The Pac Tour Blues

Following the long established and hoary Gunther Family tradition of being silly and fun, yet heartfelt and meaningful, the completion of pac tour seemed to call for a song--so i wrote one and sang it at the banquet.

Thus, the 12 bar Pac Tour Blues--about a bad day riding Pac Tour. I'll try to record it at some point soon and post that as well

Get up in the morning
You feel tired and pained
But it doesn't really matter
You're going to ride again
The wind it may be howling
But no one gives a shit
You're on a Pac Tour baby,
So suck it up and get into it.

Pac Tour breakfasts
Prepare you well to ride
What you scarf in 15 minutes
Would make most people wide
Yet all that you can think of
Is the food the SAG's may choose
But you've got to ride there first
And that gives you the Pac Tour Blues

Climbing up a mountain
In your little bit of hell
David comes from Florida
How come he climbs so well
Craig and Ray fly up those hills
Like angels coming through
But when all you hear is 'Look, he's going backwards, Phil'
Y'know that gives you the Pac Tour Blues

Your neck hurts like the blazes
So do your feet and thighs
Sitting in the saddle hurts as much as when you rise
There's nothing you'd like better
Than to sag at rest stop 2
But, no, you'll ride another 100 miles
With a bad case of the Pac Tour Blues.

Come into the lunch stop
Feeling like a wreck
Susan's so damn cheerful
You'd like to wring her neck
You wash your hands again and again . . . And
Look at all the scrumptious food
But when you think it tastes like cardboard
You know you've got the Pac Tour Blues.

Gary he rides it steady
Dan he rides it slow
Wayne's ride is mysterious
Where does that fellow go?
Chip goes off the front at once
Rich rides straight and true
But when you just can't hold his wheel again
You're guaranteed the Pac Tour Blues

A lot of us on Pac Tour
Are really kind of old
The aches and pains that are normal
Pac Tour makes them grow
Our friends they think we're crazy
Who knows it might be true, but
When you find yourself agreeing with them
You surely have the Pac Tour Blues

Janet hurt her ankle
Dan he hurt his calf
Lil's got a magic knee potion she brought all the way from France
But if you're so sore & hurting that
Even Jon can't get you through
And you have to walk down stairs sideways
You know you've got the Pac Tour Blues

The road has many hazards
To stop you on your way
At least you bike is shiny
from washing every day
The highway can be bumpy
The pilot cars too few
But 3 flats in six miles, Don,
Gave you a bad case of the Pac Tour Blues

The towns and the hotels
Seem to run together
Was it hot today or cold
You can't even remember the weather
Just ride and eat and sleep, and tomorrow is take 2
When it starts to feel like working
You know you've got the PacTour Blues

But then you see the mountains, or
Bomb down a long descent
Ride strongly in that paceline
Suddenly you're quite content
Thank you Lon & Susan for everything you do
Its loving being on the bike that takes away those old Pac Tour Blues
Yes its loving being on the bike that takes away those old Pac Tour Blues

Finished!

So we finished the ride yesterday about noon, with a tailwind propelled three miles down Montana Blvd (appropriate) in El Paso. The last two days riding ahs been distinguished by a lot of fast, well-ordered pacelines, short gaps between sags, friendly conversation and a a feeling of vacation! IN Truth or Consequences, after a 77 mile day (albeit with non stop rollers and the inevitable headwind) we hung out by the pool and laughed at our silly tans. Las Cruces, Joel and I wend out to dinner with Lil and Ray at a very fancy restaurant (the only one in New Mexico with its own beef aging room) in an old mansion with 24 carat gold ceilings in the old town of Mesilla, and then we got up yesterday morning and rode 65 miles into El Paso, entering Texas, climbing a pass over the Franklin mountains, struggling against a large headwind on teh freeway, then finally picking up the finish I described above.

