100 miles in the desert

So here are some pictures of my century ride in Moab. I finally have a few minutes to blog about it. It was absolutely beautiful, and the hill wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be--either that or it has already faded from memory. The pace started out really slow, and since I didn't know what the climb was going to be like, and since I had felt realllllly awful all week, so I took it easy too. In all there was about 7000 feet of climbing. The weather could not have been better. For the climb the clouds were out and kept it cool. The sun came out later, but it never go too hot.










This guy you see here next to me is Steve. I caught up with him at about the half-way point as we came on to the Colorado river road. We were doing about the same pace, so we were able to take turns breaking the headwind for each other. The company made the ride a lot more pleasant and the guy, despite having 20 or 30 years on me, was an animal.








Moab was smaller than it was when I was growing up there. But as soon as I got some of that red dirt under my fingers, it felt like I had come home. I have always wanted to do a ride down the river road in Moab. I have also been thinking for the past few years that I wanted to have some sort of goal for my workouts instead of just riding for fun. The century in Moab was perfect because it gave me an excuse to achieve two goals in one: It was far enough out of reach to be a real challenge, but in a great location that let me return to where I grew up.

I was tired when I finished, but not as bad as I expected. My arms actually hurt more than my legs. Probably a combination of the achy flu I had and the breaking I had to do when coming down the switchbacks into Castle Valley. The only real excitement came ten miles from the end when my front tire blew out violently. It sounded like a gunshot. We were going to boot the hole with a power bar wrapper when the SAG wagon showed up with a new tire. So I went home with a brand-new tire worth $40, that I was going to have to replace soon anyway.



And just so you know, after the ride, we went to Arches where Dallin found what was according to him "the perfect spot" and told his mom to take a picture. Which she did.