Day 6 - Sept 16th

• Distance:  77.1 miles

• Climbing:  4,134 feet

• Moving Time:  4:41:17

• Elapsed Time:  6:23:09

• Average Speed:  16.4 mph

• Max Speed:  39.6 mph

Today would be the longest day, mileage-wise.  So we got an early start riding, leaving camp at 7:52am.  Because of the earlier start I made sure to have my jacket on, as it was even colder than yesterday to start.  We started off on the same route as yesterday, onto the highway, then left up the climb.  The views weren’t as good today, though, as it was mostly overcast this early in the morning.

As we finished the climb we saw one rider in distress on the right, being helped by medics.  Not sure what happened, maybe heart problems?  

We now descended (I skipped the water stop), then turned right near the stop sign to climb up what we’d gone down yesterday.  Everything was backwards now.  Of course everything was also different now since there are so many more cyclists.  We went over the climb and passed the green hills, then made a final climb (including some 10% grade sections) to the first food stop.  I filled up on food, water, and Gatorade here.  I decided not to use the gear drop, though, since I knew we would soon do a long downhill.

Alex arrived at the rest stop just as I was about to leave, so he told me to go on.  Meanwhile, Todd had this crazy idea to turn today’s 77 mile ride into 100.  He was going to backtrack as much as necessary to do so.  He started by going back to Alex, and then tried to chase me down…except I hadn’t left the rest stop yet.  So he ended up going past me and I never saw him again until we were back at camp.  So I pretty much did almost the entire ride by myself.  Well, except for some pacelines I’ll get to.

After the rest stop we soon started the nicest descent of the week.  This was a downhill of what we’d gone up yesterday, but it looked completely different now.  It was still overcast, but you could appreciate the twists and turns of the road going downhill, with lots of exposure.  There were no guard rails, so one false move could send you flying for a while.  Many were taking it slow and cautious.  I’m usually pretty conservative, but for whatever reason it didn’t bother me at all.  I’m used to more technical descents in the Bay Area, so I just went my usual speed downhill (which was faster than almost everyone around me, but not all).  The views were great, but I couldn’t stop to take any pictures.  I know I saw one person in a recumbent taking a video of the descent with his phone.  Hopefully he and others will share.  I should probably make the effort to mount my GoPro somewhere on my bike.

Once at the bottom, we turned right and followed mostly flat roads the rest of the day - gaining less than 1000 feet over the last 50+ miles (less than 1% grade).  As I mentioned before, this is right in my wheelhouse.  I passed some people and more than a couple people asked if they could draft off me for a bit.  I didn’t mind.  Eventually one guy passed me (I later learned his name was Art), and I latched onto him.  Everyone else dropped off.  So it became just the two of us, and we took turns the rest of the way into Spray, averaging about 19.5mph along the way.

Mind you, I was still wearing my jacket (slowing me down), and Art mentioned this as we pulled into the food stop.  I thought I might see Todd here, but he was already gone.  I took off the jacket and warmers and enjoyed the stop at Spray Riverfront Park next to the river.  After about a half hour break, I got back on my bike.

After Spray, I latched onto a group of 3 other riders.  Over the next few miles, riders came and went and I think at its peak our paceline grew to 7 or 8 riders.  We were flying.  Roy (who had passed me on the climb on Day 3) joined for a bit, did a turn, then dropped off.  I took two or three turns at the front, trying to keep my heart rate in the 140-145 range, though it crept a bit higher at times.  

We zipped by the water stop without stopping.  Eventually the group was whittled down to just 4 of us - me, one of the original guys (a big guy), another smaller older guy and a woman who may have been stronger than all of us.  I found out later that none of us knew each other; it was kind of cool how the paceline just formed organically.  Even with the 4 of us, we were still flying, but eventually I decided I should drop off.  I wanted to save energy for tomorrow, and my heart rate was spending too much time around 147 for my liking.  As it turned out, I probably would have stopped shortly anyway because there were some good places to take pictures.

With all that said, we sustained an average of 22.5 mph for over 15 miles (it’s possible we went longer, but I don’t have the patience to figure it out on Strava).  That’s almost certainly the fastest paceline I’ve ever been in over that distance, and it looks like it was the fastest of anyone on that stretch this day.

That was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done on a bike.  In any case, I did drop off and stopped a few times to take pictures.  Soon I reached the last food stop, set near a grass field with some nice views of the mountains.  One of the guys in the paceline saw me there and we chatted briefly.  He saw me later at dinner that night and was raving about the paceline, how smoothly we all worked together.

After another half hour stop at this rest stop, I got back on the bike to do the final miles of the day.  After going through a narrow canyon, the road turned kind of ugly to be honest.  Suddenly, there was lots of car traffic (there had hardly been any before the rest stop), and we had 3 bad choices:  (1) ride to the right of the line, where there was a lot of gravel and debris, (2) ride on the line, which had invisible rumble strips, or (3) ride to the left of the line, taking chances with the car traffic.  I opted mostly for (3), though I tried to veer to the right whenever my radar warned me of vehicles coming up from behind.  Unfortunately this meant I often transitioned over (2), the invisible rumble strips, which was not fun.  As I passed someone later, he cursed at the rumble strips.  I told him I felt the same way.

Finally, we reached the town of Dayville.  No chocolate milk at the finish line; they were serving iced mocha, but I’m not a coffee drinker.  Give me my chocolate milk!  Anyway, it was 2:15pm when I arrived and the camp was hot.  I took my shower and then tried to find any shade that I could to relax.

Todd arrived not too long after I did.  He had actually only reached 84 miles today.  He had planned to ride back from camp to get his final 16 miles, but considering the road conditions leading into camp he decided against it.