Day 7: 5/22/10 Monte Vista, CO to Trinidad, CO

Click below to review today's route and ride stats:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/34159160

WIND!!! 

As we came into Monte Vista last night, we were greeted by strong crosswinds.  These sustained throught the night and grew as the morning progressed.  The route this morning was relatively flat for the first 50 miles.  We had two notable climbs on today's ride, a 5 mile assent to the summit of LaVeta Pass at 9,400 feet and the other at Chucharas Pass at almost 10,000 feet.

As we rolled out of the second SAG stop this morning, our route turned more to the northeast and we bagan picking up some strong tailwinds.  The climb up LaVeta Pass was a breeze with many sections at over 20 mph.  The grades were a bit more shallow on this pass than Wolf Creek the day before.  I got up to more than 28 mph on some sections before tiring and slacking back a bit.  As I neared the top, I cut back to catch my breath and downshifted into an easy spinning gear to finish the climb.  As I rested, I could actually feel the wind pushing me up the grade without any pedaling effort.  Making the final turn toward the summit, I was sidestruck be flying dust and gravel from the roadway.

As I crested the hill, one of the crew was standing at the roadside cautioning riders of the high wind conditions for the 10 mile decent.  I took it real slow and rode the brakes the whole way down.  In fact, my decent was slower than my ascent.  I followed another rider down and kept my eye on what he was experiencing so I could react more quickly to sudden wind gusts.  Had to unclip from the pedals several times to brace for the possibility of being blown off the bike.  By the time I got to the next SAG stop at the end of the decent, riders were being put into trailers to get out of the wind.  Susan was suspending support up the road at least until they could get all of the riders behind us off this pass.

I learned at this time, our RAAM hopeful, Mark Pattinson, who is always the first guy down the road, was blown off his bike which went over a guard rail.  His bike frame wound up being cracked and was no longer ridable.  Thankfully, Mark was not injured seriously.

We waited at the trailers for nearly an hour as remaining riders came down off the mountain.  By this time, winds were sustained at well over 45 miles per hour with gusts over 60.  At this point the tour organizers cancelled the remainder of the ride, saying conditions were too dangerous to continue with the second pass ahead.  They even indicated, as did many other riders, that they had never seen such strong winds in this area before.

So we wound up getting in only about 76 of our 145 miles in.  Lon indicated that this would not be counted against those attempting to qualify for RAAM.

Tomorrow may be as windy as today, but we are now moving out of the mountains and into the plains.  So it is highly unlikely we will have a repeat of what happened today.  It will be a long one at nearly 200 miles.  Good that we got some additional time to rest up.

Only had time for a few snapshots today.  Here is what I got:

The morning packing ritual - walk of the dead.

Ready to roll.

14,000 ft peaks

Blown away!

Cram everything in ... we're outa here!