Stage 2. The hill that never ends.

Well today was not the most difficult day I've ever had. That was yesterday. Today was the second.

After we had some breaky at 500 this morning, we hopped on a shuttle to the race start. I went to pick up my bike and noticed that my old wheel and some spare parts were hanging off the handlebars, and a note scratched in some ancient language ( I think it was spanish). I noticed that they had put a new wheel on and it spun like a dream!

At 700 am, we started the ride, and we started climbing, and climbing, and climbing. We rode up some of the steepest grade stuff that I had ever seen. We were riding up roads so steep that I had to switchback up with my mountain bike in granny gear (that being my easiest gear).

There were some absolutely killer views along the way (when you climb over 4000 meters of elevation in 76km you end up seeing some nice views)... I wish I had brought my camera instead of what ended up being a 2 pound wet bagel.

The trail took us through little villages, through farmers towns, through main urban centers, through coffee plantations. I remember one point riding along this little gravel road and I actually hear "Eye of the Tiger" blaring out from one of the houses! It was so great! There are all sorts of people on the trail screaming Vamos! Vamos! or Eso! Eso! (still not sure what that means. Maybe "Give up,"?). Kids at schools screaming cheers, and singing songs. So amazing.

So I came in at 641, so I was super happy with that. The only mechanical malfunctions that I had were the new wheel that they put on only takes presta tubes and I only had shraders. So when I got my flat, I had to borrow a tube. The second is that when my brakes heat up, they stopped working. That was kind of bad. So today, I got them to bleed my brakes and change the pads. Tomorrow we climb to the top of a volcano and ride down the other side, so I'm thinking that I'm going to need some decent brakes. My wrists and forearms feel like they are about to fall off right now, so I can just imagine what they are going to feel like tomorrow....