Montrose Pie Ladies, I love all the fruit pies you offer RTR riders. Falling asleep last night after a more hellish day than last year's Copper Triangle - 20 miles and 2000 more feet of elevation - I dreamt you wouldn't be at the fair today. This is my sixth Ride, third stop in Montrose, so I've come to expect my a la mode slices as a reward. I even rode that out and back Challenge, thinking I'd be jinxed otherwise. Thanks for the homemade pies.
Shiver me limbs, the start from Durango was cold through that canyon. Coal Bank Pass pushed me, to the point that I stopped twice up Molas ostensibly to take pictures. Red Mountain took my legs away. Was it psychological seeing the road above, how far I had to go? Stopped six times but didn't sag. I had this rule years ago that if I stopped anywhere but Aid stations, I had failed. Not so anymore. I'm re-tired, I'll take my sweet time after a few rounds of "shut up legs". Then that decline through the castellated Ouray canyon - screaming!
The first Ride my son and I did in 1996, I carried a point and shoot camera, but only took one picture the first day. I found climbing that I didn't want to break what little momentum I had to shoot a photograph of panoramas that pale in comparison to the real thing. Descending was too much fun to slow to film a blurred moment. With phones, the camera quality has gotten so superb, they're worth carrying for that reason alone. But you still have to stop! I may do it to spell the gams, but the descent is worth recording - stop and suck up to the vistas - take a memory shot.
I can't say the crew I'm camping with minds that advice. Bon Fils, Jonny Demon, Golden Boy aka Ice Cream, and Sweeney Todd are banking those Strava records. They're having a good time pushing each other on sprints for city and county signs. I tail them into camp, but we gather for lunch, drinks, and dinner. In Ridgway, I signed out before dinner after Eatery 66 and ice cream to the Sextones in the park. Tough ride, but today's a la mode raspberry then blueberry rhubarb pie is all good.
Michael Thornton #RetireeBookie