September 4, 2016
I woke up around 5am today and was sad to see the 30mph easterly winds had disappeared. We made the decision to set off a little later today as I needed cleats etc and the bike shop didn’t open until 10am. I set off around 9am and the lads would nip to the shop and catch me in an hour or two.
Today’s route was much easier than yesterday, 2700ft and 110 miles. The thing about the climbs here are that they’re reallllllyyy long and steady. In the UK I’m used to blasting up multiple 1000-2000ft tough climbs and then seeing the flats out. Here you’re climbing for miles and miles, the gradients aren’t tough but it’s relentless. Yesterday was beyond ridiculous, thankfully it’s my hardest climb.
Today we entered the Nevada Desert and I’ve never seen anything like in in my life. HUGE open roads with nothing for miles and miles. You can take as many pictures as you want but it’s hard to capture your surroundings, it’s surreal.
There were huge open desert plains which had words formed with stones, it’s quite eerie. There were hundreds of sand buggy things literally driving up a mountain made solely of sand. It’s crazy to think that people would cycling through areas like this unaided, if anything happens you’re in serious trouble!
I’m adapting to USA time a bit more now. I didn’t have much appetite and was struggling to sleep, but today I’ve had about 5 meals and really sleepy at 8pm. We’re pulled up at a place called Middlegate. It had a population of 18 but that has been crossed out and replaced with 17! Even though we’re in the middle of nowhere we still have the internet!
Bedtime now, night from the desert!
