Day 43: Reoccurring nightmare

Day #43) July 25, 2011. Dinosaur, CO to Roosevelt, UT: 65 miles in 5:05 hrs.

Well, forget about the easy day to Vernal. I just couldn’t do 33 miles for the day. I’m still trying to figure this route out and then line it up with places along the way, so the “noodle” to Vernal just didn’t make sense – seemed like a wasted half day. But more than anything, this whole oil-gas thing out here helped to cement my decision on this. I’m telling you, it’s a carbon copy of ND situation I experienced last year, with a boom out here that’s got the truck traffic intense and the lodging situation locked up for months on end. I just want to get the hell out of here and get up into the mts where this crazyness doesn’t exist. I’m hoping to hit Salt Lake City in like 2-3 days, and than just wouldn’t have cut it by riding 33 miles today. So anyway, I decided last night to shoot for Roosevelt, UT and break my days up into slightly bigger chunks.

So got going at 6 am this morning out of Dinosaur. Now forget the gloves and earwarmer – too warm, at about 60 degrees. I did do the poly pro top for about 5 miles and then that came off. The road out of Dinosaur, Rt 40 W, was a false flat descent from the get-go, and after 2 miles I was in UT. Now by this time the landscape really screamed UT, what with the multi-colored cliffs and the small canyons. I had a very slight tailwind out of the SE, and what with the false flat descent was able to hit the big ring and just cruise. By 7 am the freaking oil/gas truck traffic really began to pick up. Honestly, I felt as though I was back in ND what with all the traffic. It was amazingly and hauntingly similar. I had anywhere from a 3 foot to 4 foot berm to ride so I felt ok in that dept. But God, it was just a pain in the ass with all that traffic.

That false flat descent pretty much went for 18 miles all the way to Jensen, UT. Then it got just the opposite – a false flat climb – for the next 15 miles to Vernal. It was unrelenting and tough, especially when the big trucks were coming from the opposite direction and their “tornado” winds would just slam into me causing my speed to drop by 1-2 mph. I pretty much had to do that 15 miles all in the middle ring. Got into Vernal at like 9 am, and it was game on to just blow through there and keep moving west. The whole city for gosh’s sake is just booming from anything that has to do with drilling out here. Trucks, trucks, and more trucks. Welding, piping, brine hauling, electrical, you name it and it’s in Vernal. To me this was the reoccurrence of a nightmare!

The next 30 miles into Roosevelt were pretty much a mix of false flat and false descending. Pretty much the same topography of the red, orange, pink and white colored cliffs and small canyons. Really pretty scenery. So I actually really blasted into Roosevelt in some great time, like at 13.9 mph, and I was thinking ever so slightly about taking it another 28 miles to the town of Dushesne, but by this time it was 11 am and the heat was really beginning to crank. Had to be about 88 degrees by the time I got there, so I decided to go with the plan and bag it in Roosevelt. So I kind of rode through town scoping out the lodging situations, and honestly there just wasn’t’ a lot. Went to one place and the lady wanted 94 bucks – yes 94 bucks. And do you know why? Because all the gas industry out here has inflated everything.

Too much, so I went to another little place. Now this one was definitely off the charts with respect to creepy. I pulled in and the husband and wife were cleaning the rooms from the previous night. So I inquired about rooms and the guys says that they only have one room on the first floor (I need 1^st floor due to all my gear), but I might want to see it first. And like he really encouraged me to look at it first. So I went with him into the room. My God! It looked like a crack den – not that I’ve seen those before. The carpet was sickeningly dirty. No wifi, no cable, no AC, and the bathroom – it looked like a bathroom of a grimy service station! There was actually mold on the bathroom ceiling. The guy tells me he they wanted 50 bucks for the room. Told him I’d do 40 bucks out the door but I really didn’t even like that. Dude said no and actually I was relieved that he did. This place was the dump of dumps. And it was totally booked save for the room he was trying to pawn off on me – courtesy of the oil boom! Went back down the road to an Americans Best Value Inn and got a very nice little room for a bit more than I wanted to pay. But shit, I have to work 4 hrs/day and I need internet and phone. This pace had frig, mirowave, wifi and AC to boot. So done deal.

