Something about riding across the United States and experiencing its grandeur and beauty on a day where everyone is celebrating our accomplishments as a nation is special. The waving flags, the banners, and the fireworks at night were special sights this year as all of us were experiencing the celebrations in a new location. We left Meeker as they were preparing for their Fourth of July parade and entered Vernal as the evening fireworks celebrations were getting staged. Before we had the time to reflect and join in, we had an over 100-mile long ride ahead of us. There was much to get to!
Ride Overview
Mileage: 110.5 miles
Elevation: +2,933 ft. / -3,812 ft.
Points of Interest: Rio Blanco, Dinosaur, Dinosaur National Monument, Vernal Fireworks
Tales of the Trail
I know we just talked about this yesterday, but we received the best of goodbyes from Meeker by way of a license plate planted for Nishk to find just outside the town. Speaking with a man named Joe at the stayover last night, Joe learned of Nishk’s plate hunting agenda and thought he could contribute a plate of his own. He didn’t say anything to anyone except Maaike and then, as we now know, went out with a neat Colorado State University vanity plate and a message and left it beside the road for Nishk. Sure enough, he was paying attention and found the plate! Then, at the first rest stop he read the message and was overjoyed. If the stop in Meeker could even possibly get better, this was it.
Our first stop was almost 20 miles into our day at Rio Blanco lake. The opening act of this century day was amazing! Mostly downhill, calm winds, little traffic, and a smooth road had us all feeling like we almost hadn’t even started by the time we were reaching there. Then, there was the license plate story for us to focus on, and we kept on rolling once more as if it was the start of the day again. Everyone felt fresh.
As we carried on, the road became more undulating, but we still had the sights of the arid climate mountains to stare at and rock formations to keep us fascinated. There were three groups on the road today and it was also fun that we kept running into each other. Something about the time that we were leaving the rest stops or the pacing that we had throughout each stretch kept one team passing another. Especially with the roads being quiet, that was so much fun to see each other out there when at times it can feel like we are riding only with the 3, 4, or 5 of us in a group. It also seems that these are the only moments I can clearly remember between rest stops two and three because the road around them must have been just so similar. The only other thing to note is that, just as the day before, the temperature was now increasing towards its high, well into the 90s.
After resting for a few moments at a cafe in Rangely, we went towards the toughest stretch of road which was a climb towards Dinosaur, Colorado. This climb was hot and the traffic was now picking up on the road with people traveling on the holiday. It was steep and long and at the end, we just wanted water. Our mouths were dry and sunscreen was dripping with our sweat off of our foreheads and into our eyes to make the whole experience much less pleasant. The redeeming factor of this stretch was that we were making it to a place called Dinosaur!
Dinosaur was notable because dinosaurs are Austyn’s, the child and whose family we are supporting through the B+ Foundation, favorite thing in the whole world right now. We took as many pictures as we could and sent them to his mom to share. A whole town about dinosaurs? How much better could it get?
The descent out of town led us to the Utah border where we again snapped some pictures and had a little bit of a reprieve before braving the headwinds as we continued to move West on our way to Vernal. The highway turned to tar and stones and the winds were blowing much more than they had through the rest of the day. It was almost as if the weather was trying to hold us back from making it to that 100-mile mark. We were in a convection oven. Again, the teams passed each other, but a couple of us were able to meet at a viewpoint to see across some of the land in Uintah County.
Once we made it beyond our final rest stop of the day, we were fatigued and tired, but still rolling as we always will be. Max experienced his first flat tire of the Summer and changed it still as if he was in a routine. Eventually, we all met at the stayover, the Uintah Community Center in Vernal, Utah.
We had showers, laundry, and food that was donated by our host, Cheryl (who also happened to be celebrating her birthday… Happy Birthday Cheryl!) to revive us. This really was another in our list of very happy places to stay. Then, it was time to watch the celebrations for our country and get to bed.
It seemed like the whole of the county came to Vernal for the fireworks show and it was a good one. They even ended it with an explosion that looked like it was something out of the movies. We could feel the heat from where we were sitting (quite a ways away)! After returning to the community center in the van, we played with some sparklers of our own and then went back inside for a restful night. Tomorrow is a shorter mileage day, so we will wake up a little later and hopefully have a less taxing ride than today.
