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Stage 0: The Drive

I had planned to leave the house at 11 to pick up my rental car in Denver but work had other plans with an unplanned outage on my groups most important application starting at 10.  I did end up getting out the door around 12:30 after resolving the issue. As we headed out the door and I test my GPS one more time I laughed when it said I was ~450 miles offroute and Erin pointed out that I'm only driving about half as far as I planned to ride.

Erin dropped me off at the rental car place in downtown Denver, it felt a bit funny to only have the clothes I plan to wear for the next week on. I stopped in Fruita to pick up a big pizza from Pablos as my last meal before exiting society for a few weeks on and off. My original plan was to catch a ride from a trail angel who posted on the race forum a few months earlier but that plan had fallen through earlier in the week.

Midnight at Page Airport


I arrived in Page around midnight, a few hours later than planned due to work.  I had some trouble finding the after hours key drop at the airport rental car spot, a quick call to enterprise helped me out. I didn't have to return the car until the following evening so I took a few minutes to be confident I was ready to set off. I was tempted to try my fate on Lyft to catch a ride to the start but decided from recent experience it would just be a waste so I started pedaling, deciding I was better off getting a chunk of the prologue done at night while there was no traffic.  I passed a gas station where I was tempted to try and catch a ride but skipped on the idea. I ended up making it to Big Water Utah and camped behind the visitor center.

Stats:
12 hours driving
1:45 riding 800' climbing

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