Thursday, June 13th, 2013 @ 5:14PM

Total Time: 9:12.24 (About 12 hours total)
Miles: 92.64
Avg Speed: 10 mph
Max Speed: 52.0mph
Status: Completed

What a grueling day. Today had a lot of people digging deep. This was going to be the toughest ride that the North Route will take in JOH. The majority of the route is going uphill through 3 mountain passes, and the climb will be 12000 feet. For most of my time with the North Route in JOH, we were constantly informed how difficult this ride will be and how it is going to test us physically and mentally. Normally, I usually get nervous and scared on very important challenges and it clouds my mind with doubt. Yesterday, and this morning, my mindset had me very nervous. The negative mentality only begets negative actions so I had to still pull through and do what I could.

The beginning of the ride was not too bad, my pace line went slow and steady as the incline was slowly increasing. As we continued riding toward the mountainside, the attitude changed for many riders. Some people were feeling fairly confident that this was overhyped. Others began to feel fatigue. For me I kept a steady pace and I was feeling fine. Some people in my pace line got fatigued early on and I wanted to do what I could to help them stay positive mentally.

5 hours into the ride, 30 miles in we climbed 6500 feet and we had lunch. I was still feeling good but was really impatient on this whole ride for only climbing uphill. As me and my partner Jeremy left for lunch we still kept on pedaling and stopped occasionally to take pictures and take a break when my partner felt fatigued. After finally reaching the top of the first mountain pass that was roughly 8000 feet of elevation on mile 50, we had a sweet 700 feet drop. The terrain passing through was beautiful and I really wished that I could???ve stopped to take a picture. Unfortunately the crosswinds were very strong and I had to do what I could to keep my momentum going downhill. That did not seem to be important because I got another flat tire on my front wheel.

After hitting the bottom, we hit Kirkwood. Going up Kirkwood was the toughest part of the day. I began to have problems with my my left cleat locking into my pedals, and I had to go to the bathroom (number 2). Some of those factors, as well as going up a mountain pass that was longer than the ones I have previously ride, had me struggling.

I couldn???t even imagine How Jeremy felt going up Kirkwood. He was struggling worse than I was. However I am very glad that he was able to pull through a ride as tough as the one we ride today. It spoke well of his character and his soul.

After going up Kirkwood, on mile 68 we had another sweet downhill ride. Going downhill was becoming unpleasant because the Sun was covered by some mountains and we were getting hit by both headwinds and crosswinds. After hitting the boron of the downhill, we rode through flat terrain keeping a steady 27 mph pace.

At this time in the ride we were racing against the sunlight because once it gets dark, we will be racked. We needed to finish 90 mikes and we were at mile 72 when the flat terrain ended. The last pass we were going to hit was Luther Pass and it had a 4 mile climb. It was one of the easier climbs and the crew said once we finished this pass, we were practically done. Failure was not an option for both Jeremy and I. We pushed ourselves hard to make it this far and personally, I did not want to be racked at the end of the ride again. Going up that hill was tough because we saw the sun setting and the road getting dark. Eventually we hit the top and we had a 6 mile downhill slope. As much as I wanted to be happy that we finished the uphill climbs, going downhill was still getting really unpleasant because it was so cold.

All we had to do was finish once we hit flat surface. We were blazing at this point so we could finish. Eventually we were done and we finally celebrated. This was a really rewarding ride since I felt I was able to help Jeremy finish. I never gave up on him and he said that he would have never finished if I didn???t push him. That really made me feel good because I don???t normally push other people to finish a job. All in all, we did good.

Posted by Reggie Quaye
Categories: Journey of Hope, Philanthropy