Day 4 — Adjusting the plan

Matthew and Bailey were up until 1 am on Monday evening discussing the challenges around completing the 7 day high mileage effort.  They knew it would be impossible to ride in 65 mph winds and didn’t have the crew and help needed to move to another location. After the phone conference with Jim and me, Matthew got a late start at 10 am. He’d agreed to keep riding while we searched for crew help.  The wonderful Laura and John Crawford responded immediately and made the long 10 hour trip to Alamosa, CO from their home in Phoenix.

In addition to the 3 days of wear and tear on his body from riding in the cold, at 8000 feet altitude and strong winds, his bottom lip became swollen from sucking on the nutrition bladder with air in it. Once the lip swelled up, it burned and was quite sore.   He fought continued gusty winds all day and was really getting discouraged toward the end of the day.  At 10:44 pm he  messaged “I’m so sick of ending into a headwind, it’s demoralizing and defeating….. “ A few minutes later he messaged that  his tire was low at only 20 psi instead of the 52 he normally runs.  He stopped to pump it and gained 3-4 mph in average speed for the last 10 miles. 

Meanwhile, during the day, Bailey was packing up everything in Center, CO for the planned move to the east side of the mountains. She ordered groceries at the Walmart in Alamosa where they planned to rest in a hotel before driving over the mountains to Kim in the early morning.  The Crawfords met them there around 11 pm.

Matthew finished his ride in Alamosa around 11:30 pm,  got a shower, some food and slept for a couple of hours in the hotel before moving into the Crawford’s van to continue his rest and be ferried for the three hour ride over the mountains to Kim to begin again on Day 5. 

Matthew completed 301 miles on Tuesday, day 4.  

FOLLOW MATTHEW'S HWMR EFFORT HERE >>