99 Miles of Tailwind Dreams and Near-Century Speed
- Terrence McLean
- Mar 12
- 1 min read
March 12, 2025 - 99 miles, 1800 ft elevation, Portal, AZ to Columbus, NM
We started the day with high hopes for more amazing tailwinds. It’s like a drug that you want more of…the forecast looked pretty good but the winds didn’t show up like Tuesday. Don’t get me wrong, the conditions were good and we still had plenty of tailwind. But we had an easy course with no real climbs for the entire day over with every up either really short or really gradual. So we were thinking, “100 miles in 4 hours? Maybe?!?!?”
Early in the day, we started down the end section from Tuesday. It looked pretty flat going up but it wasn’t. It was actually a decent descent which partially explains the brutal end to Tuesday for me. We crossed back over into New Mexico and got strong southerly winds at our backs for a short 4 mile stretch before turning into crosswinds that we dreamed being tailwinds.
We had started late so we missed the first two water stops which was completely fine as it was cool and didn’t need the water or the break. We hit water at 40 miles and lunch at 54 and the 4 hour dream required average of 29 MPH for the rest of the day so it wasn’t going to happen without monster winds that never showed up.
We had some real fun the last 44 miles. The winds picked up a bit and was mostly at our backs. With no chance of breaking 4 hours, we rode into town and felt pretty good with 23.7 MPH!!!
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