Something like 8,200ft of vertical. Do you know the joke about a man with two watches not knowing the time? It's like that... milage and vertical is a function of which person with which system ( mostly Garmin) I believe at that moment, the answers are never the same. On the other hand, 98 degrees in the shade as we had lunch at 2:00pm, that we all agreed was HOT!
Flowers, forgot to mention, we have been out of the high alpine world for a bit, lots of Black-eyed Susans and Aster with yellow center and purple petals along the road, then today back at altitude we had Yarrow, Bluebells, Daisies, spectacular yellow and purple Western Columbine and someting I stopped to pick but can't figure out, it was most like a butter-colored Indian Paintbrush. Hopefully someone other than my mom cares about these...
What we did today... we road out through big rock walls, we rode 20 miles up a hill to 10,823ft, we rode down the backside of the hill into high heat and then rolled out to Montrose. The support stops were as we started the climb, the mid-point of the climb, and at the top, then lunch down at 87 miles. The elevation should tell the story.
And at end of day Tom, Greg, Don, Regan and I went to Red Barn for steak and spagetti or both. Tomorrow another big day with a pass over 11K and another bunch of climbing.
So with that will leave with a picture of riding through the big rocks, we did this on the Interstate (70) for a couple miles out of town and then on a state highway, both were following waterways, the Colorado River or a feeder stream. 
Then across to the first rest stop and the start of the climb. Greg's time was just under 1.5hrs for 20 miles... not bad at 12MPH. Just on and on and on in the hot sun. The only remarkable thing was (and you can sort of see this in the elevation) the false summit near the top when suddenly, inexplicably, we weren't going to drop down on the perfectly good saddle we were crossing, no, WAY UP THERE, on the mountain above was a line carved into the rock, we needed to climb WAY UP THERE! It was the most surprised I have ever been on a bicycle, thinking from the tree profiles and land contour we were about to drop over to the left, and seeing that road up there to the right. But of course we did just that, we climbed it, almost 11K feet, highest I have ever been on a bike (or I think most people?). Then down, the road was in pretty good shape but not steep enough to be scary in the turns. Then lunch, then bad roads, then into Montrose.
Then across to the first rest stop and the start of the climb. Greg's time was just under 1.5hrs for 20 miles... not bad at 12MPH. Just on and on and on in the hot sun. The only remarkable thing was (and you can sort of see this in the elevation) the false summit near the top when suddenly, inexplicably, we weren't going to drop down on the perfectly good saddle we were crossing, no, WAY UP THERE, on the mountain above was a line carved into the rock, we needed to climb WAY UP THERE! It was the most surprised I have ever been on a bicycle, thinking from the tree profiles and land contour we were about to drop over to the left, and seeing that road up there to the right. But of course we did just that, we climbed it, almost 11K feet, highest I have ever been on a bike (or I think most people?). Then down, the road was in pretty good shape but not steep enough to be scary in the turns. Then lunch, then bad roads, then into Montrose.If there's more, will have to wait, bedtime...
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