Now I talked to the guy here who runs the place and he told me that the various companies involved in the oil boom out here book rooms for months in advance. He tries to keep 6 – get that 6 – rooms each day for walk-in tourists. So come like 3-4 O’clock in the afternoon – No Vacancy! That little conversation pretty much convinced me to try to put in a big day tomorrow so as to get the hell out of this place – the traffic the dust, the inflated prices, the TRUCKS! Got to shoot for the mts tomorrow to leave this mess. So I got situated and then took all the gear off the bike and rode straight away up to a Subway I’d seen earlier when I was scoping out the city. Went in and did a meatball sub and got two more footlongs to go, one for tonight’s dinner and one for tomorrow’s breakfast. Then rode back here to work for the rest of the afternoon.

So I’m going to hit the hay early and then shoot for a 5:30 am start such that I can put in a big day and get close to, or into the mts of the Uinta Range, up near Herber, UT. If I don’t make Herber, I could be staying in a little cabin type place up close to the mts, and I may not have wifi or cell service, so you may not hear from me for a day.

Wish me luck………Pete

Day 42: 15 climbs

Day #42) July 24, 2011. Maybell, CO to Dinosaur, CO: 60 miles in 5:08 hrs.

Last night watched stage 20 of the TDF. And like I always say: You have to be able to TT if you want to win big stages races. Congrats to the Aussie who just destroyed the climbers in GC. Ok, that’s it for my TDF analysis. I had a Fosters Oil Can stashed in my yak – for emergencies of course, and I’d call watching that stage 20 a definite situation to pop the tab on old Mr. Fosters. Then Woody and I BS’ed for a bit and he led me into the kitchen to have the run of the regrig. It was the mother of all refrigerators, just stuffed to the gills, whereupon he told to take whatever I wanted. I ended up picking out some steak he’d just grilled that evening and it was spot on super. Hell, I could have just sat there and sampled all sorts of stuff, but I wanted to at least appear courteous – not a walking garbage gut! So I had about 8 pieces of grilled rib-eye steak.

Woke at about 5 am, and went to work immediately on answering emails, and then packing gear upstairs to then move to my bike and yak downstairs. Woody had set the coffee machine for 5:30 am, so I scarfed down a box of Sweet & Salty bars in my room, then moved all the gear downstairs and had a cup of great tasting java. I was the only soul up at that time, and tried to be as quiet as possible as I loaded all the gear on bike and yak. Watched a quick bit of morning news and then wrote Woody and his wife a thank-you note on a napkin. Then it was out the door and on the road at 6:15 am. Funny, the more I work my way west the sooner dawn is coming. This morning it was light out at 5:30 am. Good to know in case I have to pull a super early ride in the future.

So Woody had given me the lowdown on my ride today – HILLS! Heck, I’ve been riding for 6 weeks now and that’s been the operative word for almost the whole trip, no matter where I’m at there are climbs – climbs in WV, VA, IL, MO, KS, CO. The plains on this route – climbing! Not at all like the pooltable flatness of Saskatchewan and Alberta. Nope. Now those Great Plain provinces are truly flat. The route I’m doing now, NOT flat. Now I’m not complaining, but let me tell you, this being my third Trans-American crossing, I’ve done way more climbing than the other two combined! And I don’t figure things to go any different in UT and ID and OR. Just going to have to get used to not banging out these 80-90 mile days. I mean 50-70 with the heat and climbing and I’m just cooked by 11 am.

So getting back to the route today, Rt 40 W, and Woody had told me that I’d have 14-15 climbs on the way to Dinosaur. With that said, when I got ready this morning I already had the mindset to climb the better part of the ride. Got on the road amidst a cloudless, beautiful 49-degree morning, and right from the gun a had a bloody wall to climb on the way out of Maybell. This pup was like middle ring to little ring within 10 min. And then it took another 10-15 min to get to the top in the little cookie. So you get to the top and look to the west and the road just looks like a sine wave rolling off into the horizon. Once I topped out I could feel the sweat in my gloves, my earwarmer, and under my poly pro top. But I wasn’t about to take those off and totally chill out on the descent. So I just had to put up with the sweating, even with the cold temps.

The other piece of beta that Woody had given me was the fact that I’d likely be doing 57-60 miles of just pure desolation. There was only really one place along this stretch of road that may have a little diner, but this being Sunday Woody figured that it was closed today. So I needed to be sure to have enough water and food to get me through the whole ride. Made sure to have a couple of energy bars and 4 bottles of liquid.