Of course, the work of Pac Tour isn't over just because you're done riding. Immediately afer lunch, served in the parking lot of the airport Marriott hotel, we were all busily at work packing our bikes, then arranging for shipping. This is a much nicer hotel than we usually stay in (which means there's no free coffee in the lobby and you have to pay for the internet in your room). Then, of course, there's the preparation for the big banquet! Its a nice event; you've made this little community with the people on the ride, accomplished something together, and its worthy of celebration. You eat your buffet dinner, gab it up with your tablemates, Lon and Susan make up little plaques with your photo and hand it out with a nice comment about most people. I, being a Gunther, wrote a song to memorialize the event, (The Pac Tour Blues--thanks, Andy) which was performed to wild acceptance; I'll post the lyrics when I get home later on, and perhaps even record it for the Pac Tour website.

Bike touring really is a fun thing to do. You see the world in a unique way; you're exposed to the weather and the surroundings, you are demanding of yourself in a simple but unrelenting way. These tours take it up a notch or three; being on the bike six to ten hours a day is a lot of riding, and you really need to love being on the bike. Not just like it or tolerate it, but love it. The bike is an extension of your body; sometime you struggle with it, but it is an expression of your desire and need to get on up the road. When you spend as much time on the bike as we do, the journey truly is the reward. If you've been reading , you know that you certainly aren't travelling to get to the next town, because even when we stay in a town that has something going on, we're often too far away from it, or too tired, to do anything. Sometimes I was out on the road, in the middle of a vasat expanse of country, with no one ahead of me, no one behind me, not a soul around, only myself and the world . . . .and the bike.

So its off to breakfast, then to the airport. I'll do a couple more posts this week, and add some photos in.

Aug12/13--Chama to Espanola to Socorro

These last two days I've been riding almost normally. Nearing the end of the tour, especially with the three remaining days being short, I'm less concerned about preserving myself for tomorrow and more interested in asserting myself. So yesterday, our last day of significant climbing, I took off strong and rode strong, on my own, all day. Where for most of the trip I'd been worried about doing too much and paying for it tomorrow, these last two days when it hurt I went through it as opposed to retreating from it, and I've been finishing earlier as a result.

Yesterday we left Espanola heading for Santa Fe on the freeway, then after Santa Fe got on Rte 14 through Madrid, a cute artsy town, but definitely downscsale--sort of a hippie haven maybe what Bolinas was like in the 70's. We then cruised through some high farmland to the lunch spot at 14 and 344, then headed out 344 over a 15% grade down to Moriarty. Pretty farmland, reminded me of ending the Davis Double, heavy thunderstorms all around, but they missed me. Some peo;ple got wet.
Best thing about Moriarty is my Internet worked; we stayed in another of these freeway villages.
The funniest thing that happened yesterday--when we were in Santa Fe, a local rider out for her morning ride joined us for a bit. We told her we were taking 19 days to get to El Paso, and her response was, "Wow, you must really like El Paso if you are taking 19 days to get there!" Priceless.
Mostly, though, yesterday for me was about riding fairly hard and keeping it up all day.

Today's ride was our last long day, 119 miles to Socorro. I started out riding like yesterday, but didn't quite have it, so at the second stop, I joined the Rich train. Rich Ruge, from NY, is a very strong and steady rider. He can power on at the same speed, for a long time. The train ended up including me, Ruth, Lil, Ray, Joel and Matt (Rich's friend form hign school). We pretty much rode together from the second SAG to the end. There was a long downhill after lunch, then we got on I25 and heading into a very strong headwind. The last 25 miles were hard, with headwinds, bad roads and tired bodies. Got in, and our room is right by the breakfast truck, which means a lot of steps saved in the morning; I showered and played for an hour, got my massage and went to dinner. A good one, tonight!

The terrain is surprising--rolling farmland with a lot of trees, giving way to scrub brush and desert. Somehow I didn't visualize New Mexico this way. The vast open plains here reminded me of Africa; I was looking for herds of animals, but I guess they are gone. It's dry and hot. We're riding these rollers that go down into these wadis; flash flooding is a way of life here, I guess.

So, 210 miles in 3 days. Should be easy--except it never is on Pac Tour. Despite wonderful support, it still is just you and the bike.

