Descending Monarch Pass: The Movie

Day 48 - July 21, 11:02pm
66 miles. Salida, CO to Gunnison, CO

So i guess that when you have two "one of those days" you start to wonder whether "those days" are really so isolated after all. Again, the first 10 miles today were just not working with me. I really think its the lack of daily sleep thats not letting my muscles fully recover each day from such an extreme workout on top of the building sleep debt. Am easily the last person to bed almost every night. LIterally all i think about during the day sometimes is whether i can just get into the host and get 10 hours of sleep and freshen up. As you can tell from the timestamp thats not really the case tonight.

Interesting Day though. Started out with my same back tire getting another flat. In the process of changing also realized that my tires were gashed up left and right. I guess i should consider changing them but then again, if they got me this far...

Anyway, today we climbed Monarch Pass which is no small feat. By climbing Monarch Pass i mean ascending 3,700 feet to around 11,700 Trail Ridge wasn't much more than that and this went for six miles between mile 17 and 23. The climb went steady enough but i definitely did take stops this time. Mountain climbing is really interesting. You know you're just in for an hour of straight grueling muscle soreness and lack of breath. It really cultivates an amazing sense of focus, pacing, and self awareness in a unique way. And I guess i could make some kind of cliche analogy here of how climbing hills is like getting through struggles in life.

The gift store at the top was packed with Monarch Pass stuff advertising the elevation. Lets be real though, after summiting Trail Ridge at 12,000 how could i really lower my standards by buying a monarch pass sticker.

I rocked the downhill with Rob and it was one of the trip's best yet. 10 miles of pure, fairly easy descent. There's nothing like whizzing by at 30 mph and seeing a sign that says "6% grade, next 7 miles" It was so awesome in fact that halfway down, Rob and I couldn't help but film it to share it with everyone. What you see is taken from my camera strapped to my handlebars with two bandanas(LOVE BANDANAS!) as we descend about 5 miles at 30 mph. What a great rush. (be sure to watch to the end) Parents, please at least try to not poop in your pants as you watch.



Unfortunately the rest of the day didn't quite match yesterday's descent. While the next 40 miles were a gentle downhill, that was negated by the ferocious headwind blasting us the whole way. It was pretty miserable and just plain frustrating. To sum it up, at one point I was pedaling in first gear on a downhill struggling to go 10 mph. Yea, it was that bad.

Oh but wait, the morning music. I had an hour of handpicked songs qued up and my excitement to play it got me right out of my sleeping bag(which is definitely not the norm). In short, everyone loved it and gave tons of compliments. I really appreciated this. It was so awesome that i could listen to my own happy music but even moreso that other people enjoyed it. It set a really great tone for our whole morning music rotation which the riders are now taking over from the leaders and showed that it'll be really fun. Its sweet because everyone is pumped not only to play their music, but also to hear what surprises others have in store for the morning. Already some people were busy today planning next week's music assignment. Oh man, the only thing more awesome than music is music sharing. I'm so glad the trip is taking on this dimension.

Also, Carlie and I have decided to become hardcore pushup buddies. We've been doing it for just about a week now so i feel comfortable speaking of it as a routine. No matter what as soon as we get into the host we jump straight into them. My personal goal is to do 100 pushups in as few sets as possible by the end of the trip. Ideally 1, but most likely 2. Its great since if one of us is feeling a little lazy the other has no problem yelling at them. It totally makes me feel 100x better to be exercising my full body. Its really annoying to be doing such a crazy daily biking workout only to watch your upper body strength whither. Plus, swimming trunks end up covering the legs anyway...