What goes up must come down...

7/25 More climbing and miserable winds...

Lil foot and I have pretty much been riding with Chris and Gary now for a while and we all planned on doing 87 miles from Cotopaxi to Gunnison which judging by the elevation profile on our maps should be a repeat of the day before. A long ass climb with a huge downhill on the other end. Well the climbing began and again felt never ending. Along the way lil foot and I met a few guys that where hanging out by the side of the road waiting for a few other friends. We got to chatting about cycling and found out two of their friends had a bet going on. One was cycling up to Monarch's summit while the other had to hitch hike up. Clearly not an even bet but the cycling guy actually made extremely good time, though I'm assuming he still lost. This guys were entertaining for the 15 minutes we talked to them, but now it was time to ride on.
After 5 hours on the saddle we still haven't reached the top. My ass was soo numb at this point, on top of that it began to rain and the temperature dropped a bit. Every turn we made the road continued going up as our moods were going down. FINALLY, the top! At over 11000 feet we reached the top of Monarch Summit! We took q little break before cruising downhill.
The next 10 miles were beyond amazing. Lil foot and I cheered and high five all the way down, then the fun was over. With 30 plus miles left, the wind picked up. We were still going downhill but without peddling we would have been at a stand still. This went from a high fiving downhill to a long ass night of riding. As if the wind wasn't bad enough we both needed a restroom desperately but of course there was nowhere to go except for our final destination. By about 9pm we dragged ourselves into Gunnison and were exhausted. After finding a restroom we got in touch with Chris and Gary, Chris offered to let us share a room with him, but refused to take our money... We repaid him in drinking all night. As if we hadn't learned that drinking the night before riding is a bad idea, we continued on to the bars. Once again we closed a couple places, played some pool and then passed out for the night. Chris snores so now I have a video of it on my phone, blackmail!

7/26 Now that's what I'm talking about....
Two days of 40plus mile climbing, it was time for a great riding day. Today was just that, 66 miles into Montrose. Thefirst 20 miles was filled with mountain side views and the Arkansas river along side of us. Then it was a rough 20 miles, a little climbing but the rough part was the down pour and hail. Though the hail wasn't huge it still hurt a lot. There was a gas station/store right in the middle if our only two climbs for the day, and it was perfectly located. We reached there right before the rain got even heavier, so we hid out for a while before doing our last 20 miles.
The rain slowed down so we hustled out, only a 4 mile climb and then downhill 16 miles! The rain picked up again on the way up, but our downhill was perfect even with the rain. I don't think I had to pedal for more than a minute on the entire way down.
By the time we reached Montrose I was soaking wet and freezing. After my aunt Karen found out, she and C Bear (Uncle Craig) booked lil foot and I a room at the econolodge! AMAZING! Love you guys and thanks again! Right now I'm recleaning all my clothes because they were drenched during the rain. Lil foot is doing her thing of post cards, talling up numbers and so on. Tomorrow we will make it to Telluride, Colorado and the next day its Utah time. Not sure we'll see anything as beautiful as the Rockies for the rest of the adventure but we are still looking forward to all that's ahead!

Night all!
Sasq

Ps... We miss our friends and family, so comment away and say hi!

Thanks again Karen and Craig for tonight, I probably would have caught pneumonia if I was still out there tonight.