Videos of the day:
Miles on the road: 69, maybe 70
Wind: Brutal. Absolutely brutal headwinds the majority of the ride
Temps: Started at cool 66 and finished at a scorching 86 degrees... but it was mostly sunny!
Start Time: 9am
Finish Time: 3:30 pm
Lunch Stop: Qdoba in Silverthorne
Terrain: We climbed roughly 4500 feet today with the majority of that in the first 15 miles! We tackled Loveland Pass and then enjoyed the payoff of 12+ miles of downhill.
Danger scale of roads: On a scale of 1- 10 w/ 10 being the highest, about 9.8. The last 30 miles I sang Jesus Loves Me to myself and never took my head off the road. Seriously. You laugh, but when you're on a busy road with a speed limit of 65 mph, you probably would to. We saw campers, semi's and SUV's pulling big ol' boats....fortunately, they were all very gracious.
Songs stuck in my head: "Midnight Blue" by Lou Grahm (When I wasn't singing Jesus Loves Me)
Scenery: Gorgeous. Absolutely spectacular. Mountains, rivers, streams, forests.
# of Times I kissed my wife: between 30-35 (Hey, I'm not going to see her for 11 days... easy!)
Quote of the Day: "I'm getting a butt, I can feel it." -Luke Jones
Forecast for tomorrow: 112 miles to Riverside,WY ....yeah, we can use your prayers! 3,000 feet of ascent, 3200 feet of descent.
THE HUNGER RIDE SAYS THANKS TO.....
*Our unbelievable sag wagon crew of Tad Jones, Martin Butler and Andrew Aymami. They are amazing. They carry our stuff, feed us electrolytes, food and other good stuff. We could not do it without you guys!
THE HUNGER RIDE SAYS HELLO AND GOODBYE TO ....
*57 year old Frank Connor (aka Frank the Tank) We call him a tank because that's what he is on the bike. An absolute beast. We had the honor of riding with this legendary cyclist for 1.5 days and we were truly privleged to have him with us because he is a joy to be around. He also has tolerated two inexperienced high schoolers on bikes without complaint. Frank said goodbye to us on the top of Loveland Pass ..... and then road back to Denver today. Nuff said. What a stud.
*Marcy Mcgovern. Time will not allow for us to tell all of the stories that we have on Marcy, but be sure to check out this one: Marcy killed it up Loveland Pass today and then coasted with us into Silverthorne before heading back to D-town with my wife. Fun Times Mr. Marcy. Thanks for riding with us!
*Lyle "Heavy D" Devries: The surprise of the day came about 2 miles from our lunch stop in Silverthorne as Heavy D blessed us with his presence. He then road the next 20 miles out of S-town....and I'd personally like to thank Freddy-Fresh legs for absolutely destroyeing us. We had a nice little 4-man peloton system going with each of us taking about 2 minute pulls. It was nice until Heav blew up the peloton. The fact is, we're weines. We just couldn't hold the pace. I say all of this in good fun of course because we were honored to have him out. And the reality is that had Heav climbed 45oo in the morning (like we had) he still probably would have lit us up. Heav, you da man. We love you. And we wish that God made us more like you.
*Andrea Rand, my lovely bride. Annie will make another appearance on the HR in appr. 11 days, but until then I'm going to have to pull through without my better half. Most of you don't know that the reality is there would be no Hunger Ride without my wife. She's done a ton of work behind the scenese to pull so many things together. Nice work, baby! Way to smoke it up Loveland!
THE PLAN FOR NEXT YEAR .....
THE PLAN FOR NEXT YEAR .....
I need your help on something. I'd like to do something next summer, but I just haven't been able to decide what that might be. Sitting here with sunburn, sore legs, butt, and well .... you can imagine. I figure that I'd choose something a little bit easier. Help me figure out which one of these would be the most fun:
1. HUNGER FLOAT 2011 ....I will start in Minnesota and float down the Mississippi River on my way to the ocean. Anyone have a canoe I could borrow?
2. HUNGER FLY 2011 .....I saw a hot air balloon yesterday.... and thought that would be pretty cool. Maybe fly from like Maine to California?
3. HUNGER GLIDE 2011 .... then there's always a hang glider. But how would I go pee?
4. HUNGER CLIMB 2011 .... climb all of the 14-ers in the state of Colorado. Actually, nevermind. That's too hard. And I have zero upper body strength.
5. HUNGER SPELUNK 2011 ....Yes, that's right. I will explore all of the top caves next summer.
6. HUNGER 80'S DANCE PARTY .....In case you didn't know, I'm a big fan of the 80's. I could committ to listening to 80's music 16 hours per day for everyday of the summer. Oh wait, nevermind, I already do that.
Ideas? Please share them in the comment section.
Hey Tom, thanks for letting me join...what a great day. Sorry about the continued blasted head winds. Can you email me the picture of me on Loveland Pass, thanks!
ReplyDeleteHow about Hunger Nap 2011. Daily Siesta from 1-3 hours.
your posts are awesome - impressive accomplishments and still some humor at the end of the day. We'll see how funny you are next week...God Bless on the journey and thanks for keeping us posted!
ReplyDeleteI've been begging for a hunger ANYTHING that doesn't involving climbing mountains (on bikes or otherwise). The raft sounds nice and I'm told it is do-able. I've even got a few friends strategically on the old man, the mighty miss, old many river...
ReplyDeletePS - I got a wild Christmas card for you today. We need to talk.