Stage 3: Holy Sh#t

Today had it all, but mostly it had climbs or at least that what we spent the bulk of our ride time doing. The race director apparently was concerned that crossing the Continental Divide (a bit above 12,000 feet) once was not enough. So we did it twice. On the first ascent we rode until we walked and then we walked until we crawled. Then we put on our rain coats. It was just like walking up a flight of stairs (in leather dress shoes) in a huge freezer with a dishrag crammed in your mouth while little street urchins threw cold water in your face. The higher we walked, the colder it got. Then we hit the clouds. Grey cold clouds. It could have gotten much worse but the heavy rain remained at bay. When we topped out above 12k we started on a 900 ft descent back down to where we started. The ride was fast, rocky and wet. (Incidentally it was fast because my hands were so cold I couldn't uncurl them to work the brakes. Dave said it was the fastest he'd ever seen me go down a mountain). Once down, we realized that my back tire was slowly going flat. We decided to nurse it along by filling it up with air every mile or so until we got to one of the aid stations. We climbed again to the Continental Divide and it was more of the same--except this time we could ride (instead of walk) to the divide. We decided to press our luck and we pumped up my tire and started down. This descent was even sweeter than the first one and we soon found ourselves (again) back down where we had started. Finally we determined that I needed to fix my flat and we cruised into the last aid station where the mechanic there quickly fixed the flat and we were on our way. (Yes, the sad truth is that neither one of us knows how to change a flat tire). Then the sun came out. It got hot. And the climbs kept coming. It got steep. Then it got steeper. When we thought the road couldn't climb any higher, it did. Finally, the path turned down and we rode to the finish after almost 6hrs in the saddle. We had seen it all since 8AM: cold, wet, rain, divides, sun, rocks. It was nice to sit down on the couch and watch bad tv. Tomorrow is supposed to be worse than today. Good times.