July 19th, 2024
Paonia, CO to Grand Junction, CO
68.8 miles, 1909 ft elevation gain
Since our ride was blissfully uneventful, today I will be breaking down what I eat in a day to avoid wasting away on the bike. It’s not unusual for my bike computer to tell me I’ve burned 4000+ calories after a ride, and that’s not counting the calories burned just from existing, so it’s important to eat a ton of food.
I started my morning with my usual nutella/peanut butter bagel. A good source of carbs and sugar to get me through the first 30 miles or so. Some of us also picked peaches from the trees we slept under.
I’ve spent the last 46 days perfecting my technique for eating Clif bars on the bike. The most difficult part is opening one. I have found that it is possible to maintain steering by keeping my forearms on the handlebars while I open the cliff bar with both hands. After that eating only requires one hand which is easy enough. I ate 2 Clif bars in the first half of the ride using this technique.
At around mile 30 we passed through Delta, CO where we couldn't resist stopping at a Wendy's. Staying true to the "Which MIT Spokes member are you?" quiz, I got a burger. It was still only around 10am so this didn't count as our lunch stop.
The scenery for the next 20 miles continued to be fairly boring, made much less boring by calling a friend. This works best when riding on a slight uphill so that I am going slow enough that there's not much wind but the hill is not so strenuous that I can't talk.
We were unfortunately unable to find a glamorous lunch spot for today so we ate on the ground next to a building that provided some shade. I had two salami sandwiches with spinach, tomatoes, pepper jack, jalapeños, and hummus (or “homou” as we call it). I tend to switch up my sandwich every few days to prevent myself from getting tired of it.
Once we made it to Grand Junction we stopped at a gelato place. I got a medium cup of coffee gelato, which was quite delicious.
As we were making dinner, I got hungry again and had another cliff bar :)
Dinner tonight was in my opinion one of the best on the trip so far. We had gazpacho, tilapia, and a vegetarian sandwich that Sophia and Rebecca invented consisting of pickled beets and onions, feta cheese, sweet potato fries, garlic mayo, mint, and lemon juice. Over dinner we starting going through this list of 36 questions that lead to love, which we plan to finish by the end of the trip.
I'm extremely grateful to be on a team with some great chefs and aspire to one day reach their level of culinary excellence!
the sandwich!!! she’s beautiful