Day 43: The End's Not Near

Joe and I woke for our last early-morning session hunched over the netbook together. Today was the day he left us, though we had thirty miles of riding first, all the way to the split at Wetmore. We went to Subway for breakfast, where Joe left the men’s room in a state he blamed on somebody else entirely — bad enough that I ended up sneaking into the women’s instead, the coast thankfully clear.

The moment we left Pueblo, the scenery changed completely, like we’d ridden onto another planet — strange rock formations, new kinds of scrub crowding the roadside. A storm was already building over the mountains ahead of us, the kind that’s famous for appearing out of nowhere, and before long we were climbing straight into it. Rain hit hard, turning briefly to hail, thunder rolling in behind flashes of lightning. I could see Joe near the top of the climb, about to disappear round a bend, with Terry somewhere behind me. I waited for the next flash to count the distance on the thunder and instead got a crack loud enough to nearly stop my heart — lightning had struck the road directly in front of me. I very nearly lost control of my bladder. There is nothing quite like riding a frame of metal through an electrical storm to concentrate the mind. I remembered Terry once telling me he’d sheltered under his tent during a storm like this, so I got off the bike, leaned it against the guard rail with rainwater already pooling over my feet, and jogged down the hill to find him. Joe had vanished into the distance ahead. Terry left his own bike by the roadside, and the two of us crouched under his tent on the grass until the worst of it passed.

I took no pictures during the storm — this was it in the distance, near the start of the ride.

We got moving again as the storm’s edge rolled off, and back at my bike the road was still running with water, dragging loose weeds between my wheels as I went. We crested the climb and coasted down into Wetmore, where Joe was waiting for us right at the point where he’d turn off. All three of us were still shaken by what had just happened — Joe said his arms had been tingling ever since, and Terry described feeling the lightning strike the ground like an actual physical blow. Safe and unharmed, it was time to say goodbye. I was sad to lose Joe, though being made of sterner stuff I didn’t let it show. Over the past month we’d reduced each other to tears of laughter more times than I could count, usually somewhere embarrassingly public like a crowded restaurant. Our sense of humour just matched, in a way that made even the hardest riding feel negligible. I have no doubt we’ll ride together again somewhere down the line.

Team USA & Team GB United.

After Joe peeled off, Terry and I enjoyed a twelve-mile downhill cruise into Florence for a lunch we badly needed, laying our soaked belongings out to dry in front of the restaurant to the visible bemusement of everyone else there. I didn’t much care. The afternoon turned to gradual climbing as we started properly into the Rockies, with Canon City as the first stop. We circled the town hunting for a grocery store and, finding none, gave in to yet another Subway.

Brookside?

Terry had managed to talk us into a campsite spot that usually demanded a three-night minimum stay on holiday weekends — pricey at thirty dollars, but the heated pool and wifi went some way toward justifying it. It sat tucked among some of the area’s more popular attractions, perched right above Royal Gorge State Park. The elevation we’d gained that afternoon meant the night was finally cool enough to actually need my sleeping bag, and I think it was the most comfortable I’d been in that tent all trip. I found myself wondering where Joe was by now, and Cooper too — strange to think of them both still out there riding, somewhere on the map, without us. Sleep.

Royal Gorge.