Guam Day 50 - 50^2ft of Climb

 

4/3/2022 - Day 50! Thats a nice round number, and we can celebrate with a bike ride, right? Ritidian hill is  still kicking my booty, butt (haha, good joke) for Joan this hill has shown to be something she can eat for breakfast. She has the amazing ability of gearing the bike in down and just grinding out the hills. I'm a high cadence, fast straight line guy, always have been with my fast twitch muscles. Maybe I would have been a good velodrome racer, or time-trialist, Joan on the other hand could be a long distance rider. With this knowledge, we said lets try something new and try to bike a new part of the island, how hard could the south side be? Remember how I talked about Mt. Lam Lam being the highest mountain in the world? Yeah, we will be just fine, no problem. 

We started this ride as close to high noon as you possible can be, we were ready for the challenge, plenty of water on my back in my camelbak, and a new bike under Joans feet to christen. Based on what we saw online this southern loop could be done in 3 hours, and was roughly 40 miles long. Challenge accepted. 

The first 4 miles were quick, very flat as we went through the town of Agat in really more of a blur, the town is maybe 5k in population, and being a more rural town end to end is short. Then the hill came into view, this was a steady steep climb for the next 5 miles, and that's how we got our first 800ft vertical feet  in. About halfway, we stopped, breathing heavily and I said to Joan that I would have to walk the bike for a while, between the heat and the incline, it was quite the workout. For the next half hour we were on and off the bike until we hit the top, which is image 1 in this post. We were exhausted and the ride had only started as were 9 miles out now of the 40. 

We pushed on with the next challenge of going down the speedy hills, I was really excited for this part, lots of speed. As you start to go above 25 mph though, your brain starts to kick and say "Im not sure this is as smart as you originally thought". The speed was very very quick, without a computer I really don't know what our speed was, but I can say that I held the rear brake most of the way down the second half of the hill. Joan was still getting used to the bike and then how to control on the hills, we took it slow to ensure she was good. We need to keep having good experiences biking!! We made it into the town of Merizo all in one piece. The next 15 miles included a break at Inarajan next to the ocean and some smooth road. 

The day continued to punish after mile 25, the heat really stepped up after 2pm and the hills wouldn't quit with 2 more large hills like the first one to complete. Joan was a trooper and continued to lead and push forward, I was getting tired, and at one point thought that maybe biking on Guam may be out of the question for a while. So much for all that running training!! We made it to cross island drive and at this point I have now run out of water  - 3L on the day by this point. I got off and walked the bike on the remainder of large hill three, last image on the post, and to put salt in the wound, I got stopped by an officer as I was walking the bike. He, and she flashed their lights up top and used their sirens 3 times before pulling next to me. At this point I am like, crap what did I do, I am just walking the bike. "Sir, we just want to make sure you are ok, you look really tired". I said, " Im good, I just really needed a break". They said, "are you sure?". "Yes, I am". " Ok, have a nice day" as they drove off. Lol! Joan was laughing at me about 500ft ahead. 

From there, the rest of the ride was downhill, the last 4 miles were a cruise all the way down to the car. Im not sure who was happier to see the Mazda, me or Joan. Ok, I am being dramatic, this was a more stressful ride than we realized, and longer as it took 5 hours for the 40 miles. We have some more training to do, but I think with some work this is do able, the long term goal is to do all 120km of the island, or roughly 75 miles, is in sight. We have completed the hardest parts now, the south Side loop. Hey, we had to celebrate day 50 somehow, how about 2500ft (50^2) of climb? :)