Ride the Rockies 2014 Day Three: The Three Bitches

Day Three of Ride the Rockies 2014 was billed as a "false recovery ride" by tour officials, according to the Denver Post. Many riders viewed it as an optional day and that might have been a good idea for me. But my goal is always to ride every mile and this day was only 54. How hard could it be? Well, at 3,831 feet of elevation gain, only 400 ft. less than Day Two, which was 41 miles longer, I should have known that would mean a lot of climbing. In fact, I later learned the ride included what the locals call "The Three Bitches -- a series of steep climbs with sections exceeding 10% grade.


Riding the beautiful ranchland around Steamboat Springs was worth the pain of RTR Day Three.

I am a big guy. At 6'4" and 215 lbs. I have a lot of weight to haul up these mountains! Let's just say climbing isn't my  specialty. I prefer pulling on the flats or cruising up 2-4% grade slopes. Once the grade goes over 6% I have to drop into the little ring on my triple crankset. Over 8% I have a hard time keeping a good spin going and have to start mashing on the pedals, which creates a variety of issues including "hot foot" -- when pressure on the ball of your foot pinches the nerves in the metatarsal joint causing a painful burning sensation in your toes.

Hot foot is quite possibly the most severe pain (9 on a scale of 10) I have ever felt. Coming in a close second is the stabbing nerve pain that has developed between my shoulder blades, on the right side of my back, extending down to my lower back. The pain, which feels like someone stabbing a knife in your back, began developing on Day One. I'm not sure if I was tense because of the weather or what caused it to flare up but this is an issue I have had on days 4-6 on previous RTRs.

Waking up this morning I immediately felt the burning between my shoulder blades. I'm going to try and get it to loosen up before we start riding. My foot feels pretty good but I have yet to put on my cycling shoes for the real test. I just hope I am able to get through today's 82-mile course from Steamboat to Avon, with 5,139 ft. of elevation gain. Another climbing day. Seems to be the theme of RTR 2014.

Ride on!

Daren