Aug 10-11; Durango to Chama to Espanola

I'm writing today in Espanola, a town in the greater Santa Fe area. we'll be going through Santa Fe tomorrow. The trip is really starting to feel long, there is stuff going on at home that I'm missing being a part of. when I got in today I called both BR and Ronni and got up to date a bit. I still love riding my bike, though. Amazing but true. Five days left to ride, then this all will be a memory. That said, its far from a memory now. I still am prety tired, today was a very slow day. I settled in on the bike and pedalled either slowly, slower or not at all, the exception being the hills when I would spin up in a gear at least two cogs lighter than I ordinarily would use. Yesterday morning, when I woke up in Durango I felt just as tired as I had the night before when I wrote my last post. I had no idea how I was going to make it through a 122 mile day that had over 6500 ft of up to it. So from the beginning I set a high cadence, higher than I usually do and whenever I fet any stress in my legs, I would shift to a higher cog. This method worked. I stayed in the saddle a lot longer than usual, and I felt pretty good all the way to lunch. The morning's route was the only stretch of this ride that followed the same route as the cross country ride in 2005. I didn't enjoy it then, but it is really pretty nice, on highways 172 & 151 through beautiful rolling pasture land, then national forest past Chimney Rock, until we we rejoined the busy hwy 160 for the last few miles into Pagosa Springs for lunch (grilled cheese & tomato sandwiches)., The afternoon we rode long gentle rollers for the rest of the afternoon, into New Mexico and to the town of Chama. Vicious headwindfs at the end, and a bit of rain as well. Chama seems to be a dying town, but we had a real good dinner at the lone restaurant in Chama. I had an interesting chatwith rider Ruth's husband Jim, who is not riding but is enjoying the National Parks and the various other beautiful things aroudn here that I am unable to, being stuck on the bike, or resting up for tomorrow. He's a prefessor of International Conservation at Cornell, and I talked with him about both EA and CEMAR.

This morning breakfast was at the luxurious hour of 7:30, as we had a short, 80 mile day, a straight shot down route 84. I woke up at 5 anyway, finished yesterday's post, the read yhe New York Times om my PDA. That was prety cool. Susan made eggs this morning; I age thrm and my usual breakfast too !

It turned out to be a good day to be cooked, as I couldn't really ride too slow to miss anything. We started out in woodsy rollers like yesterday, but gradually descending until we hit a long, ten mile descent that brought us decidedly into mesa country. Stopped off at the beautiful arch amphitheater, and spent the rest of day in New Mexico looking scenery. I had my first flat of the trip about a mile before lunch. There were only 20 miles after lunch, and about half of them had gone by before John Lake, a strong and fast rider, passed me and I decided to see if I could stay on his wheel. I could; hopefully that bodes well for tomorrow, a 90 mile 5000 foot affair. I've been off my feet as much as possible since getting in. Dinner was at Sonic, the fast food place directly next door. a chicken sandwich, a chicken salad and fries. I may rouse myself to get get a sundae in a little bit.

Soemthing I did not share with all of you right away is that one our riders had a fairly serious accident the morning we were leaving Grand Junction. Diane was riding the wrong way in a bike lane with the rising sun directly at her back, and a car turning right hit her. She has been in the hospital with a fractured cervical vertebrae, and surgery was scheduled for today. It also ended her partner Barry's vacation. So take it from me, everyone, when you are on your bike, assume you are invisible, and do all you can to be noticed. Four other riders have also left the tour, for exhaustion or illness; Kerin leaves after tomorrow's ride for family reasons. Generally, though, this is a strong group; I've been migrating backwards, though!

August 8 and 9. Grand Junction to Montrose to Durango.

