I have said it before, and I will say it again…Wind is a 4 letter word. And it is a dirty four letter word to a cyclist.
We were fooled early in the morning when the sun was shining and the wind was light. It sure looked like a nice easy day was in store for us. By noontime the fantasy was over as the wind turned on like a light switch. A steady 20 to 25mph wind became a 40mph wind in your face torture session by 2pm. This kind of riding really sucks and is no fun at all for any of us.
Giving it all you had on the flats would only develop 7mph against the wind. It was a battle just to keep our bikes on the road as higher gusts blasted in making you wobble into the soft shoulder.
Days like this make you wonder who’s idea was it to ride across the country anyway??!!
The Idaho we entered in the mountains was beautiful. Trees, rivers and beautiful scenery. The Idaho we rode today in the plains was terrible. The plains in any state are not made for cyclists. We are back to the same old view of scrub brush, weeds and unrelenting wind. No place to get away from the sun or howling wind. Give us the mountains any day no matter what the climb.
As we did for most of this journey the roads we picked were nearly traffic free and that was a positive on a negative day for us.
To add to our enjoyment, huge dust storms were forming all around us. Some of these were miles long and miles wide. Passing through one of these dirty brown clouds will suck the breath right out of you right after it coats your eyeballs with dust blinding you.
Arco, ID is a tiny town that has some history. It was the first US city to be illuminated by nuclear power. It was also the area where the first “meltdown” of a nuclear reactor took place. I is also the only place in the US where people died from a meltdown. Team rider Herb Petersen may know more about this as he is in that field.
The first thing you notice when entering town is the conning tower of a submarine!! Just outside of town is where the reactors for all our modern warships was developed. They still have an 850 square mile top secret site here with Homeland Security making their presence everywhere.
Tomorrow will be another day in the plains and of course that means another day with the wind.
Our plan is to get out early and log in as many miles a we can before noon. The locals say the wind always picks up around noon and blows until dark. The trip between Arco and Twin Falls is over 110 miles. This will stage us for our out and back trip on Wednesday to Nevada to tag the state.
Once we leave Twin Falls and start heading north we should be protected from the wind by the mountains. We will not complain that for the next three days we will be regaining all the elevation we gave up when we left Yellowstone. Like I said give us the hills any day over the wind.
87 Miles
3212 Feet of Climbing
Temperature 85-95 degrees
I was able to fire up the generator to crank up the DSL modem to let all know the team is well and puttin' down the miles.
They are in the good stuff now.
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