Night 3 Wednesday 8:00pm to Thursday 4:00am
NW of Green River Utah to East of Palisades Colorado
We were able to get a small head start due to the tailwind that Team 2 had over Soldier Summit and down past Price and south towards Green River. We met them at the appointed place about 45 minutes early then set about getting our riders on the road.
Allan & Greg were going to join Jon for the initial riding. South we headed on Highway 6 for about 7 miles before entering the East bound onramp to Interstate 70 / US 50 towards Grand Junction.
Jon and Greg were setting a pace that Allan just couldn’t keep up with so after about 10 miles he bowed out gracefully to return to the mini-van and assist me in making drinks for Jon & Greg. Of course the thought on everyone’s mind was, “how far is it to the top of this hill”? I of course knowing the route told them that when the road takes a sharp turn to the right that the border was only a few hundred yards beyond. This wouldn’t happen until approximately mile 60 of our 120 mile plus ride that evening so I just kept my mouth shut and passed out drinks, water and Cliff Bars.
Finally even Greg succumbed to the pace that Jon was setting and returned to the vehicle. Jon was on the shoulder of the Interstate by himself riding along at a furious pace as he climbed towards the border to Colorado. Finally after several hours of climbing we were there. We all left the van to get our bikes off the roof before caravanning Eastward on I –70 in search of Exit 11, which would take us to US 6 to parallel the Interstate without the accompanying hills. After several descents and the accompanying ascents we found our way to the Exit and settled into a nice riding pace on a flat straight piece of Highway that would take us into Grand Junction. Unfortunately this was the point at which I began to get punctures about every half hour. We were discover later that it was a bad rim tape that was causing all the trouble but for now we just kept putting new tubes into the tire.
Finally after 4 tubes and winding our way along the roads through Grand Junction, Fruitvale and into the Eastern part of Palisades we were at the hand off point at almost exactly the right time. Allan and I had made the last 20 miles with Greg and Jon in the minivan attempting to get some sleep. We met up with Team 1 and handed off the riding duties to them as we returned our bikes to the roof of the minivan and started the long drive to Denver where we were to have a hospital visit at 9:30am. The time was 4:10am as we headed East on I-70 into the lightening morning sky.
We made a stop in Rifle for gas and another in Dillon for Starbucks before entering the Eisenhower tunnel and beginning the descent into Denver. We arrived about a block from the hospital, removed our bikes from the roof and rode them into the hospital for photo-op for the press that had assembled to capture our visit with the kids.
We were first taken to the hospital board room where a board of directors meeting was in progress. We were introduced and Ken Kiefer said a few words about our mission before we received and embarrassing standing ovation from the Board. I say embarrassing because while we are indeed riding our bikes many miles the children that we were here to visit are fighting for their lives every minute of every day. It is a humbling experience to meet these little “Hero’s” that we have adopted and are riding for all these miles. There spirit and strength gave me energy to forge on into the dark when I thought about them and prayed for their health and strength. We spent a couple of hours in the wards of the hospital before returning to the van and heading towards the days accommodations in Aurora.