OMG. Taken together, these may be the greatest two days of cycling I have ever experienced. Massive climbs, swooping descents, majestic mountains, good enough weather and a strong enough and willing cyclist (me) all combined to produce what tonight is a very tired man sitting on his bed at 7 in the evening hoping to stay up late enough to finish this post.
I felt good when we left Grand Junction yesterday morning. The previous day had turned out easy, so when we left I was ready. Although the 4 miles on I-70 were not fun, once we hit rte 65 we were in for an incredible treat. The Grand Mesa scenic byway begins following a river up through these progressively higher buttes. You'd look up the sides and imagine cowboys cornered in box canyons, or ambushes being set up around the next bend. We soon rose out of this terrain, and after the first sag at the town of Mesa, the climbing began in earnest. 23 miles of it, over 6000 feet to an altitude of 10,800 feet. This climb was exposed, on the front of this range, and so the higher we went the terrain behind us opend out larger and wider. I took photos about every thousand feet or so, and they tell a dramatic story. (I can't upload pictures well with the system I'm using, but check some of other blogs for photos) When we went over the top, we spent a brief minute in a high alpine valley before beginning the descent in earnest, in which we lost 7000 feet and gained 35 degrees in 20 minutes, rushing down the hill at an average of 35 mph or so. Today's climbs were a bit different, but equally fantastic. A slow gain in altitude over the first 35 miles from Montrose to Ouray, then 3500 feet in 13 miles topping out at 11,118; we descended to Silverton at 9300 ft for lunch, then had a 7 mile climb back to 10,900, a 4 mile descent, then a 3 mile climb back to 10,600 before the final descent into Durango. So today, we stayed at the higher elevations for about 45 miles, where yesterday was a quick hit before returning to the 5000 ft level. Both days had a bunch of flat, bumpy roads with headwinds at the end, which was sort of a drag after the perfection of the mountains, but it still is Pac Tour!

The mountains were perfect. Ouray is cute little town situated at the head of a valley with peaks towering above. Silverton is a reconstructed mining town, but mostly these rides were about the mountains.

So, I should talk about climbing. There are three types of effort in road cycling; climbing, sprinting and tempo riding. Sprinting is maximum power and speed over a short distcance; tempo is maximum speed over a long distance; and climbing is balancing effort and gravity. It is a great combination of strength, consistent effort and self awareness. On these huge climbs, you need to save energy at the bottom so you'll still have it at the top--if you blow up, you will have nothing left, which was the case for me by the last climb today. I was really paying attention starting first thing yesterday, with three big days in the offing. I started the climb in my 34x25 gear and ended up in my 34x27,. Thats the same gear Alberto Contador used on the 24 percent grade in the time trial in the Giro; of course I was doing it on a 6 percent grade! So I pedal for a few minutes, trying to keep a fairly high cadence, then I stand up and lower my cadence, drop down 4 cogs to keep my speed up and use different muscles, then sit again and work my way up the hill, all the while gauging my effort. The whole process can be very meditative. Thoughts flit by but if you get off on a thought, you can lose your rhythm. This ride, of course, is quite different that if I was out climbing Mt. Tam on a day ride. On this ride I always have to stay within myself, because overdoing it one day could mean several days of pain. So yesterday I was targeting 120-130 as my heart rate, and hit 136 at maximum. (I'd get into the mid 150's on Tam.) Today, I could barely reach 125, and was usually in the 116 range. Until the last climb, when I was cooked, barely turning my 34x29.

On the descent I passed Durango Mountain Resort, the sister to Kirkwood. Similar approach, but the grid and the large town nearby make a big difference. In Durango ee stayed pretty far out of town and I had a really bad dinner. Too bad, as I was so exhausted--it just increased my exhaustion. How I'm going to do this again tomorrow is quite unclear, but somehow I will.

