Repairing ESI Grips

I’ve talked about ESI grips on this blog before, so you know that I’m a huge fan. I’ve been running the grips for as long as I can remember, and I wouldn’t run any other grip. And now that they’ve come out with their road tape a few years ago, you can bet that all my road bikes will be decked out with ESI as well.

Big Day in the Sky

Short post today, about today's ride. It's been a while since I've really felt complete pain and fear on a bike and Saturday's ride had both.

https://www.strava.com/activities/279420975

Here are the numbers

172.4 kms
5:38:10 time
2028 meters elevation gain (6653 ft)


A big day for sure. But the real lessons had more to do with the location. I left for the ride from Pinetop, AZ, a town at about 7,000 ft. I've been staying here with a friend and getting some training in between US Cup races. The ride took me up to about 9200 ft give or take (google and strava say different things). I've been up to 10,000 ft before and my body didn't like it much. But I've been ok here at 7,000. Number were low all day, as expected from the elevation. But when I got to the Mexican Hay Lake Climb, it was something different. The climb started just outside of Eager, AZ at 7,040 ft. It was an amazing climb. I didn't get a chance to get any pictures. I was pretty focused on my 2x20s up the climb. But as I went up, up, up, the legs started to really hurt. More than I thought they could. But it wasn't just my legs, my whole body was getting weak. I went into survival mode. We all have our mountains to climb and Saturday, mine was literally a mountain. When I got to the top, I felt relieved, only to find that there was a strong head wind across the top. The next 25 miles, I pushed through the wind that felt like I was riding through thick sludge. When I finally made the turn, I had 15 miles of cross winds to deal with.