So I got over that first climb and descended, did a minor whoop’tee in the middle and then climbed again. And it continued like this ad infinitum. Some of the climbs were just total killers, like little cookie and up to 20-25 min long, while others were gradual middle cookie climbs that were 10-15 min long. Then there were the little whoop-tee’s in the middle of these things that I could do in the big ring. So I was certainly giving my front derailleur a good workout. Now I think expecting today to be a bitch was kind of good, because I was just content to do my best to not kill myself as I had yesterday riding like a bat out of hell. And let me tell you, I bloody well counted each and every climb just to see if Woody know that the hell he was talking about. He’s not a rider and climbs in a car sometimes just don’t equate to climbs on a bike. In a car you just might not even notice. On a bike you notice everything, especially when you’re dragging a trailer up and over every inch of roadway.

The landscape was changing more today than in the previous several days in CO. Today I was noticing more of the stark, desolate and blank hills and mesas, and the small canyons and draws type of topography, very similar to the topography we envision when we think of UT. This was like desolation at it’s best.

Now a couple of times I’d get a stretch of several miles where I could big ring it and just cruise, but inevitably I’d come to a big descent – and I mean BIG – that would lead right back down into the base of another climb. Now somehow, someway I was maintaining like 11-12 mph for an average. Had to be the zipping down those descents at like 35 mph because my speed going up the climbs sometimes dipped to like 4-5 mph. I’m telling you they were freaking roller coasters. A couple of the climbs were just so big that I couldn’t even see the end. They’d just curve and stretch off into the horizon. And I’d watch cars to kind of try to see just where the climb was going, and most of the time the cars would just disappear. I timed one of these monsters and it took 27 min to climb!

By the time I’d gotten to about 34 miles into the ride I could really feel the climbing. It was just non-stop, relentless, and grueling. Now I’m not trying to be a Debbie Downer, because there was definitely a plus side to the day….great, fantastic weather and temp, amazing scenery, very low traffic levels, and finally, I was riding a bike through NW Colorado. Riding a bike = wonderful day, no matter how hard the terrain. And this morning riding gig that I’ve kind of stumbled into since last year’s ride, I just love it. Riding in the morning is usually otherworldly for a good hr out of the day. It’s cool, refreshing, and the morning light just does wonderful things to the landscapes. It’s a true kick in the ass to get on the road early and finish early before the sun just starts to cook the landscape like a pan on a griddle.

With 20 miles to go the steep climbing kind of gave way to these long, gradual guys that would go for miles. I could do several of them in the big cookie, but man, they’d just keep stair stepping up and up and up. Now Woody was right on the diner, that pup wasn’t even in what I’d call a hamlet. It was just this little place out in the middle of nowhere, and it was closed. No worries though, as I had plenty of liquids on board. By then I was starting to feel the heat of the day, round about 10 am. Went through 2 bottles by then and felt good that I’d have enough to make Dinosaur. And I’ll tell you, there was pretty much zero initiative in my head by then to go on to Vernal, UT, 33 miles W of Dinosaur.

When I saw Dinosaur in the horizon, wow it looked like NYC compared to Maybell. I mean there were a bunch of buildings, this despite the fact that the population is…….300! That’s how small Maybell was! So I rolled into town and saw two little motel/efficiencies – the one even had this carry-out cabin/kiosk for chinese food. They both still had a bunch of cars in their lots despite it being 11 am which kind of worried me. So I went straight over to a store/gas station for hydration to see if maybe it was still a bit too early. Got this 22 oz blue “slurppy” which I nearly guzzled and then went back in for a 22 oz fountain coke. Next stop was the CO visitor’s center, since Dinosaur is just 1-2 miles E over the UT line. Got a free UT map and inquired about the section to Vernal, with the folks telling me it was pretty good, with negligible climbing. And oh yea, there were exactly 15 big climbs. Woody was right on.

Then it was time to check out the efficiencies. The one was full for the night with oil/gas workers – which is big business out here. I damned near turned right out of the little gravel driveway and headed off to Vernal, with sore, dead legs and all, but I figured I’d give the other place a try just for the hell of it. I mean by then it was nearly 90 degrees and cooking. Turns out the lady had just one room available. Turns out this is kind of a boom area just as I’d found out in ND. Many of the workers just book out rooms for weeks on end. She told me it would be about 30 min before I could go in, so what did I do? I went to the chinese carry-out, which the lady and her husband also owned. I mean it’s right next to the motel. Got a lunchen special of Mongolian Beef with egg roll, rice and soup – 6 bucks! This stuff was awesome. So I sat under a little tent top and ate lunch while they readied my room. This is dinner for sure!

