Day Two

And that next day was just as trying as the last. To catch you up to speed (in case you didn’t read the previous post, Jared and I biked up and down some mountains on the east coast of Korea. The next day was supposed to be easier….not the case.) Now that we are all up to date, I can tell you that whenever Jared says something like ‘it will be much easier than the day before,’ or ‘oh the end is just around the corner,’ I now know better than to believe him.

We started the day bright and early once again, yet this time the morning brought sunny skies, which was a welcome change from the clouds that covered our skies the day before. I didn’t sleep as well as I thought I would seeing as though I just completely taxed myself the day before, but nevertheless I was up before 7 ready to get the day under way. We quickly ate breakfast and packed up our things. We weren’t returning to the hotel after the day of riding so we had to get everything ready and in the car. We had decided the day before to drive to the top of the mountain instead of ride up like we did the previous day. This will turn out to be an excellent, muscle saving idea. We had everything packed and ready to roll before 8 and we headed to the top of the mountain. It was quiet and peaceful at the top and the view was spectacular. We quickly unloaded the bikes, got our gear on, and began the day.

It started with a great downhill, and this time we weren’t cold from all the sweat that was on us from the climb up. It was an amazing view as we rode down, and it was a road Jared had never been on so it was a treat to both of us. The road was quiet of cars, which made it even more beautiful. The only thing that spoiled the ride was knowing that later that day we would have to go up the same mountain. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the fast pace and glorious views. It took about 15 minutes to get all the way down and by that time we had already covered about 20 k’s. Once we were down the mountain, we had a nice valley to ride through with great scenery, little wind, and relatively flat ground. Part of our course for the day included some of what we had ridden the day before. It’s amazing how fast you can forget what you already did. As we were riding, I had no recollection of riding on the same road the previous day. At any rate, we covered about 35k’s in about 2 and half hours and made it to Inje, which is the town we go through to get to Oseak. We stopped at a Family Mart to warm our feet and eat some snacks. At this point, I thought we only had about 15k’s left to go, since Jared had told me the day before that we would be doing about 50k’s that day (this is where the not believing anything Jared says comes into play.) It was about 10:15-10:30 and I thought we would be done by noon or so, then Jared informs me we were about half way done and not only that, we had to go back up the mountain we went down that morning. So the k’s that flew by in the morning, would be a struggle to get up later that day. With this knowledge, I ate a bit more, got mentally prepared, and made it my goal to make it through the day with minimal negativity.

We set off from the Family Mart not knowing exactly what the afternoon had in store for us. We were on uncharted territory, seeing as though Jared had never ridden this course and was making it as we were biking. I should have known from how the second half of the morning started that it was going to be painful. We left Inje on a huge uphill, it wasn’t that it was long but it was steep and hurt my already tired legs. After the uphill we, thankfully, turned out of the wind and had it pushing against our backs. This was a great relief and probably helped more than I can imagine.

The roads were not forgiving as we made our way back to the car. We had minimal flat land and most of what we were riding on was uphill. At some points I would get frustrated because I would look down at my speedometer and see that I was only riding about 15 k/hr, which is quite slow. I would wonder why I was going so slow, then Jared would inform me that we were riding at an incline. Once I realized that, I didn’t feel so bad. The k’s didn’t fly by quite as easy as they had in the morning hours. Most of the time we were either riding up a gradual incline or it was up and down and up and down. It was tough and my legs were really starting to scream at me. We had plenty of breaks to make sure our energy levels stayed up as we worked our way home.

I knew the afternoon would bring a huge climb up the mountain we had gone down that morning but I wasn’t expecting two huge climbs.

After one of our breaks, we started up quite a big climb. Unlike the up and downs we had been riding, this one didn’t seem to have a down in sight. As we were riding I kept hoping the downhill would be coming, that our uphill muscles would get a break for a bit, but that downhill never came. In fact, the uphill got steeper and steeper and harder and harder. Finally, after almost 45 minutes of climbing uphill, we reached the top. I was very happy for the uphill to be done, and God knows I love downhill, but I was a little worried. You see, if we went down what we had just gone up, that meant we still had another huge climb to go up to get to the car. The mountain that the car was on top of was at about 900 meters, as we reached the top of the hill/mountain we had just climbed, we were at about 700 meters. This meant, if we didn’t drop down too much, we wouldn’t have that much more to climb, but if we dropped back down to about 200meters, we would have another huge climb.

As we made our way down I was happy to be resting and flying down the mountain, but I was getting more and more worried the further down we went. After about 5k’s we reached the bottom and flat land. Jared’s GPS told us we were at about 300meters, which meant we had dropped down all of what we had just ridden up and we had to do it all over again!! I was not incredibly thrilled about this but I knew it would be the last climb and the day would be done.

The climb up the mountain was not as bad as I thought it would be. The scenery was beautiful and the roads were empty, which always makes for a better, more peaceful riding experience. The mountain wasn’t as steep as I thought it would be, that is, until we reached the very end. I was hurting at this point. We had done almost 70k’s for the day and had been riding for about 4 and half hours. That, on top of the day we had before and my legs, and body were tired and sore. The last portion of the ride was at an 18% incline!! Which is huge!! I have no idea how long the incline was but regardless, it was tough and painful. I pushed and pulled my way up the last portion of the mountain and with my last bit of strength, made it to the top. It was a very rewarding experience and a huge sense of satisfaction.

We made our way to the car, which was parked at the top of the mountain at a rest stop, and we had all the Korean’s looking at us like we were crazy. We didn’t really care, we get used to Korean’s looking at us. We unloaded the bikes, got changed, got some food and water and headed toward home. It was about 1:30, which was about an hour and a half off our original finishing time, but it didn’t really matter at that point. We headed out of Oseak and to Inje to look for a place to eat lunch. Unfortunately we didn’t have as delicious as a meal as we had had the night before but after doing what we had done, any food would have tasted wonderful.

After lunch, we got back on the road and we were home in no time flat. I was exhausted but so proud of what I had accomplished. We rode a total of 185 k’s (115 miles) and had a total of 12 hours of ride time for the weekend. This was the most distance I had covered and the longest time I had spent riding at one time. That is, until the next weekend when we completely crushed that record!!