The climb day 4 2011

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Ahh where to start, I guess at the beginning, last night I decide I want to go to LLuc (pronounced yuk) which means my biggest cycling climb in my life. Two years ago we did Orient, this would take me to the real mountain range. I didn't mention it on yesterday's blog due to nerves. I get unusually nervous about stuff like this, I know I won't be the fastest that I'm fine with, failing not as fine with! A quick aside, I have two leaky heart valves not so leaky they need repaired yet but leaky enough that I sounds like I smoke when cycling uphill. I do not smoke, but I do love those candy cigarettes with the puff powder smoke, but who doesn't.
So last night at dinner Ed starts telling me things such as, it's ok to turn around if I can't do it, which of course makes me much more likely to accomplish the task at hand. I have a hard time even talking to him about it because I'm so nervous so I go to bed early And get a solid 10 hours.
I'm feeling good when I wake so we have a quick breakfast where I ban all talk of the ride, except for a quick weather update via iPhone.
We set out at 10:10 and head to selva via alaro nice easy riding, we quickly make it to selva and on to Caimari where the ride begins so we stop for coffee. We head out with the agreement that Ed can ride ahead, I am much slower on climbs but he will wait at a few key points. LLuc is not actually the high point you summit previus and ride into LLuc which is a monestary the. You ride back out and continue down the mountain via another road to the.
This is a very popular route so I was prepared to be passed, which is good since that happened more than one or two times. Let me say switchbacks are a very good thing, oh so are gears, I dropped gears very fast and settled into my easiest after three switchbacks. The forrest around was amazing. I was having a good time and caught up with Ed at the first plateau, I assured him he could not get rid of me this easily and we were off again, he quickly passed a young fit guy and I actually had a chance of passing the same guy but we went through this gorgeous pass and I thought, wait what is the point if I don't take a few pics. So I stopped and took a few then went on. Glad I stopped because the climb was getting much harder with every switchback. I was starting to get a little concerned so I sent my mom a text saying I'm on a mt pray, sent Annie one too. Well clearly they prayed and before you know it, I meet two tour buses and a German couple is passing me and they guy says look you made it, it's right up there, so I look up and guess what? He's right so I take off and make it up and there is Ed faithfully waiting for me.
I was so pumped, it wasn't that bad and I made it and I'm not dead, in fact I feel great! Yahoo!!
We cycle down to lluk for lunch, let mom know I made it, let Annie know I made it.

Ed's version, I rode up the mt and got passed by five and passed three. Although he would like to clarify that two of the passers drafted on him so they would have the strength to pass

We find a place to eat and Ed says hey my bike is making a funny noise, so I look and see a spoke in eds chain. That tends to cause a noise, I look to see if I can reattach nope, not going to happen, I assess and realize, hmm Long way from bike shop, limited tools. Given the situation I put my week of bike repair to use, tear the spike off, leave my husband with a wildly untrue wheel and readjust the breaks to hit the wheel as little as possible. Remember we have a HUGE descent ahead of us. So we have lunch, at this point if eds bike had not been in a really bad wY we would have ridden deeper ibto the mts. Given the bike we head to polenca.

As an aside the bikes we are on are in a neglected state, I really like Read's hotel, good location, great food, charming resident dog (mr brown) but the bikes that were brand new thus good two years ago are not so hot two years later with no upkeep.

Oh excitement we head out of LLuc which means a little climb, I refer to it as the southern Iowa rolling climb, I pass three people, they all had AARP stickers on their bikes, but they were spry for their 80s.

I dedicate the next 17 kilometers of straight downhill to Cheyenne. I had to stop once to cool off my brakes and give my fingers a chance to uncurl from my death grip.

We roll into polenca have a lovely cafe won leche and we head to pro cycle hire to beg for new rental bikes or at the very

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