Day 1 - San Diego to El Centro

Lara Sullivan’s Friends

What a tough, hot, hilly, bumpy great first day of Elite Tour!  We started in San Diego, near the beach, climbed over the coastal mountains, up through another long climb to 3,800’ then flew down into the  Imperial Valley sauna on our way to El Centro.  Statistics - 121 miles, 7,500’ of climbing, temperatures ranged from 60 – 106. 

In the meantime a lot of things happened.  After taking a group picture of all the riders, we took another picture of the riders and some of the crew that knows Lara Sullivan.  Lara rode the 2010 Elite Tour and is a long time PACTour rider and crew member.  She had a bad fall at the Texas Stampede 1200k two weeks ago when a wild hog took down the tandem she was on at 4:30a.  She suffered a broken hip, pelvis and separated shoulder.  Lara got out of the hospital a few days ago and is recuperating in San Antonio before heading home to Ely.  Over ½ of the Elite Tour group knows Lara – we all wish her the best on a full recovery.

After leaving at 6:00a, the first 20 miles were relatively cool, with foggy mist coating our glasses as we worked out of the coastal overcast to sunshine up in the hills.   There were several shorter climbs that continued for the first 30 miles before we started going up in earnest.  I struggled with the long climbs a lot more than the 2010 version of this same route.  That year though Nancy and I spent three weeks in New Zealand on our tandem, climbing big hills nearly every day.  I didn’t realize how much that helped me back then.  It was a good feeling though to crest the final hill and know was done with climbing for the day, with 40 miles still left to ride!

Many riders found the long climbs and the rising temperatures to be a tough combination.   Several of the faster riders early on came back to the group and wisely took it easy for the rest of the day.  Steve Reed, my roommate last year at Desert Camp really struggled and finally had to pack it in at mile 102.  Steve is normally a very strong rider and has been doing PACTour events for many years.  The heat (he lives in Pennsylvania) wore him down.  He’ll be back tomorrow though and will bounce back.  With the emphasis on taking it easy for the first few days, it makes a lot of sense to not run yourself into the ground early on especially when it gets really hot.

Our lone recumbent rider, Bruce Boehm, was cruising up the hills very nicely until he cramped up at a stop sign, tipped over and broke a tie rod, totally disabling his bike.  The support crew Bruce and his Challenger recumbent up and he was able to fix his bike with some metal doweling from a Home Depot across the street from the Hotel in El Centro and some manual machine work. 

Temps were in the mid to higher 80s by the time we left the lunch spot, after the last of the climbs.  I rode with Lon and Susan for a while, Susan was looking forward to the 10 mile winding downhill on Interstate I-8.  After doing this route many times over the years as the tour operator, she had never ridden down the hill until today.

The temps increased another 20 degrees as we zoomed down to the Imperial Valley.   The pavement was new and we had a wide shoulder so it was a fun, safe ride.  At the bottom we were actually about 20 feet below sea level.  I made up a lot of time and passed several riders on this stretch.  At the next rest stop, I met up with Jim Elkins (Wisconsin) and Brett Goett (Arizona), past PACTour veterans, and we agreed to ride the next section together.   They headed out just a minute before me, but stopped for a quick bathroom break just down the road at an abandoned service station.  I didn’t see them and continued on a 20 mile stretch across the desert in 106 temps, with some really rough road surfaces and a noticeable head wind.  After 15 miles I was getting a little withered and was really glad to get to the rest stop, where several bottles of cold water, watermelon and Hammer gel brought my life signs back to normal.  Living in Minnesota doesn’t prepare you well for this kind of heat, even for a short distance like this.   I took a good break and waited for Jim and Brett who came in 10 minutes later.  Brett was really hurting with severe leg cramps and general overheating.  He made it to a chair in the shade, got his feet up, ice sock around his neck, popped some Endurolytes, a bottle of Heed and chomped some watermelon and was feeling better pretty quickly.  The rest stop was right next to a little lake so Brett jumped in for a few minutes to really cool off.  Eventually we got back on the road again, and had a pleasant cruise into El Centro a little over 9 hours after we started – a pretty good day.

Brett Recovering Nicely

One of the early hard chargers was Jeremiah, one of our younger riders.  Jeremiah lives in New Hampshire so the heat, as it was for a lot of us northerners, took a toll.  Jeremiah wisely backed off, took some longer breaks and made it in comfortably.

                                         Jeremiah at the last rest stop

In the meantime, Will from Winona, Minnesota and my roommate Clay from South Carolina, along with Steve Marshall from Indiana, rolled in early in fine shape.   Will hasn’t had much opportunity to train for this kind of riding, but he kept up a good pace all day.  Clay, despite professing to me that he really didn’t do well climbing hills and was going to take it easy, rode at the front of the pack all day.  I am hoping to be able to keep up with them much better once we get done with the big hills (or my legs get a lot better at pushing me up the longer climbs).

Tony Koester from New Jersey came in a little later, sporting a great salt/sun block lotion look, but had a big smile on his face as he completed his first PACTour ride.

Tony

After a great dinner at IHOP and an ice cream stop on the way back to the hotel, we made it back in our rooms to prepare for tomorrow, another 120+ miles, this time across the desert up to Quartzsite.   There will be less climbing, but the temperatures will be 100 or more most of the day so it will be another day of steady work, lots of rest stops, many water bottles and sunscreen.

All in all it was a fine day to start riding across the country.