Day 8

Boulder - Torrey

8:20:57

38:53 miles

4.6 avg. speed

3190 ft ascent 3544 ft descent

In the morning, I was just a bit behind Rob Paull, Cheryl & Randy. We met at Boulder Mesa Restaurant for breakfast. It took about an hour to get the flood and I was starving! I got 2 slices of french toast, sausage & potatoes. They were good but everyone left before I was done eating. I stayed about 30 minutes to digest a bit of food before the climb. You basically start climbing as soon as you hit the road. By the time I got to the other end of Boulder, I hadalready climbed almost 1000'. Cheryl said the climbs last for about 15 miles. There wasn't even a wisp of clouds in the sky when I got started. But as soon as I was making the climb, a billowy cloud started to grow & expand quickly. It became a thunderhead cloud. I taxed my legs & lungs for the rest of the ride trying to stay ahead of it. But it eventually caught up to me as it devoured the sun.

I made it to the summit. I was told that there were still going to be a couple of climbs after that but I wasn't expecting how hard it would be. There were a couple of downhills but the uphills would come back with a vengence. Once the downhills finally started, I had to put on my rain gear just to stay warm enough. I stopped at the old Ranger's station for a bathroom/food break.

Eventually, Rob came to find me in his car. He came just before the real downhills started. 8 & 10% downgrades! It was beautiful! I made it to Torrey just as the rain was starting to fall again.