“How was it?” My best friend was the first one to ask me that question. I had just arrived at her house the day after the tour ended, and we were sitting outside in her yard. I smiled at her question, memories of the tour fresh in my mind. I took a deep breath, unsure where to begin. I opened my mouth, and the stories came tumbling out. For an hour I shared stories with her, and I had only begun.
That same question has been asked many times since, and my answers always falter.
“It was amazing!”
“It was so much fun!”
“It was wonderful!”
“It was more than I ever hoped it would be!”
Those answers are vanilla. They don’t portray what the tour actually was, how it felt, how fully immersive and all-consuming it was. How it felt to be baked by the sun in the flat lands, feeling like my skin was melting off my bones. The teeth-jarring, undercarriage-wrecking gaps in the pavement on the way to the sand dunes. The butter-smooth road on the descent down Cottonwood Pass, so smooth I felt like I was levitating down the mountain. The smell of spruce in the rain on Slumgullion Pass, so heavy I could taste it. The effortless, spinning descents with tailwinds urging us along, and the slow steady rhythm of climbing higher and higher into the clouds.
The silliness, like Tom riding 18 laps around the block to get his extra mileage for the day, or giving Greg and his magical drink mix the nickname, “Fresh Legs.” The jokes: Long Stay, boys and perimenopause, Tyler. The nightly ice-breakers, ranging from “What’s your favorite kitchen appliance,” to “Introduce the person sitting to your left,” to “If you were a DJ, what kind of music would you play and what would your name be?” The camaraderie of the group asking Tom and me each night if we got our extra miles for the day. Standing at the summit of Pike’s Peak in the cold wind, cheering and celebrating as each member reached the top.
The night before we climbed Pike’s Peak, Greg asked if anyone had a good ice-breaker for the evening. No one volunteered, so I asked the group to share a high and low point of the tour. The highs were wonderful. They ranged from seeing the weird castle in the forest on the first day (which I had completely forgotten about until it was mentioned), to sharing dinner on the patio at the Sand Dunes and watching the hummingbirds, to riding the Dolores River Canyon, to summiting Slumgullion Pass in the rain. Tom and I were excited about succeeding in our 1,000 mile goal, and the group was excited for us. I enjoyed listening to each group member share their stories and see the tour from their perspective.
I spoke with my brother a few days after the tour, and he asked me, “What did you learn about yourself on this tour?” The answer came instantly. I learned that when I remove the daily stresses of everyday life and the accompanying mental fatigue, I feel like I have limitless physical endurance. Every day, I felt strong and fit. Every day, my legs surprised me with the effort they were willing and able to put forth. Every day, the longer I rode, the better I felt. There were certainly challenging moments, like when I was on the precipice of an epic bonk, or when I thought we were at the summit but still had six miles to go, or the last two miles up Pike’s Peak with a grade of 11% and an altitude above 13,000 feet. Even in those moments, I never doubted my ability. The only task I had to do at that moment was to keep pedaling. I had nowhere else to be and nothing else to do. The clarity that comes with simplicity makes anything and everything feel possible.
At the end of the tour, it felt strange to say good-bye. I don’t know if I will ever see the brothers again, but I hope I do! Tom, Jim, and I are already planning next year’s tour, and we will be requesting Leslie and Greg as our tour guides again (they are the best guides ever, and really great friends). Knowing I may not see these people for a year feels bizarre. We started every day together, we finished every day together. We shared meals and snacks and more meals and more snacks. We suffered through relentless headwinds and whizzed and whooped in the tailwinds. We celebrate summits and delighted in dare-devil descents. For two blissful weeks, we escaped the suffocating blanket of reality.
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