E-P-I-C.

3 August 2008

Below, photos from the RIDE.

Punk rock front derailleur: “shifting” gears to enter the mountains.

Fully two-thirds of the route were long, unrelenting climbs. The difficulty of the ride itself was compounded by the trifecta of the 94 degree heat, altitude, and the 25-30 pound weight of our packs with the extra jugs of water we needed to carry through the 50 mile sections completely devoid of human presence.

“Hey dude, you feel like doing this again, next weekend?”

The breaks and the views at the vista points along the way were amazing.

Punk rock GPS system.

Elmer Fudd insured that route-finding was at times challenging.

Sadly, I didn’t get any photos of Rainier handling the 30 minute long descents on his Broakland track bike but, the lower number “54.3″ is the maximum speed in miles per hour that I hit, indicating that a descent enabling this sort of speed is incredibly harrowing on a road bike; and truly beyond description with words on a track bike. With the gear ratio he rode in the mountainous portion of the route, Rainier must have held a sustained cadence of 190 to 200 RPM’s in the descent, with the possibility to throw in skids to check his speed all but nullified. I’ve ridden with this guy quite a bit and have seen him do some gnarly stuff on the bike, but the things I saw him do this past weekend were not to be believed had I not seen them with my own two eyes. Truly, incredible.

Our usual pace over 100 miles averages 20 miles per hour, making a century possible in 5 to 5 and a half hours depending on the amount of climbing. Friday’s ride covered 120 miles and took the better part of 16 hours to complete. We found ourselves finishing the final stage in total darkness with a couple blinky-lights to suggest a path to pick through the inky blackness.

Lake Tahoe at day’s end.

_garrett chow