Meanwhile, On the Front Range. . .

Because I'm an administrator for this blog, I can see other peoples draft post. This is one of Tango999's draft posts circa 2009. I hope he doesn't mind too much. I'll try to be uncharacteristically brief. Last Sat-Wed I jetted out to CO to assist RiderxXx in her preparations for the Bob Cook Memorial Race up Mt. Evans, the highest paved road in the universe, the earth, or North America. I forget which. She'd been out there for about 10 days or so when I arrived and was thus beginning to acclimate herself to the lack of breathing gas in the stratosphere. The plan was to ride. Then eat. Then sip a cool beverage. Then sleep. This we executed to near perfection. Sunday was a long (80 miles) ride outta Boulder up Boulder Canyon to Nederland, then to Ward, then to Lyons, where we sat out a thunderstorm under a balcony at the Oscar Blues BrewPub, then the long way back to Boulder. Monday was the Assault on Mt. Evans. We got a late start and didn't turn a pedal till after 10 am, but had few worries as it was a beautiful, sunny, mid-80's day in Idaho Springs (el. 7500 ft) when we started. Got to the half way point at Echo Lake, got more water and studiously ignored the Thickening Clouds and Dropping Temperatures, but we did notice the proflitteration of wild fleurs of every color, creed and denomination camping out in the woods and right up on the shoulder of the road where at the breakneck speed of 6 to 6.5 mph they were nothing but a blur of color.
Rider had urged me to ride this as I would a race. Which meant that she was going to ride this as a race. Not against me, as that would prove pointless (in more ways than the one) but against the clock, altitude sickness and hypothermia. We soon drifted apart on the ascent and I kept slowing down and looking behind me and hoping to see her so I would have a further excuse to slow down. Misery on a 28 mile climb is its own reward, though, and it doesn't like company. So we stayed apart until she caught me on mile 21 or so and by mile 22 had dropped me like a bad dirty shirt habit. My list of excuses for this will be covered in upcoming posts. Maybe. But eventually my left quads just sorta revolted. Said something like "If we gotta hafta do all this work with no Oxygen, we might as well just turn all the way on full blast to eleven and not turn off at all whatsoever come hell or high water so help me" which they did. So I rode a while with a left leg that wouldn't bend and found that it negatively impacted my speed, disposition, enjoyment, will to live, and ability to endeavor to perservere. So I stopped. Pulled over by a road sign warning of Mountain Goats or Rock Slides or Altitude Sickness or Hypothermia. I stood there pretending to admire the scenery, which was majestic and austere and intimidating a thousand feet or so above treeline and which I obviously wasn't doing on account of how it was spitting rain and blowing 25 mph everywhichway and maybe, what, 47 degrees? After a few minutes I grabbed my ankle and forcibly bent my left knee and gradually the frontal thigh muscles relaxed and stopped spasming. So I got back on the bike and started back up the ramp I was in the middle of, made a right turn and started heading down. Down? Down to Summit Lake? Met Rider coming up toward me saying something about gotta git down. I insisted we at least take a photo or two at Summit Lake, and she relented. By the time we done, the 3 or 4 riders who had passed me whilst I "admired the scenery" had were coming down without having summitted, and clearly that was the only sensible move. Donner and Blitzen had arrived on the Mountain in full effect and the lack of cover, the complete exposure you experience is hard to describe. You feel like you're tied down on your back in the middle of a huge barren field, or in the middle of the ocean. So we beat it down as fast as our skinny tires would take us, the wind at whatever speed plus the 30 mph we were moving, the rain felling like needles on our cheeks, our single layer nylon jackets wholly inappropriate to the task.