ride will go on with one of our "family" no longer on the tour.