Once in the room did cell and wifi check – good to moderate - answered emails, and then the shower/kit wash thing. Ever just taken your cloths into the shower with you? I do it damned near every day. I soak the kit at the bottom of the tub/shower, pour shampoo on it, and then squeeze wash and clean. Then it’s onto the outside for sun drying on chairs, windowsills, fences, grass, damned near anywhere. Often I ask the owners of the establishments if there’s a place where they prefer me to hang my raunchy cycling cloths. Nine times out of ten they don’t care where I hang the stuff.

Next up micro brew! The selection of the day is Black Butte Porter from the Deschutes Brewery of Bend, OR. Great stuff! Been working here for a while just nursing my brews and pecking away at the computer and listening to either the TWC or the Cooking channel. No Versus here so I can’t watch the final stage of the TDF.

According to my UT map, I’m going to stay with Rt 40 W for a bit longer, maybe all the way to Salt Lake City. I’ll try to get some beta from the locals after I get west of Vernal. Tomorrow I’m thinking very seriously of just doing a noodle day to Vernal, and that sets me up for about 3 60-70 mile rides in a row. That because I’ll be climbing across more mts once I get west of Duchesne, UT. So just doing a little 33-miler to Vernal, I’m in a good spot to time out the next 4-5 days through UT, as I then head N into ID. We’ll see. Somehow I always seem to get some good beta from folks to kind of make the route become crystal clear.

That’s it for today. Right now it’s just a scorching dry heat outside. It almost looks like desert to the west in UT, so my early start strategy will remain as is. Until tomorrow……..Pete

Day 41: High Plains Drifter

Day #41) July 23, 2011. Steamboat Springs, CO to Maybell, CO: 72 miles in 5:04 hrs.

Wow, my legs are just dead, dead, dead.

Well, I got up this morning and kind of did a recon of the map again, and figured that I just might want to try to make it past Craig if the weather was good today. So I had that planted in my mind after I’d decided last night to just go for a 42-miler to Craig. Figured that I’d just see how the ride goes, the time, and the legs. If I was good to go then I was going to make the next segment and shoot over to Maybell. The people at the motel last night had given me some yogurt and fruit for this morning since I was leaving way before their complimentary breakfast – pretty nice of them. So had some motel room coffee and yogurt, cherries and grapes. Then got on the road at around 6:30 am, with the temp at 46 degrees. Yes, 46! This time though I was ready with my gloves and earwamer to add to the long sleeved top and vest. Pedaled out of Steamboat into a just completely clear morning. Not a cloud in the sky and the wind was dead calm. The first 10 miles of road were flat as could be, and I was instantly in the big ring and just humming along at 15-17 mph.

Then I hit just a few whoop-tee’s as I got along the Yampa River, but I was still able to stay in the big ring. Within an hour the wind kind of picked up, but to my delight it was out of the NE, which brought my speed up even more. This was a great section of highway and terrain, with a solid shoulder and some really cool bluffs up along the river. Before long I was just screaming down the road at 17+ mph. And believe you me I was putting some definite pressure on those puppies to get the job done today. By then I was dead set on making Maybell today, come hell or high water – or should I say: come a change in the wind direction or heat and hills. I mean it was just silly at some point the speed I was carrying, like 20 mph, and I laughed out loud at time in disbelief.

I’d estimated last night that I’d be able to make Craig, 42 miles from Steamboat, in like 3 hrs if the terrain and wind conditions were really good – 3.5 hrs if things were slow. But like 1.5 hrs into the ride today I found that I’d be blowing that 3 hour number away. I mean I never shifted out of the big ring – doing all the climbing in the biggie. Now this segment was just desolate, and I figure that this is my future for the next week at least, going through these little specks of towns with zero amenities, and then every 30 or 50 miles hit a town or city with amenities. Such was the case today.

About 8 miles outside of Craig I removed my gloves, earwarms, poly pro and vest. Hell, my base layer was just dripping wet, not from humidity or anything, but just from riding so darned hard. By the time I made Craig that soaking wet base layer was totally dry. TG for the arid climate. Made Craig in 2.5 freaking hours, by 9 am. And at that point it was a complete game on to Maybell. Hell, maybe even Dinosaure which is even further up the road. Yup the greed thing kind of got me with all the speed and furry of the first segment. Didn’t even stop in Craig what with Maybell being just another 31 miles down the road. Now Craig was a pretty big place, with a ton of motels and eateries, and I’m sure great cell and wifi service. But I was willing to take a chance on getting a bit further down the road for the day. In the back of my mind I was kind of wondering if Maybell was going to be as far flung as the cabins that Brad and I had up in the mts, but I couldn’t stop cycling at 9 am, so onward. Well, I got to the western edge of the city and looked off into the distance and saw this massive, monster, giant of a climb, a bloody wall looming off to the west on highway 40. THAT was my future.

