Today was a tough ride that ended up being 125 miles. The first 56 miles were not hard at all, and I rode with True and Beeks. After a great lunch that was sponsored by Ennis Lions Club, about 3 miles into our ride, we hit the fastest, strongest, and most unpredictable winds I’ve experienced since Hurricane Katrina. We had a fast speed on the bike of 5 mph. The wind had completely stopped the whole team in its tracks. We knew we couldn’t make rack point and my pace line came together and realized there was only one thing to do; we put our heads down and just began to grind out as many miles as we could. We had a few down hills on this part of the ride but we never made it past more than 10 mph. It just felt like a wind tunnel with mountains to our left and right with no protection. After making it 95 miles we got racked and drove the rest of the way to lodging. Everyone still had high spirits after the hard day knowing we would have the next day off in West Yellowstone National Park. We cleaned up and headed off to one of my favorite dinners put on by a local church (they had some great spaghetti, did I mention how much I like spaghetti?). Then we explored the town. I think the biggest take away for me was that I didn’t get off the bike even when failure was standing at my doorstep. I was able to look past the fact that no one was going to make time, and I made the best of the miles we could finish.
journeywiththomas 