No Chain: Guadalupe Mountain National Park

The Goal.

“I was already running, even then, toward a new place within myself: Pushing the envelope into longer distances seemed to open a door, somehow, into a kind of undiscovered country of mind and body that id never known about or imagined. And as my old physical limits faded behind me, I began to wonder if the boundaries I’d perceived and believed about though and consciousness might be elastic as well. What makes a human being go? What makes a person run, climb, try hard or even get up in the morning, and what makes him stop?”

- From the book To the Edge by Kirk Johnson

This is the second mountain national park that we have stayed in which I have come to realize means one thing, there is going to be a climb up that mountain at the end of the day. We started out an hour earlier than normal because of the day that was planned, 107 miles! Google map El Paso, Texas to Guadalupe Mountain National Park, or I can just save you the time and tell you what we cycled through which was not much of anything, not a city, not a town, not a park, nothing but rolling hills and desert. I got off to a slow start because of rear wheel issues and fell about 20 minutes behind the group, which is not how you want to start such a long day in the saddle especially with the headwind we were facing. There is nothing worse in cycling than a headwind except a headwind when there is no one else around to give you a break from it by riding behind them for awhile. The wind averaged 17-20 miles the entire day and was a lot gustier the closer we got to the peak. I did this for the first 25 miles to the first water stop, at one point around mile 20 I broke down in to tears (Preface: not the only time I cry this day) because I was pedaling as hard as I could and was still only going 11 miles per hour and I could just picture the lead group pulling away from me as I struggled on my own. I came within minutes of calling the sweep van to end my day early but by some minor miracle one of the guys I ride the most with, Chris, got a flat tire while pulling into the rest stop and Pete had hung back with him, I can’t begin to tell you how happy I was to see the two of them sitting there. We hammered as a group of 3 the next 35 miles to the lunch stop catching all the way to lunch, catching all the rest of the riders in the process. We continued to fight the headwinds and hills after lunch but we got the added fun of Texan drivers who really seem to not like cyclists on their roads. We had one last rest stop at mile 80 before beginning the climb which changed a lot of people on this trip from being just bike riders to cyclists. I’ve done a lot of physically demanding things in my life but this effort shot straight to top of the list. It began slowly at around mile 94 and did not relent until our campsite at mile 107, 13 straight miles of pain. Throw in the headwind and there were multiple times where I was concerned I would fall over sideways due to the lack of forward momentum. Pete and I climbed together, side by side, not a word between us except the muffled grunts of exertion, we both knew without saying the pain each other was feeling in our thighs, calves and just about every other muscle in our bodies. It seemed for awhile that every switchback we came around the road just rose steeper in front of us. About half way up the climb I had to turn my odometer off as it was making me sick to my stomach how slowly the tenths of miles were clicking off. We ended up climbing for 1 hour and 20 minutes straight, every pedal stroke requiring maximal effort to complete just to reach our campsite for the night. The word epic got tossed around a lot as we sipped our celebratory beers as we lay on the ground in the middle of the road at the campground. That climb would have been tough in any condition but after beginning it after 94 miles and 6 hours of riding, facing that headwind and the heat of the afternoon sun, I was brought to tears for the second time of the day at what we had just accomplished. The rest of the night was spent rehashing the trials of the day, before we all crashed back into our sleeping bags shortly after sunset. Epic day, one Ill remember forever. No chain!