Birthday Ride, Day 7, 205 d 17 h, 58 m to RAW 2019

Today was my 57 birthday.  It was also El Tour day in Tucson.  I choose to go solo and get in a long ride off on my own, doing a loop on the West Side, down Silverbell Rd and around Sweetwater--taking advantage of the lane and road closures already up for El Tour, then after a bottle refill at home, heading out around the remote loop across Park Link.

Park Link is just about the most remote road north of Tucson.  Its 18 miles connect I-10 to SR 79, and ultimately the Oracle Highway.  There is basically nothing out on Park Link, and it always seems like a "crossing".  Once you commit, there is no turning back.  I felt pretty good today, still with cold, but determined to get in at least 5 h.  I got in 7 h, and 132 miles. 

It's easy for rides to just be another ride, uneventful, and unappreciated.  Today was far from that.  Parts of Park Link resemble the western parts of CA the RAW route will cross.   Along the way, I passed a pair of tourist, parked under a tree along the frontage road, and exchanged a friendly wave and "Howdy" from them.  Along Park Link, I came up alongside a gentleman camping out there, riding an old road bike in desperate need of some chain lube.  He was wondering how much farther it was to "civilization" (it was just two miles on up the road, what there is of it near the AZ 79/Park Link junction).  I also paused at MP 13 and took a picture.  From MP 13, you get a great view of Owl's Head-four cool looking rock outcropping most folks probably miss. MP 13 is significant in both Hoodoo 300 (the S-turns on the Cedar Canyon descent), and the epic Monument Valley view on US 163 on the RAW route.  It seemed special here too.

Nutrition: The nutritional training continues, with more calories from fat on the rides.  Although any normal person would conclude the mass of food I carried today would be enough for an army, it was only about 2100 calories, including the Cytomax in my four bottles (and two more water bottles)--not nearly enough to stay in caloric balance for a 7 h, 4100 calorie ride.  I'll get away with that for a 7 h ride, and even loose a little weight, but that will not work for a multi day event like RAW.

The good news was the two new foods on the bike.  The first, FBOMB Nut Butter, by Love You Foods.  I was skeptical, but it was highly recommended by Maria Crawford.  Simply awesome.  Twice the calories of Gu, my stomach tolerated it well--did not even hint at a complaint, and tasty Macadamia with Sea Salt flavor.    Love You Foods is a small Flagstaff company.  It was a major discovery.  The second was a bag of Snak Club raw almonds... another 450 calories and 39 g of quality fat from the Giant gas station on Oracle.  That got me home.   The nutritional training goes well.

I finished the ride with a loop along the El Tour course.  It was 3 pm, and riders were still out there.  I figured they had been out on the road nearly 9 h, averaging about 10 mph.  They deserve admiration and respect.  El Tour was their own audacious accomplishment today.  Somewhat ironically, the RAAM qualifying standard is an average pace of 10 mph.  I looped back up and down Twin Peaks.  The lane closure was still up and I had the descent and the lane all to myself... finishing my 130+ mile birthday ride.  The rather melodramatic vision of riding into Atlantic City finishing the RAAM I remember from the 1980s came back to me.

​Day 7: 205 d, 17 h, 58 m to RAW 2019.