Day 7 began with a long climb out of Durango. I left my panniers at the Comfort Inn for Hazel & Candy to pick up on their way to join me at Mesa Verde. Good move. The first climb was over 11 miles & at least a 7% grade at times. What a difference without the panniers! Like banging your head against the wall. Feels so great when you stop! Took me about an hour & a half. With the panniers it would have taken me at least 3 hours. Even though there was a head wind all day I could still move at a reasonable speed i.e. 10 miles per hour or better. It was not a long distance to ride today but hills non stop. It became clear that in future I wont attempt long rides without a sag wagon-just too difficult with at least 50% more effort needed especially in hilly country & with wind which just about excludes everywhere! I am reading a book recommended by Carol X "We may as well win" by Bruynell the manager of Lance Armstrongs team with which he won the Tour de France 7 times. It's a great inspiration. One item deals with the effort to build the perfect bike on which they spent over a million dollars. Each ounce of weight & all wind resistance possible had to be illiminated. So important are these issues to the pros so I realize how hard I made things for myself.
Today I saw 2 other riders heading in the opposite direction really loaded. They were much younger than me but looked a lot older! Such is the effect of excessive exercise!
The only town on the road to Mesa Verde is Mancos about 27 miles from Durango. Took me about 3 hours to get there & seeing a store called Zuma that sold health foods I coudn't resist. They make great coffee & cocoa & I met the charming new owners, Robin Armstrong & Cynthia Klumker. They are delightful & please don't pass Mancos without dropping in! Tell them Herzl sent you
I was excited to eventually enter Mesa Verde. My first time here. Almost immediately there was a sign telling of the stimulous dollars being put to work fixing the road & no cyclists were allowed to ride up. Hazel & Candy were still 2-3 hours away so I hitched a ride up in the back of a truck with the nicest couple Susan & Ted Kercher. This was luxury compared to the last truck ride. I had a tire to sit on & half way up Susan brought me their dogs cushion as well. Luxury! What a country!
Actually the 15 mile ride up was about as spectacular & SCARY as hell. I can't believe that they allow bikes at any time even if the road isn't dug up.They shoudn't even allow cars! I must confess that I was relieved not to be riding up this monster of a climb. In fact I will have Hazel take me down when we leave day after tomorrow. This road makes the ride up Independance Pass (for the non Coloradans it's an over 12,000 foot pass coming out of Aspen) look like a picnic.
So the cavalry in the shape of Hazel & Candy have arrived so I will have a sag from now on. Candy flies back to Denver from Durango tomorrow & I will take a tour of this spectacular place. It defies description. We had a gourmet dinner in the dining room with amazing views.
My thanks to Hazel who up till now wrote the blogs which I called in every evening. From now on as I have the laptop I will write them myself. No photo's today because they can't be sent from my phone as there is no connection from here.