Climbing, climbing, climbing. That pretty much sums up the type of riding we had today. Today was the bulk of the climbing to get on top of the Sierra Navada Mountains. We started the day at an elevation of 400ft and had to go up a 4000 ft pass before decending down slightly to 3700ft to our stop in Pine Valley. We ran out of daylight as we spent the whole day covering only 28 miles as approx 3/4 of that distance was uphill. My ride time was just under 4 hours. The total time on the bike was 8 hours. Aaron was grinding up the hills at 3-4 mph so I leap frogged him all day as I have trouble maintaining my balance at those speeds. Luckily this should be the hardest hill day of the entire cross country trip.
We picked up a home made peach pie from a farmers stand..since we biked hard all day we had it for an appetizer while sitting at the campfire as dinner was cooking. Rick Mason, Steve and Kelli Cal joined us at camp for moral support and to discuss the day's adventure. (Pic above taken the next morning before leaving camp at Morena Lake, a beautiful mountain lake in the high desert)
1st full week in California comes to an end. I Eased into the riding this week with 5 days of riding and 2 rest days. Covered 191 miles during 17 hours of pedaling. Temps ranged during the day from mid 60's to high 70's with lows in the mid 40's to high 50's. Wall to wall sunshine and not a hint of rain. Soon we will drop into the Sonora Desert so we look to avoid rain at least until we ride into Texas.
I'm so thankful for all the support I've had from family, friends, co-workers and complete strangers that have made this first week of the adventure possible and the next 9 weeks to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment