It's been a month now since I attempted to ride anything over 50 miles, so I decided to head over to Pryor, OK and try out the Dam J.A.M. ride. It is a very well supported ride. The map said there was over 6000 feet of climb for this ride, but my Garmin only showed 4000+ by the time I finished (it did feel like 6000).
Here's my start of the day shot. I took this as everyone was getting lined up for the start. We started off heading right into the morning sun, but luckily the clouds moved in around the 20-30 mile point. With all the humidity, it sure was nice to at least have an overcast sky for a while.
As the name suggests, we crossed a few dams this morning. This one, the Pensacola Dam, was a mile long.
....and pretty high up if you looked off below the dam....
Here's the rest stop at the top of "Pump Back Hill". Not sure why it's called that, but there are some huge pipes leading from the valley up to the lake, so I'm guessing they might pump water back up into the lake from the stream below (I don't know). The hill is pretty steep and long. I was told that a lot of people wind up walking up it (I didn't have to, but was in my low gear most of the way). Apparently they always set up this rest stop as M*A*S*H because it wipes a lot of people out. Wouldn't have been so bad, but it's at the 80 mile mark, so you've already been through quite a few hills by the time you get here.
.....and the sun had come back out by then as well.......hot times......
Thanks for reading (if anyone still is), and please, if you haven't done so yet, check out the Tour de Cure link at the right side of this page. It's just over a month away.
No comments:
Post a Comment