Cyclists’ Corner
Rider: Ehsan Homaee
How are you feeling today? How was today’s ride?
Today, the ride was fantastic! It was a bit hot, but it's better than being cold, right? I like hot weather, more than cold. I'm feeling okay, maybe a bit tired after 110 miles, but I'll be fine.
Is there anything that you, personally, think, or hope, you will gain from the ride?
I think after this I4K, I will become more easygoing. I would like to become a more easygoing person. I can adapt myself to any condition, or situation, more easily. In this, every night you are in a new place. You're just thinking, new conditions, new temperatures, new… like everything is new. Every moment, you face new challenges or new things that you didn't expect. It's completely out of routine or something. There is some routine, but also there is no routine. I mean, it kind of helps you to adapt very quickly to new conditions. I think this is one thing that I expect to gain after I4K and apply to life or something after.
How have you surprised yourself since New York City?
Hard question…
If you don't have something, I can start with maybe an easy one for yourself. I don't know if it's a surprise or not, but today, from what I heard, that's the first 100-mile plus ride you've done! I don't know whether that's surprising to you or not, but that's still a huge accomplishment.
Maybe before New York was occurring, like the “you're gonna ride 5-6 days in a week without any rest, rest day, or anything, and every day go at least 60 or 70 miles,” I couldn't believe that that would happen. But yeah, it happened! I feel that I'm getting stronger, it's just much easier for me to do the riding.
One thing else that we can say, I don't know if it’s for future I4K generations, but before starting the ride, I was like, if it was so hard and I see that I cannot handle it, I will give up in Champaign. I was like, I’m going to go to Champaign, see how things are going, and then decide to continue or not. Yeah. It was a big day for me at that time, but it's a really unique and great opportunity and experience that I won't have in my life in the future. This Summer, I try to make the time and do all the efforts before the ride and I can make it. So let's do!
Where is your hometown? If there was food from there you could have with you at every town during the ride, what would it be?
My hometown is Shahreza. It's in the middle of Iran. Today, actually, we talked about it. The road that we had today was a very dry mountain, and it reminded me of the road that we took from my undergrad university from Tehran to my hometown. So for the most part, it's just a mountains.
During the ride, I actually, every hour, crave a new food. I'm changing about food a lot, you know? You are always hungry and when you dream you dream about food. I enjoy eating food. If I wanted to choose one food, probably I choose kebab. Yeah, I always like eating kebab and it’s delicious all the time.
How is the ride progressing for you?
It's going pretty okay. I think I can see myself getting stronger both mentally and physically. I think I'm, sag-ing less on the long ride. With the great professional cyclists that we have, I kind of try to see them on the bike and mimic their behavior. One mistake that I had was that in the early time of the ride I didn't pedal constantly and that leads to very bad knee pain for me. After like looking at people like you, Anthony, Micah, I found out that most of you just pedal constantly. I tried do that maybe the last 2 weeks, and I think it helps a lot with my knee thing. So, yeah, the learning process is also interesting for me that we can learn a small thing that seems small but is very important.
What do you think your role for the team has become (regardless of what it started as or what chore you do)?
So… I'm the oldest person and sometimes people ask me some questions, They’re starting their question with “you are the oldest and most experienced person.” I was actually thinking about if age related to this experience or not. What I thought about it is that not necessarily because probably you have more experience compared to a person younger than you, but your life experience is only unique to yourself and it's completely different from person to person. And other people maybe experienced things that you never experienced or ever though about. So I don't believe in the relationship between age and experience, but it's kind of funny for me that some of the people, things like that will ask you questions.
What has your favorite snack in the van been so far?
So I'm not a sugar fan actually. It's very hard for me to eat sugar. I don't enjoy eating sugar at all, but during the ride you have to. The things that I really enjoy are not. Sometimes we have a mixture of nuts and cranberries. It has a mixture of cranberries, almonds, walnuts and things like that. I really enjoy those packages of nuts. They don't have sugar and are not probably that good for the rides, but yeah I enjoy eating those nuts a lot.