August 7, Rangely to Grand Junction

And just a little taste it ended up being. The early part of the ride was through sort of scrubland, with sandstone rocks and old riverbeds. Right after the first sag I was delayed for nearly 45 minutes by road constuction, and mostly the entire back half of the group was collected until we were finally able to follow a pilot car nearly five miles through the construction zone. as it happened, he dropped us off right a the foot of our only climb of the day, 8240 foot Douglas pass; probably a categort 3 for the tour de France riders-- fairly short and not real steep. However, it was made a bit more exciting by our first rain of the trip, which started right at the top of the pass.So I put on jacket, cap, leg warmers, toe covers and gloves, and set off. It was a long, fun descent, not very curvy, so it was real easy to do in the rain. The bike stays comfortably upright on the straights, you start braking a bit sooner for the curves, and don't lean too heavily in the turns so you don't slip out. Near the bottom of the climb, the sun came out, so I doffed the rain gear, stuffed it back into my seat bag and pockets, and got back on the bike. I was tooling along quite comfortably when up a hill, the tandem train caught me. There is one tandem on this trip, being ridden on alternate days by Don and Carol Friedlander. The other days, Carol works crew and Don rides his single. So, I'm jamming along happily behind the tandem when it starts to rain again, and I am faced with a dilemma. Do I drop off, when we're so close to lunch and put my rain coat back on, or do I gut it out, taking nlt only the rain but the spray from the rest of the group. I chose to stay on, and a as a result go rewarded with regular facefuls of road spray. Not too disgusting, but at the end of the day my legs and the bike were covered with mud. Lunch was in Loma; we then turned off of rte 139 onto US6 for a while then rode a series of side roads through Fruita to Grand JUnction. THe crowning indignity of the day is that our room wasn't ready for nearly two hours after our arrival in town. I got my laundry done and played some guitar, but didn't get my shower until long after I was really ready for it.

That eveniong, Joel and I took a cab into downtown Grand Junction to haver dinner at a nice Italian place, whiel the dinner was good and definitely a step up from what we had been eating, more fun was that the main street downtown was closed for a produce/art/music fair, as it is every Thursday evening during the summer. Tne streets were full of people, and it was really nice to be away from the freeway hotel ambience of most of the places we stay. Joel and I are enjoyng each other; we have similar tastes and sensibilities He has a background similar to anne's, and we spent a good bit of dinner discussing our families.

The next two days are in the high mountains, with huge climbs and screaming descents-- Stay tuned! After Sunday, our big days are over and I hope to a little more commentary and a little less reportage.

August 6

Today I took a vacation from Pac Tour. I've mentioned before about the 'tyranny of the schedule,' starting early every morning, getting in. cleaning up, eating, getting ready for the next day and then dropping off at 9. So this day, we didn't leave until 9am, a real luxury, so I got up at my usual time, walked a block to the coffe house, had a couple of double espressos over an hour and typed my blog of yesterday's ride, Then I went back to the hotel we were actually served a real breakfast, omlettes, pancakes, etc. Yum. Finally, I walked across the street to the library, sat on the steps, and used their wifi to post my blog and read the opinion page of the New York Times.

The ride was only 50 miles so I stayed on the same theme, riding very slowly and easily down route 40. Whenever my heart rate hit 100, I'd back off, and so I expended very little effort. I rode right past the first sag, as I didn't need anything, and continued my slow and steady pace toward Rangely. I also rode past the second sag, having this fantasy that Dinosaur, Colorado, would have soem tourist facilities; I and had visions of a nice bakery dancing I’m my head--alas, it was not to be, so I returned to the sag, had a snack, then rode the last 15 miles into Rangley on route 64, which I felt was the most dangerous stretch of road we'd been on (most did not agree with me, BTW). There was no shoulder and big trucks, including trucks that I'd never seen before. Thankfully, this was a fairly short stretch of the road, and then it widened out. The last few miles were mostly downhill, and I violated my easy rule when the Lon train went roaring by, and I jumped on the back for the last few miles into town. Lunch was in a City Park, and we had to kiill a bunch of time before the motel was ready for us. I played guitar for a while, cleaned my bike, then went inside and got cleaned up. I also took a vacation from blog writing. Joel and I didn't trust any of the three restaurants in town, so we bought some prepared food at the grocery store, which was pretty good, and salt at a table in the pool area and had our dinner. This also broke the routine.Then, of course, it was back to the schedule, getting ready for tomorrow, which was to be our first taste of the Colorado Mountains.