Epic Bike Ride Day 9 June 3rd and 4th
Thoughts from Kelly: Monday, June 3 (happy birthday to our niece Megan!) We drove from Prescott AZ to Grants NM ready to restart the ride in the morning. We didn’t find a spot to sleep in Grants, so we took the extra time to go to the same spot we slept at prior to our AZ excursion (Coal Mine Campground). We love these quiet state and US forest campgrounds. We planned to get up early and start the ride with plenty of daylight. Well, as most of you know, we are not morning people. Especially Mark, who has the super power to sleep as long as he can. I usually wake up early-ish but today (June 4, happy birthday to our friend Kerrie!), I had trouble falling asleep so I slept in till 8:30. We did notice that we were both slow to get moving and get back into our rhythm after the AZ time off. With eating breakfast, getting gas and ice, and all the prep to get Mark on the road, it was after noon by the time he started. Ugh, maybe tomorrow we will get an earlier start, all we can do is keep working on it.
We decided to take the paved option for this section, it adds some miles but Mark can ride faster and more comfortably on paved roads, so why not take advantage of the option, right! Well, the wind was brutal, so brutal we wondered if the steeper mountain dirt road would’ve been better, same, worse? Who knows, so we rode/drove on. This is a beautiful part of New Mexico with all the mesas and different colored rocks, I can see the attraction to living here, except for the wind. Saddest part of today is when we pulled our Frontier tortillas and saw they had mold on them. NOOOOOO! Why didn’t I put them in the fridge! I’m so sorry Mark.
Thoughts from Mark: WOOF! That sums up how the riding was today. As Kelly said, we had an absolutely brutal headwind (probably 20-30mph) for at least 20 miles of the ride. It is so demoralizing riding into the wind. I had to shift down at least 3 gears, and there were times I looked down, and saw I was riding 8mph on flat-ish pavement. The feeling of “spinning to nowhere” (how’s that for a great band name - you’re welcome), is just so frustrating, and knowing there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, seems to make it worse. Kelly had lots of good pep talks for me today, as I was not feeling strong, was upset at how slow I was riding, and just wasn’t “feeling it” for much of the ride. As the day went on, though, I was able to suck it up a little bit, and managed to grind out 49 miles and change. I was very happy with that distance, knowing the effort it took to get there. The scenery helped, as some of the rock formations were incredible, and other parts opened up to enormous ranches, with plenty of green grass to make the cows happy. Here’s hoping I will feel better/stronger tomorrow!
Miles for the day: 49.66 Feet climbed today: 2,238
Total miles ridden: 418.38 Total feet climbed: 23,306