Time to suck it up! And I kind of thought that my second segment was not going to be so blazing as the first. Could very well be a ton of climbing if the road did not follow the Yampa River. So I get to the initial part of the climb, the approach, and shift into the middle cookie. At that point I really thought that it might have looked pretty bad from a distance but once I get right up on it, it wouldn’t be that bad. It WAS bad! Hello little cookie. And I was just working like hell on this thing, in and out of the saddle every couple of min. It was a total grunt. And as I was climbing it I had to believe that I’d be doing a good deal of climbing to come – could very well be that that pup would be the welcome climb to the rest of the day!

And wouldn’t you know it, got to the top and there was another, and another, and another, like a rollercoaster, going off into the distance. Ok, from a 15 mph average to a 10 in one fell swoop! After the third little cookie climb my legs were really beginning to feel the effort, having just mashed the pedals for 42 miles from Steamboat to Craig. And again, this was a very remote, lonely stretch of road, with nothing but high plains on all sides. Now how about we add one more twist to the mix…the wind changed direction and began to blow out of the west. That wind and hill scenario continued for about 10 miles, just putting the hurt on my quads.

After that hour the terrain transformed into a flatter, almost false descent kind of landscape with negligible climbing, but still with that slight W headwind. It was a TG moment for sure, but the damage was done, the legs by that time were just feeling dead. And let me tell you, by then there were absolutely NO thoughts about going even further to the town of Dinosaur. Nope, greed had been replaced by “I just want to get this done.” I was on autopilot, and made an effort not to look at any mileage signs or anything just so I wouldn’t have to play mindgames with myself. Now from a riding standpoint, it was a really great ride what with the miles and miles of desolation and the wonderfuls temp and blue sky. And even the traffic in this section was just so light that I could go for 10 min without anything passing me.

But man, when you’re in the hurt locker, every 10 min just seems to feel like forever. Really began to start cranking on my waterbottles. I mean like guzzling them. The heat had begun to crank up a bit, probably by then it was the low 80’s. But still, it was a dry heat, so I was good there.

The road just wound around all these high points, keeping me guessing as to exactly which way I was going. Sometimes it would be in a southerly trend, sometimes due west. But it was winding around down along all these little dry drainage runs and draws such that I just didn’t have a clue as to what was going on. And worse yet, I was always looking for that next big climb right around the corner. So I finally looked at my watch and saw that I should be within 20 min of Maybell, having really picked up the pace after all the climbing. But off in the distance I just couldn’t see any semblance of a town or city. It was just blank landscape. Maybell did indeed come after that twenty min, and it was kind of a shocker, having passed up the city of Craig. I mean from about a mile out Maybell just looked like it was a ranch in the distance – several buildings on the horizon.

Once I got there…it was! This place is capital S for small. There are two motels, a grocery, a diner, and a campground. That’s it. You could ride through it in just over a minute! But I was done and this was home for the rest of the day. Now I checked out the motels, the one looking like a true rat trap, and the other actually looking more like a B&B. Ok, so rat trap or B&B. Had to do it, so I rolled over to the B&B looking one. The other was just way too gnarly looking. What’s more I hadn’t seen a cell tower for that whole 31 miles and there certainly wasn’t in here, so I realized that my only hope with be wifi – and the rat trap didn’t look like they even had electricity. So I knocked and the lady invited me in to what they call a hotel. It’s really a big ranch house with like 8-10 rooms so it’s not really the kind of B&B that gives me the creeps.

Actually it’s a nice little place with very reasonable rates, not those crazy B&B rates. No frills rooms for sure and I don’t have a TV upstairs. There are 2 TV’s downstairs that are satellite – and they have versus so I can watch the second to the last stage of the TDF tonight. Hey, this wasn’t exactly what I go for, but it’s a very clean, neat environment, with some really friendly folks who run it and they have wifi. I’m in! So my cell is a no-go, but the wifi is maginal - it’s not blazing fast but it does the job. Unfortunately I cannot do skype with their wifi. Don’t know why. As you can see that’s my MO when I get to a place….test the cell and wifi signals and strength. That pretty much sets me up the rest of my day.

