Day 14: A Relaxing Day Before the Big One!

Pocatello, ID to Idaho Falls, ID

65 miles with 760' of climbing

Once again, we were up at 4:30 after a 9-hour sleep. I feel like a new person! The congestion is diminished without taking the penicillin - hooray! We were warned to take it easy today, and we followed the advice. Tomorrow should be our toughest day of the ride thus far so we all need to conserve our energy. 

Drew, Gail, and I shoved off by 7:10. Shortly out of town, we picked up Ronit who is from Israel. She is here with her hammerhead husband. She was pretty downcast when I spoke with her yesterday because she needed to finish the day in the SAG van. As we passed her today, we encouraged her to jump on our line. She had never ridden in a pace line before, but she is a strong cyclist and learned the basics quickly. She stayed with us the entire day and finished with a big smile...

Approximately 30 miles into the ride, we caught our first glimpse of the foothills of Grand Tetons. We climb these tomorrow so everyone is both nervous and excited.

Today's average pace was 15.8 mph, which proved to be a very comfortable pace. We arrived in Idaho Falls at noon and went directly to a Chile's where I enjoyed my standard chocolate milk and salad. Entering the town, one can see where the city got its name....

Tonight is another 5:00 dinner, which doesn't give us much time for a pre-dinner glass of wine :-(.

Tomorrow, we ride 90 miles with 5,500 feet of climbing. Apparently, near the crest we climb for 2 miles  at an 11% and higher grade. For my non-cycling friends, that's steep! It should be an interesting post tomorrow night. Stay tuned.