Day 58: Ocotillo to Alpine

April 13, 2025

The Queen Stage

The windmills were turning even at sunrise. A bad omen for the ride.

Ocotillo was elevation 400. This is the first climb after I got on I-8.

Lots more of these. You could here the blades turn, and they were aimed in the direction of of travel.

The van waiting in the distance. DE on the 2nd day of his comeback from an ankle injury.

Old US-80. At first the surface was very bad.

An airplane is barely visible in the sky. I was thinking about being on one in 3 days.

US-80. A lot of the surface was concrete with a nice smooth asphalt shoulder and very little traffic.

Water and snack stop at the halfway mark.

BW up ahead at the start of the last climb on Old US 80.

Lots of this after the 2nd water stop at mile 47.

Yikes. Wheel eaters. I stayed away from the right edge of the shoulder.

View of the Viejas Reservation, where our campground is located.

Today was the day for the Ocotillo to Alpine ride, on paper the hardest ride of the trip. It was supposed to have 6900 feet of elevation gain over 60 miles, and the weather report indicated a stiff headwind. BD imported the route to another website that indicated that it would only be 3900 of elevation gain, but that didn't really make sense since we were starting at 400 feet and the highest point was 4000 feet and there were a number of big ups and downs.

I went to bed at 9:30 and woke up at a little after 5:00, so decided to get up. I felt a little tired, but knew I wouldn't get back to sleep. During the night the wind started out strong. I slept without my rain fly so it got a little cool from the wind chill. It stopped about 1 or 2, but started again in the morning. By sunrise it was already blowing and you could see the windmills turning. It didn't look promising. In fact, the forecast was for it to slow down later in the day, so there was no reason to rush out. I had packed 1/2 a turkey and provolone and 1/2 of PBJ last night and took them out of the fridge. I put them in my drop bag in the van. Benny was driving and said he would meet us several places. I ate oatmeal for breakfast and drank some hot tea. I could have left earlier, but helped put things in the van and left around 7:15. I think I was the 3rd to leave. BW and DE had left about 6:15. By the way, DE had some tendonitis in his high angle and hadn't ridden for a few days. Yesterday was his first day to ride. He felt good and so decided to ride today. It was nice to see him get back on the bike again.

The wind was in my face as soon as I got out of the campground. The route took about 3 miles to get on I-8 and the climbing began almost immediately after leaving the campground. My Karoo said the climb was a little less than 11 miles with 2800 feet of ascent. The wind made it really hard. Being on I-8 was nice because the shoulder was nice and smooth and the gradients weren't steep. However, there as a decent amount of traffic and some of it trucks. One time I was passed by 3 oversized loads, and one of them had part of its load sticking over the shoulder. Another scary part is that there were some bridges that had very little shoulder. I tried to pick a time when I could cross them when nothing else was coming. I worked pretty hard on the climb, trying to keep it above 140W and over 160 as much as I could. My average power at the end of the climb was 145W and my normalized power about 155W. We got off the interstate at about mile 13 and almost imediately the van was there. It took me about 2 hours to do that pat of the ride. I filled my water bottle, ate my turkey sandwich and had a Goo. BW had already been there and DE and I arrived at the same time.

After the rest stop we rode on Historic US-80 until about mile 47. There were 3 big (500-800 foot) climbs. At about mile 30, after 2 of those climbs, I stopped and had a Cliff Bar. Shortly after there was a store. I bought a gatorade and a Little Debbie Oatmeal cookie and ate it. I consolidated water into one bottle and put the gatorade in another. BW was at the store and we talked a bit about how great it was to know that we could finish the ride. The final climb was 4 miles and I think 800 feet of ascent. I went pretty hard at it. At the top BD was waiting with the van. I filled my bottle, had a Goo, and set off just as BW was coming in. The route immediately went onto I-8 for 10 miles. There were a couple of climbs in the first 3 miles, and it was all downhill from there. I was a little careful because there were some storm drains with grates parallel to the direction of travel. I didn't brake much, but sat up and didn't really let it rip. The route went off I-8 at the Viejas Reservation exit. From there it was basically all downhill to the campground. I got in about 1:40. I sat in front of the campground office surrounded by a beautiful garden. There were flowers and grass and butterflies and not sand and dust. I felt so good to be done that hard ride and so close to finishing this epic adventure that I cried tears of joy off and on for 5 minutes as I thought of what I had done. BW came in not long after and we hugged and both cried a bit and expressed how joyful we were. He said it was his best day ever on a bike. A year and a half ago he had surgery to repair a ruptured quadricep, so it is almost a miracle that he was able to complete the ride.

An hour or so later JE, SR and JW came in. JE arranged for us to take swim in the pool It was cool, but felt good. The van came in around 4:00 and we went out to the campsite. I set up my tent waxed my chain, and took a shower. We were scheduled to go out for the final farewell dinner at 6:00. JF and JG came in not long before that. It was a long day for them, but they both felt good.

We had dinner at a place that had a variety of things including pizza. I got a salad and pizza. BW paid for drinks for people and I had an Alpine Duet IPA. The pizza was good. After dinner a few awards were given out. BW gave everyone a funny award. Mine was the Ringer award, for brining in Ethan to pull me through the 4 tough AZ stages and honorable mention for being fastest and having a better dinner budget than the ACA. It was a really nice meal.

Tomorrow should be an easy ride. I am not going to set my alarm, and leave whenever I can. We will have a wheel dipping ceremony and then take bikes to Bernies Bike Shop to be boxed and shipped home. I am going to see if it is small enough to take on the airplane with me. That way I will get it home in time for the NC Coastal ride on the 24th. To do that I will need to stuff some clothes in it so I can reduce my luggage to a single duffle. I think I can do that. I am staying at the Samesun hostel as are several other of the riders.

Today's ride: 60 miles (97 km)
Total: 3,028 miles (4,873 km)

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Kelly IniguezI've so enjoyed your journal each day. Thank you for sharing your journey with us.
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