Showered and washed the kit and then off to the only eatery in town about 200 meters away. They have breakfast all day so I ordered this Chicken fried steak with hashbrowns, toast and two eggs. It was sensational. I mean the piece of steak that I was given, damn it was almost as big as the plate! No need for extras with this meal. I was just packed when I walked out. Next up the grocery for a beer. Ended up getting a six of Miller Genuine Draft – hey gang it was that or Coors Light, or a couple of other rancid choices. Back to the hotel where I sat on the porch with Woody, the owner, and shared several beers with him while he kind of filled me in on this area and how he came to own the hotel. Super nice guy, and it was fun to just chill out completely and have a beer on the shaded porch with Woody as the temps climbed into the low 90’s. We went through all but one beer sitting there jawing. Then he asks me if I like rocks, and I’m like “yea, I have a degree in geology.” So he shows me petrified trees, dinosaur bones and skin, geodes, hot spring mineral deposits, quartz crystals, and then some Indian artifacts. The guy has a small fortune in this stuff.

Woody inherited this place from his folks, and he’s put a ton of time and money into restoring it. It has a western theme, but not in a gaudy kind of way. It’s tasteful and interesting. Now mainly this is a hunter’s hotel, because in the Oct-Jan hunting season Woody tells me they pack em in here like 20 or more at a time. Elk of course in the big game that draws people out here. In the summer he tells me it’s pretty quiet but for the cyclists who come though here. This is a very good route for getting through CO, and I’m not the only one who’s on to it. Right now it’s just me and an older couple of ladies who are staying tonight. So it’s just totally mellow down here in the den.

Right across the street is a campground that costs 25 bucks a night….are you kidding me? Twenty-five bucks to put your tent out in the blazing sun all day? Nope, for 25 more you can do this hotel, and I’m telling you, that sun right now is just blistering at 4:30 pm MST. So anyway, I’m sitting here in the den working and enjoying the large ceiling fans that are keeping the place nice and cool.

Tomorrow I’m going to do Dinosaur, which Woody tells me is a LOT of climbing and 50+ miles away. God am I glad I didn’t buzz through Maybell and shoot for Dinosaur today. I’d be one suffering soul out there right now. Vernal UT is like 90+ miles away, and I highly doubt if I’ll shoot for that what with the hills, and the potential for wind and heat. More than likely I’ve got to do some of these sections in smaller bites. Now if the stars line up perfectly tomorrow, then I may give Vernal a shot. But I highly doubt it what with the butt kicking I got today on those hills.

Too much rambling already. Talk to you tomorrow. PS..I’ll try to put up pictures, but if they’re not there, you know that this wifi just doesn’t have the punch to it that I need to download pics…………Pete

Day 40: Now I know why they call it Rabbit Ears Pass

Day #40) July 22, 2011. Walden, CO to Steamboat Springs, CO: 58 miles in 5:02 hrs.

Hit the local pizza shop in Walden last eve for dinner, figuring that with the large pie, I could kill two birds with one stone and have za for dinner and for breakfast. The pizza was really quite good and extremely filling – coupled with a couple of Nut Brown Ales! Hit the hay at a recreational 10 pm with the expectation to be on the road at 6 am the next morning.

Woke at 4 am, feeling really groggy and tired from yesterday’s slog up Cameron Pass. No motel coffee maker, and nothing open for a hot cup of java, so I was jonesing in that dept. Got all the gear packed and then miro waved the 3 slices of za in the refrig. And wow, it was tough from the get-go getting pizza down at 5 am. Matter of fact the last slice felt as if I was choking down a doughball in a pizza eating contest. But I knew that there was really zero between Walden and Steamboat Springs in the way of places to get liquids and food, so I just had to pack it in for the long haul. Same for the liquids, where I filled up 3 bottles with water and carried the Gatorade that Dave had given me yesterday. With the way I consume food and drink on the road I figured that I had plenty to get me to my destination. What’s more I had one emergency Cliff bar and some Honey Stingers that Drew had given me.

Now there was no AC in the motel last night, but they did have a little fan that I’d set up at the foot of the bad last night to keep me cool. But as usual in the mts, once early morning arrived it was pretty cold outside. So I shut the fan down early in the morn. But when I closed the little window in the room this morning, I noted that it was really cold outside, like about high 40’s to low 50’s. This was going to be a very cold ride to get going at 6 am seeing that Walden is at 8099 ft in elevation. Put on my long sleeve polypro top and my vest. I put my headband around my ears and just went with skin on my legs and hands. Got outside in the early dawn, and damn – cold, cold, cold. Really cold! I mean it kind of was cold enough to tense me up muscle wise. Right from the start I realized that I should have taken some gloves out of my front pannier. But once on the road I just hate to stop and dig through gear, so I figured I had to suck it up and just clench my hands into fists and to blow warm breath on them every so often.

