30 days into the ride – La Junta to Pueblo

When I came out for breakfast this morning, the weatherwoman on the TV in the hotel lobby said “This never happens, especially in Colorado… but these storms are moving from east to west today”. THAT HAPPENS WHEN CYCLEOVERRIDE IS IN THE STATE! 🙂 Needless to say, our trip westbound in to Pueblo today was a speedy one.

JP once again beat Terran and I out of the hotel. I think he’s still on Eastern Time. For the first time in a long time I had on arm warmers, and Terran decided to put on a light jacket. I hope that becomes a trend.

For the last few days we’ve been paralleling a BNSF rail line. While it’s pretty impressive to see how much cargo they carry (including train after train after train of coal today), they seem to cause problems for the MCC. The MCC’s alarm system has 3 levels of response to “shock”, ie: someone trying to break in to the vehicle. The first level, in response to a small jolt, is a polite set of beeps. The second level, in response to a stronger hit is a short term audible alarm, plus we get notification on our phone and key fobs. The third level is a full blown “BEEWOOBEEWOO” alarm and our phones and key fobs go crazy. We’ve had problems with trains before. In Christiansburg VA the hotel was feet away from a train track so the third stage alarm went off because of the vibrations from the train. We had to disable the alarm that night.

Last night, we were about 100 yards from the train yard across the street. Far enough that I wouldn’t think it would be a problem. Well, at 5am the BNSF conductors fired up their locomotives… and they managed to continuously send out enough seismic waves to get the MCC to continually beep out the polite stage 1 beeps continuously. Since we had parked directly outside our hotel window, I heard it at soon as it started. I jumped up, saw the MCC was OK, disarmed and rearmed the alarm, and thought it was done. Seconds later, it started again. I got dressed, went outside in my stupor, and eventually figured out what was going on. That was way better than any iPhone alarm 😐

We had a solid tail wind for the entire trip to Pueblo. Terran and I were able to clock in nearly 30 miles in well under 2 hours today without really breaking a sweat. Terran called it a day after 2 hours mostly because he was sore from being in the saddle, not because his legs were tired.

I pushed on to Pueblo, chasing down JP. Now, the route I put together left US 50 for a while today to try to change the scenery a bit. Unbeknownst to me, JP missed the turn and kept cruising on 50. For punishment the road deity FINALLY gave JP the flat he had been waiting for. JP, until today, was running the same rear tire he had used last year for the second part of our east coast ride. The tire was worn flat and was literally threadbare. I kept joking “You’re going to get a flat before Pueblo”. Well, 30 miles out, he got it.

 

We rallied where the 2 roads we were on came together.. and both arrived at Art and the MCC within seconds of each other. Crazy.

We finished out the day together on 50. The final calculation for me was 64 miles at 17.7 mph and my heartrate was basically at a brisk walk. That’s probably the best possible way to finish out the flats.

Tomorrow is a short ride (less than 40 miles). We’re going to be over a mile in elevation and I’m keeping the routes simple for the next couple days as we acclimate. We’ll get one day of real climbing on Thursday and then get our rest day. Hopefully the Rockies are kind to us.