Not many people can say they have been together, with the same person, for three centuries… yes, it is true! Carolyn and I have been together, for that long (as in miles, hee hee :)
It was the morning of the Tour de Palm Springs and we got up early, about 4:30 am. We got dressed, got our gear in order, bikes on the car, and headed out! After grabbing a quick bite at McDonalds, we found a parking garage downtown and rode the short distance to the starting line. The serious racers were heading out just as we got there so we waited for most to pass, grabbed a map and then followed along.
We had just started out, got out of downtown where the wind was blocked by the buildings, when the wind really picked up. It was the strongest wind we have ever attempted to ride in… remember the earlier mention of windmills? Yes, there were thousands of windmills. We should have suspected there might be wind, right? At one point, we were literally riding through a sand storm!!
This is video I was able to capture to try and show how bad the wind was that morning. See all the windmills spinning? That means it is really windy!!
The strong winds made it difficult to ride. Most people were struggling, and this caused a bottleneck of bikers and cars. I became quite fearful at one point when we were on a bridge, and the gusts of winds were so strong, they could have easily picked us up and swept us right off the bridge down into the depths below...
Thankfully, the wind eased up after the 10-mile point or so. It stayed with us most of the day, but wasn’t ever as strong as it was in the beginning. We were rewarded for our struggles at the beginning, with a good, long stretch of downhill. We made up time by racing down the hills at about 40 miles per hour.
It was a fun ride, and we were not out to set any records. We took our time and enjoyed the many, well-stocked pit stops. We rode through desert hills, upscale cities (yes, at one point the signs warned us the bike lane was also used by golf carts), and palm tree farms. A good amount of the ride was on populated city streets. We just kept on riding making sure we checked in with others for directions as the route wasn't marked well (some turns had no signage, others were marked poorly and were difficult to see).
We finished after about 10 hours on the course – approximately 8.5 hours in the saddle. Not bad for us! Congratulations to Mike and Annette for their first century! We were honored to be with them for this remarkable accomplishment!
We were also very fortunate to not have one flat! Amazing to have four bikes, eight tires, traveling 100 miles each, and not one flat. Whew! Flat tires easily eat up time and create some stress for slower riders trying to finish before dark.
We rode into the finish line and collected our well-earned t-shirts. We were not the fastest riders, but we were also not the slowest! After the ride, we headed back to the hotel got cleaned up and went out to eat at Chipotle's - they gave a free burrito away to each rider! Once full, we slept well that night before heading back to Utah on Sunday. We were able to stop in Las Vegas and visit Mike's mother.
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| We did it!! Our third century together... |
We do not miss the wind of Palm Springs… but it sure was nice to be back outdoors in the saddle after several months of riding on trainers in the basement!
