Today was amazing! It started off as a chilly morning biking out of Laramie into the surrounding farmlands. I was paired up with Chelsea for the day to conquer the climb (aka the ROCKIES!) and we were blasting music all morning to wake up and get pumped for the day. There was a moment as soon as we crossed over a bridge to exit out of the city that we could see the snowcaps of the Rockies in the distance. I think we all screamed when we saw them! They are so gorgeous. We were biking straight to the mountains and they were slowly getting higher and higher.
We had our second water stop around mile 30 at the base of the mountain in this tiny town called Centennial. We all started to get a little nervous for the challenge ahead. As we started to climb, Chelsea and I ended up pairing up with Chris and Taylor, then later Mitch and Joanna to form a big group to get up the mountain with! It was a gradual uphill for about 15 miles (a looooong climb). We stopped about halfway and went into the forest to explore this beautiful creek and take some cool Go Pro videos. We stopped a little after that too to look at this gorgeous lake, where we ended up seeing a moose!! Then we got back on our bikes to endure some more fiery quad pain to get up the mountain. The pine tree forests we rode through were beautiful, and it was even better when we reached some snowbanks higher up the mountain and got to touch snow in the middle of July! Such an odd experience because it was 70 degrees out... One group built a mini snowman that we saw the remains of as we biked past, and Joanna threw a few snowballs before we got back on our bikes and finally headed to the top. A few groups were already there, so we had a bunch of cheerleaders screaming for us as we biked up the final incline. We were all really feeling the altitude and panting hard but we pushed through and made it to the summit with huge smiles on our faces! We waited for the final groups and cheered them in, then took about an hour at the summit taking pictures of the gorgeous scenery, taking it all in and leaving notes on rocks for Jamie. We also signed a big boulder so we could leave our mark :). Not sure if that's really allowed but…it was '4K OK'.
I think we all would've been happy to stay at the top for the rest of the day but we still had about 30 miles left to get into our host in Saratoga. Luckily we had about a 15 mile downhill to enjoy to get us off the mountain. We all met up at the bottom for one last water break before we headed into Saratoga. We had some more climbing for the last 15 miles but luckily these were only rolling hills. We had the road all to ourselves and more beautiful mountains to enjoy along the ride. Wyoming is so so so gorgeous! We were welcomed into Saratoga by the wonderful pastor and congregation of the Saratoga Alliance Church who provided us with dinner and home stays for the night. One of the men of the congregation (who was a nurse) even gave Chelsea an IV because she had gotten really dehydrated during the ride. It was pretty funny actually because Chelsea was sitting at dinner all hooked up to an IV (typical for her to have something going wrong). All in all, the day was one of the best we've had and we were definitely feeling on top of the world when we finished. Team Portland 2014 has successfully rocked the Rockies!
We had our second water stop around mile 30 at the base of the mountain in this tiny town called Centennial. We all started to get a little nervous for the challenge ahead. As we started to climb, Chelsea and I ended up pairing up with Chris and Taylor, then later Mitch and Joanna to form a big group to get up the mountain with! It was a gradual uphill for about 15 miles (a looooong climb). We stopped about halfway and went into the forest to explore this beautiful creek and take some cool Go Pro videos. We stopped a little after that too to look at this gorgeous lake, where we ended up seeing a moose!! Then we got back on our bikes to endure some more fiery quad pain to get up the mountain. The pine tree forests we rode through were beautiful, and it was even better when we reached some snowbanks higher up the mountain and got to touch snow in the middle of July! Such an odd experience because it was 70 degrees out... One group built a mini snowman that we saw the remains of as we biked past, and Joanna threw a few snowballs before we got back on our bikes and finally headed to the top. A few groups were already there, so we had a bunch of cheerleaders screaming for us as we biked up the final incline. We were all really feeling the altitude and panting hard but we pushed through and made it to the summit with huge smiles on our faces! We waited for the final groups and cheered them in, then took about an hour at the summit taking pictures of the gorgeous scenery, taking it all in and leaving notes on rocks for Jamie. We also signed a big boulder so we could leave our mark :). Not sure if that's really allowed but…it was '4K OK'.
I think we all would've been happy to stay at the top for the rest of the day but we still had about 30 miles left to get into our host in Saratoga. Luckily we had about a 15 mile downhill to enjoy to get us off the mountain. We all met up at the bottom for one last water break before we headed into Saratoga. We had some more climbing for the last 15 miles but luckily these were only rolling hills. We had the road all to ourselves and more beautiful mountains to enjoy along the ride. Wyoming is so so so gorgeous! We were welcomed into Saratoga by the wonderful pastor and congregation of the Saratoga Alliance Church who provided us with dinner and home stays for the night. One of the men of the congregation (who was a nurse) even gave Chelsea an IV because she had gotten really dehydrated during the ride. It was pretty funny actually because Chelsea was sitting at dinner all hooked up to an IV (typical for her to have something going wrong). All in all, the day was one of the best we've had and we were definitely feeling on top of the world when we finished. Team Portland 2014 has successfully rocked the Rockies!