The first stretch of riding on Rt 14 W, 33 miles of nowhere land to the 9400 foot Rabbit Ears Pass, was a grinder of false flat and whoop tees. And from the gun, once I descended out of Walden and began the climbing, my stomach was rebelling in a big way with the za breakfast. It was like this monumental case of acid reflux that I felt all the way from my esophagus to my stomach. It was pure misery – and the thing was that I know better. And damned if I didn’t go ahead and do za for breakfast before a ride where I’d be putting in hard climbing efforts from the start. That was just pure stupid and thoughtless. Add to that the fact that from the prior two days of mt climbing my shoulders, my low back and my legs were just torched. On the plus side was the fact that the morning was cloudless and just staggeringly beautiful. To the west there was an alpine glow on the far mt range and all the landscape in front of me had this faint pink glow to it. Quite remarkable to ride through!

My hands were pretty much beet red from the cold, and I was switching out clenched fists and blowing on hands every few minutes. Legs felt good and feet felt good. Ears were moderately shielded from the cold by the headband. Now on one stretch of false flat I could hear coyotes barking of to the north, really raising heck out there on the high plateau. And that’s pretty much what I was riding through, this massive high plateau that was nearly surrounded on all four sides by mt ranges. It was either BLM (Bureau of Land Management) or ranchland. But it was a sprawling swath of endless flatlands – well, not exactly flat! I was having a beautiful ride on the one hand, and a horrible case of acid reflux and dead, concrete legs on the other. Even right in the middle of my shoulder blades, I was sore there. So it was like ecstasy and misery at the same time. Tried to just focus on the awesome ride and not on the rebelling body.

In the first few hours of the ride the air was calm, but around 8 am the wind just kicked up to a gnarly level, and fast. It seemed to be out of the SW, and at times it was a dead-on headwind that just took my physical ailments up a notch. Those were the times when I’d look down at my odometer and see that I was just working big time to maintain like 8-9 mph. On the whoop tee’s I was relegated to doing 4-6 mph, out of the saddle just swerving around on the berm trying to keep a rhythm. It was pretty bad strength wise. And it was there that I realized that my “easy” pass for the day was going to be a total *^&$^@%^@ of a climb. Because if I was suffering on the little stuff, how would I feel on the actual pass when the road usually pitches up sharply? No easy day today that was for sure.

Figured that that 33-mile stretch was going to take me around 3:15-3:30 hrs to do, and after fighting my way up false flats and whoop tee’s and against a headwind, I did indeed cover that stretch of high plains in three and a half hours. Got to the Rt 40 W jcn at 9:30 am, and by then I had been relegated to using the little cookie a ton. Just had nothing in the legs. So at the jcn of 14 & 40, that was along the Continental Divide, at an elevation of 8772 feet and called Muddy Pass. That meant that I had another 700 plus feet of elevation to gain to get to Rabbit Ears Pass. Ouch! So I made the right onto 40 W and continued up a false flat – just spinning away in the little cookie. Came to one section where I thought I may have hit the next pass, but when I looked to the right and saw that the road just pitched up sharply on a switchback I knew that my little sufferfest was to continue for a bit more.

Did the switchback and then started up this long, like 2-mile rampart of about 5 or so %. Just dropped into my easiest gear and spun up, slowly and gradually. Finally made the Rabbit Ears Pass, and it was in no way as beautiful as yesterday’s Cameron Pass. Basically it was just a saddle in the mt. I was relieved to get over, thinking that I’d have a blaster down mt for a good 6-10 miles. But that was a pipedream. What it was was this long slog across the mt where the road just undulated up and down with plenty more climbing. I’d loose a hundred feet or so in a descent and then gain 50-70 of it back in a whoop tee climb. It was just crushing my legs. Ok, so on the bright side….cloudless, cool sunny day; beautiful alpine meadows surrounding me; and I was riding in the mts of CO! It all equaled out!

