WA to MT Day 4 - A Long Day
Today was a long day in the saddle. We rode 102 miles and climbed 7000'. However, big headwinds for the first 22 miles combined with an 8 mile gravel section (pictured above) made the day even longer. I spent most of today's ride cycling with Doug, Ruth and Jesse pictured above left to right.
The first 22 miles of today's ride were not that pleasant. We spent much of it on a fairly busy road, and the headwind just made riding hard. However, once we got off of the main road, the riding got better. The scenery was typical of western scrub desert. I even saw two road runners scrambling up an embankment such as shown to the left of the road here.
Here is another picture as we got a bit farther on and into a slightly less arid valley.
Here are Doug and Ruth pedaling along early in our ride.
As we headed west, the scenery became more interesting. Throughout the ride, we saw a number of old buildings sagging or collapsing with the weight of time. Here are two such examples, but we saw many more.
Our first climb of the day was a series of smaller climbs with some rollers in between.
As we got farther from any towns, the scenery became lovely and the roads much less travelled.
Here is a picture of Jesse riding.
After our first major climb and descent, we entered the gravel section along a river. This was slow going. Also, there were large sections of washboard, series ruts going across the road making it look like a large washboard. These are simply unpleasant to ride.
The final 20 miles were 10 miles up at 5% followed by 10 miles down. On the way up, I was just focused on getting to the top. While I took a few pictures while riding, none came out that well. On the way down, I was biking too quickly to safely take photos.
Tomorrow will be another long day. We will be riding 124 miles. Fortunately, there is less climbing than today, and the climbing is more gradual.
Good night.