June 9th, 2008 
mnelson What a difference a year makes. I was so nervous to go again. What a touching day. Today was all about angels. No question. 136 miles to the shoe tree. Everyone made it, except for Jeff. Jeff”s son Josh has become quite suddenly ill and is in the hospital. So Jeff has gone back to Salt Lake City. More on that as we get information.
Back to the Angels. We started the day with 8 riders; Me, Coleman Warren, Chris Spillers, Joe Plater, Larry Peterson, Jeff Warren, Chris McCombs, and Brian McCombs. What a start to the day. We climbed up the mountain to Virginia City and there met up with Mary Ann (I never did catch her last name), a friend from Coleman’s work. We descended down Six Mile Canyon and turned onto Highway. Now for the Angel part. Team McCombs and Mary Ann proceeded to get out on the point and pull the six of us long term riders all the way out. I know they were hurting and never once did I hear a complaining word. It was one of the most touching things I have seen with the three rotating pulls out front to help minimize our suffering. Thank you is not adequate for what they did for us. Larry Peterson was an angel among the six by helping out anyone who needed a little help in the pack. Larry is very strong and could probably beat any of us and yet helped lessen the suffering for all in the pack. Thank you, Larry.
My son Taylor is out with me. He has been an absolute Angel for me. Not just because he got me water and drinks (9 bottles today), he was there with encouraging words every time I passed him. He is rubbing my tired legs as I write and even ran with me the last 200 yards to help me get home.
All of my family were angels today. Coleman’s family came out and cheered us on to Fallon. My family and my sister-in-law Nikki and her two daughters came out to cheer us on today, too.
Bill and Suzette Benecke and their family were angels by opening their home in Fallon to us and fed all of us lunch. Food is very important to us in a ride, and their hospitality was great.
Now, in a cancer battle, you can’t always fight it alone. Their are angels in all of our lives that help us on a daily basis. We may not see them, but I know that they are there. May your angels bless your lives the way all of our lives were blessed today. And, may angels attend to Josh. Tomorrow there will only be 5 riders with another 130 plus mile day, but our angels will be there. I know that.
Mike
Posted in 
I found your comments, did you find mine? You write really well. A great story to leave your posterity.
Day 3 – what a fun day. I really enjoyed the ride and the passes. Everyones spirits were high and everything was clicking. The start out of Eureka was quite chilly, but the pass we had to climb right out of the shoot took care of that. Except for some cross winds the weather was great and generally the wind was greatly in our favor. We have this thing of getting in each others slip stream and speeding along at 25 or more MPH across a valley floor, down pretty good. It must be quite a sight to see (only to be enjoyed by the occasional car or truck driver – but I suspect they had no idea what was going on – just that we were taking half the road) us stretched out across the road. For me, it was a good feeling to see everyone working together so well. Climbing mountains is more of a personal thing and one just has to dig down deep and do it.
I have to admit that Joe is King of the Mountains today. He took two of the five passes, first and last, Mike, Chris and I each got one. But I managed the stage win, by just a hair and after a tremendous effort to close the gap in the last mile or so. It seems everyone is now conspiring to figure out how to keep me from being first to the top and first to finish the day.
My hat goes off to Joe. He nearly pulled it off twice today. He caught me in a low gear at the summit of Connor pass (he manipulated me masterfully) an out spun me to the top, I’m a high gear power rider and a fast spin puts me into a tail spin and I go now where.
Fortunately, Coleman was not in on the stage win plan for the day. I was back with Coleman and Chris racing across the valley floor at about 25 MPH trying to catch Joe and Mike after coming of Connor Pass. Joe and Mike were some distance up ahead, when Coleman noticed they were pulling away from us and pointed out the end of the day’s ride was just up ahead by some mail boxes next to a dirt road coming down the mountain side and suggested if I was going to get the stage victory I better be doing something about it and soon, so I took off with everything I had. It seems the plan was for Mike to get the win, but when they saw me starting to close, Joe was sent of on his own and the chase was on. Joe bonked just before I did and I manged to get to the mailboxes just before he him. Then he tries to convince me that it wasn’t the mailboxes that marked the end but an old road (which he had passed just before I caught him) leading to some abandon buildings that marked the end.
It was all in good fun and brought spirited conclusion to a great day of riding. Who would have thought that after 5 passes and over 110 miles of riding we would have been racing for the finish line at up to 35 MPH!! Real drama, real effort – but no cameras were ready to record the moment.
GPS Stats:
Wed – 113 miles, 5691 ft climbing, 6 hrs. 10 mins in the saddle. 18.2 avg MPH.
Now I know that Jeff will argue with these numbers until the cows come home. After all we did 5 passes today and only 4 yesterday. But it is what it is! We all agreed that yesterday was harder than today.
GPS Stats:
Monday 136 miles, 5100 ft climbing, 7 hrs. 37 mins in the saddle. 17.6 avg MPH
Tuesday 130 miles, 6350 ft climbing, 7 hrs. 3 mins in the saddle. 18.2 avg MPH
How sad it was to see Jeff have to leave the group last night to go attend to his son in the hospital back home in Utah. Our numbers are now down to 5, but what a dedicated and committed 5 as we are now riding to defeat cancer, and bring Josh home from the hospital in good health. What and inspiring group to ride with. There is no professional rider in the world with more will power than I saw today from everyone. No pass was too high, no wind gale too strong, no bum too sore, and no legs too tired to keep anyone from Eureka!
(I will say, however, that Colemen claims to have found a fresh pair of legs along the road and put them on. This I would agree with as I had to put in an all out effort over about three miles to close the gap before we got to Eureka.)
I am humbled and honored to be riding with such great men.
And the man to watch is Chris. He rides stronger every mile and was at my side going into Eureka.
Go, boys, go!