March 26

Today was a climbing day, a big climbing day.  As the tour people said: it was the third hardest day of the tour.  

I am not sure that was true.  The climbing wasn't really all that bad but today's conditions certainly were.  The one part of the climb was on the 13+ percent grade that they added an extra element of difficulty.  They put speed bumps on the uphill grade!  There were 12 sets of speed bumps in each group and there were 4 groups of these.  You would be spinning as best as you could at about 7-8 mph then you hit the first set of speed bumps.  You would be almost 4-5 mph by the end of the 12 bumps.  Yes, you are right... you can barely stay upright at that speed.  Then another group of speed bumps and another and another!  Really, why speed bumps on an uphill???

Oh well, on to more of the exciting conditions for the day.  The climbing took us up in altitude rapidly as we set out for the day.  We climbed up into the clouds.  We rode in the clouds for about two hours.  The cloud was misty and dense.  It was so dense that you could not see 100 feet in front of your bike.  The riders in front of you kept disappearing into the mist and then reappearing.  Kind of like ghostly figures.  The mist was cold and soaking.  At one point we descended down a bit out of the cloud on a downhill.  That is when it poured down rain.  That morning I had taken my rain jacket out of my pack since I hadn't used it yet.  Wrong decision!  Once I was completely soaked to the bone the winds really started whipping up.  They were serious cross winds and were biting cold.  They were so strong that they would move your bike over about 2-3 feet while you were riding it.  I got so cold I was shivering.  When I got to the lunch stop I gave up for the day.  I just sat in the truck trying to get warm.  :(

The trip is about 40 some odd days left to go.  But by no means is it lessening.  Of those 40 some odd days there are 11 rides that are century (100 miles) and greater.  As a matter of fact one of them is 129 mile day!  I think since they haven't broken us yet they are planning on running us or should I say riding us into the ground....

Here is a picture of how low the clouds were.  That is a mountain that we climbed.  More than half of it is in the clouds.