An aspect of the day Carey leaves out was how hot it was.  Yes, One Hundred Fifty miles.  Yes, 3 mountain passes with thousands of feet of climbing but it was “warm” that day in SW Idaho and that was as hard for me as anything to overcome.  I mentioned how gracious these folks were and it was never more apparent than the 110 mile marker when the Seattle contingent, Greg (above), Hahn, and Aaron took turns looking after me as the hurt locker tickled me all the up the last bit of rollers.  We all regrouped while waiting and “supporting” Cole as he limped his rig in with an iffy tire that he had been battle since the 70 mile marker.  All of us were in question of where the support vehicle was or more appropriately realizing where it wasn’t.  Earlier in the day Hahn had coined the term “Vanxiety” (I think I am remembering that correctly).  Vanxiety was the degree of panic that you go through when you were not sure where the support van was.  The various degrees obviously depended on your current condition, miles left, and gradient you are rolling.  Luckily one of the fellas with more cognitive capacity than myself realized we could refill our bottles at the campground we were approaching.  This might have been our savior as the vanxiety meter was pegged in the red.

After a sweeping long decent and ~140 miles of riding in our rears we passed the Horseshoe Damn picnic area and headed into the wind for our last 10 miles.  This was possibly the ten funniest and most painful miles I have ever ridden. Daniel Wakefield Pasley and I headed off in search of Boise with absolute delusions in our heads.  Needless to say, it was ten miles of our “best” comic routines.  Comedy was the one savior from the agony that was incredibly strong head winds and this amazingly bumpy green trail that made our saddles feel like ass hatchets (thanks LPC).

It was a long hard day in the saddle.  We experienced a wrath of flats, an unfortunate crash, and each of us suffered from the heat and effort that the long day doled out.  As we sat at various tables for dinner that evening, catching up on real life, not one of us would have written the script any different than it had played out.

In short, it all makes you want to pull off the road, find a shade tree, close your eyes, and have a good cry.

(Photos: Carey S-H)

I wonder when Aaron will send his first updates from his new Flip HD Camera?

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