PACTour Day 5/19 - We like Idaho!!!

The am rollout.  Will pulling the bunch.  Andrew, an Aussie, just behind.  Why is it always the Aussies who are the friendliest and always smiling on PAC Tours??

We start early as the loooong shadows on the side of the road demonstrate.

After the first rest stop we had a beautiful road to ride.  Flat, smooth, little wind, scenic.  Will smartly place on the wheel of another Aussie, Cassie Lowe, 2000 and 2001 women's RAAM champion.  As an Aussie, naturally she is smiling!!

Since we were riding in Idaho we rode by lots of fields of potatos.

Will pulls the bunch uphill after the 2nd rest stop, on the way to lunch.  Will has been spending more and more time at the front.  Obviously his legs and confidence are coming around early on!!

After lunch we headed to our major challenge of the day, to cross the Tetons.

Lon's had crafted bike racks.  Will and Jim w/o Scary Metal Thing Fear.  The Lunch van, the Motel Van and the caravan all carry a full supply of bike racks.  

Each of the 3 support vehicles is set up similarly.  Hand washing start the refueling process.   Will woke up with the Belgian Flu, it starts with sore throat, this am.  Maybe he thinks gargling with soapy water will help?!?!

The caravan with Gatorade and Water coolers in the back.  Soda cooler in the middle.  Spare bike and wheels on top.

The "railtube" carries the long rails for the bike racks to each stop.  The caravan is possibly the loneliest job, as there is only 1 crew member.   It generally has a stop before and after lunch to provide support, whereas the Lunch Trailer only supports lunch on the road (and breakfast at the hotel,) and the motel van supports 1 morning stop and occaisionaly  a second stop after lunch if the day is long.

Closing in on the Tetons, somehow we got thru there...

Will's Garmin data on the day.  Notice the climb from the small pass early on out of West Yellowstone leaving Montana, then the big climb towards Jackson, WY out of Idaho toward the end.

Ascent geographic view of what we did.

And Ascent view of our ride profile.  Obviously the morning was easy (after the pass.)  The afternoon was the challenge.

The roads today were spectacular and seemed fairly safe, but it must be dangerous riding into Jackson as we saw alot of bicycle/rider chalk outlines on the road....

Great great day.  Although we started in West Yellowstone, MT and ended up in Jackson, WY (136 miles later) the majority of the day was spent riding in Idaho.  In contrast to yesterdays ride, the roads were well shouldered, smoooooth, lightly trafficked, little wind, and other than the big climb at the end and small climb at the beginning relatively flat.  This lended itself to high speeds, we averaged 17.5mph on the day, and were right at 20mph up until lunch at the 75 mile mark.

Will is really giving Jim some difficulty in the sprints.  Like last year we are sprinting for City Limits signs (2 points) County Signs (5 points) and State signs (10 points.)  After 4 days of riding Will has a comfortable lead in this green jersey competition, we are loosely keeping track.  Jim is making a comeback after today.  The Idaho sign was just at the top of the climb out of West Yellowstone, and Jim jumped with about 300m to go,  Will just pipped him at the line and as Jim eased up Will took the county sign about 300m later.  Apparently the effort of the sprint squeezed Jim's baggie carrying his credit card, national park pass, money and blistek out of his back pocket.  More on that later.   After that Jim took the Wyoming sign and they split the other city limit signs so other than the 5 points Will took at the county sign the day was pretty even.  Watch out Beaner, here comes the Slauson.

Jim awoke feeling better, took Motrin and rode well.  He couldn't get his heart rate or power up on the last climb and is unsure whether that is due to the cough and phlegm he has developed, the steepness of the grade, his lack of natural talent, or Day 5 of PAC Tour.  Possibly all playing a role.  We'll see how tomorrow looks.  Will woke with a sore throat which Jim had 2 days ago, so looks like he has also contracted the "Belgian Flu" as have others on the ride.  Thanx sooo much Marc.  You can take that back to Belgium anytime you like.

Irony story from yesterday.  Due to the precarious nature of the passing trucks making yesterdays ride disconcerting for the riders Susan said to Jim at lunch "On my tombstone I want the epitaph, Cyclists Eat Beef."  Apparently, Susan interprets the dualies and truckers brushing close to cyclists on the road as their feeling we are a bunch of worthless fish, chicken vegetable, fruit eaters.  Last night catching up on cyclingnews.com Jim chuckled to see that the pro cycling team Saunier Duval, is now the Scott/American Beef (not making this up!!) Susan's gonna have to come up with a new epitaph - we have arrived!!!

Pay if forward moment of the day. (You may remember that we had a daily theme with quotes last year and Will and Jim are doing that again this year, we'll share as space permits.  One of last year's daily themes was "Pay it Forward.")  As I mentioned Jim dropped his money/credit card bag sprinting Will over the top of the pass leaving town in the am.  Well after the 7 mile descent Cassie rolled up on this and said "something flew out of your pocket over the top of the climb, hope it wasn't important."  Quick mental math $70, park pass, credit card, Terri's post cards, blistek versus a 7 mile 6% grade climb, well you know the result - press on and fuggetaboutit.  Sure enough at the end of the day, our friend Jerry Sorenson (who had the unfortunate crash 2-3 days ago and Jim and Will rendered aid to) naturally saw the bag, stopped forward and brought it to us!!!!  Jerry is a great guy for many reasons beyond that, by the way.

Thanx for reading.  Hopefully Will and Jim feel OK in the am.  We head back into ID, finishing in Montpelier.  Only 117 miles with 4050 feet of climbing.  No we will not anticipate an easy day (but we hope it will be!!)

Addendum:  And please don't read this if you are easily offended.

Jim was not going to share this story, until he was hit with the $30!!! price tag for a 12 oz Rib Eye at a restaurant across the street from the motel.  The restaurant has a sign in it proudly proclaiming "In Wyoming, cows outnumber people 5:1 for crying out loud!!!)  Anyways it is a resort town and there are alot of European and Asian people on the streets and the U.S. is currently on sale as currency goes.

Anyways, as they roll into town each day, Jim looks for a grocery store near the hotel to acquire his nightly supply of FW (Sparkling Water.)  Today Jim realized that they were about 1 1/2 miles from the motel.  He spotted an Albertsons to the right, but they were turning left and he noticed a natural foods store.  Something like Whole Foods.  So will and Jim pulled in and while looking for the FW, they shared a private laugh at the blatant irony in front of them.  Nice young lady with a kid in one of those combined stroller baskets, filled with organic yogurt, natural childrens food, free range whatever, you know the stuff you can buy at those types of stores.  Will and Jim were struck by the incongruity of the scene as the poor young lady could hardly reach the handle of the basket over her grossly enlarged, obviously aftermarket, breasts!!!