So I must have done like 3-5 of these whoop tee’s on the mt top and then I see a sign that reads: West Summit Rabbit Ears Pass 2 miles.” You mean there’s two passes? Yes indeed. So up again to the second pass in the little cookie. I probably spent like 45 min up on that mt top struggling to keep the pedals moving. Finally got to the second pass and that’s where I saw signs for trucks to check their brakes. Relief! Then another sign detailing a runaway truck ramp five miles down on the west side. That descent was going to be a screamer – and just what I’d been craving all that time. Turned on my helmet cam and began the descent, a beauty of a down mt of 7 total miles. It was one of those descents where you could let if fly for stretches and not worry about technical stuff (hard switchbacks etc.) – except for a patch of gravel across the road where there was damage. That section forced me to brake down to about 10 mph so as to not biff it in the gravel. Had I gone over it at the 35 mph I was maintaining, I’d likely have blown it in those 30-40 feet of thick gravel. It was pretty dicey. Got it going again and just totally enjoyed the amount of ele. I was loosing. That descent was just stellar, and off to my left I could see WAY the hell off the road down onto the high plains. Had to be a drop of 1000 ft down to the plains.

That descent took about 15 min to do, covering over 7 miles. For the last mile I could see the city of Steamboat Springs off in the distance. Once down, the road still descended in a false descent. Had to remove my poly pro and vest at the bottom because the temp had gone up at least 25 degrees. I mean it was hot down there. From there I had 4 more miles to get into downtown Steamboat. Felt pretty good to have all the climbing for today and really just softpedal all the way to Steamboat. Got a little motel in the downtown district, watched the TDF on TV as I removed gear and checked phone and email.

Once the TDF was over and after the shower and kt wash I headed down the sidewalks for some lunch. Now this is a pretty high end tourist town for sure, but it does have some real character. I can dismiss all the shit shops and tourista hangouts. There’s some great bike and gear places, and the choices of food is just staggering. Now you’ll think I’m crazy, but I had a taste for chinese, and that was just a block away. I figure that today I’m going to graze and try out a number of places with small meals. Did a little lunchen special at the chinese place and then got a gourmet cookie to go and then a red-eye coffee from a local java shop to bring back to the motel to drink while I work.

So this eve I went out for dinner and just did a splurge for the first time, going to this steak house on Main St and getting like a 20 oz Porterhouse. Just had to have some CO beef while I was here, and this place was just too tempting. Now at this place they let you pick out the cut of meat in a glassed in refrig, and then you take it over to a big grill to do yourself – with their tutelage of course on cook times and searing techniques. Did a wonderful salad bar, had a microbrew and then cooked my steak. Now I was just a tad worried about (&*^%$&^$ up an expensive cut of meat, but it turned out just fabulous. They kind of come around and check on you to make sure you don’t biff your beef!

Walked out of there just sporting this massive Buda belly. That about does it for today. There’s an outdoor concert down by the river, but I’m just too much of a party pooper to spend more time on my feet today. I’m pretty gassed from climbing mts for three days in a row. So in all likelihood I’ll be cashed out on the bed doing a bit of veging. Tomorrow is a short day to the city of Craig, and then I’ll shoot for Dinosaur for Sunday. That should put me in Utah on Monday.

Late…….Pete

Day 39: Cameron Pass

Day #39) July 21, 2011. West of Rustic, CO to Walden, CO: 45 miles in 4:05 hrs

It’s just amazing how “wired” into society the cell phone and computer with it’s wifi makes you. I mean just one day away from those, and both and friends and family wonder if your dead or alive. And even me, I was in kind of a state of “loneliness” not being able to communicate last evening. But you know what? It was really kind of cool. I mean with just the radio and some REALLY bad stations we had a pretty neat time up at the Sportsman’s Lodge BS’ing for a couple of hours. And let me tell you – that is NO lodge. It’s a collection of rustic cabins. But anyway, so Brad and I just shot the (&%*$^ for a couple of hours. Kind of different isn’t it, just talking with people instead of watching TV or surfing the net and veging out?

Our dinner last eve was two packages of Johnsonville brauts, one just plain old beef and the other beef & cheese. Used the gas grill out by the store to cook them up and then Brad and I buzzed through them like a couple of starving dogs. Couple that with a couple of Newcastle brown ales and some Frito corn chips and that was din-din. Not exactly a gourmet dinner, and certainly not high on the nutritional scale, but it did the trick. I hiked a quarter mile up the road to a payphone to let Judy know that I was alive, and then came back to pack it in for the night. We hit the hay around 9 pm because we were in a canyon, and it gets dark pretty fast in there. And wow, did it cool off fast when the sun set! I started the night with just a sheet for a bed cover, but several hours later I woke up and had to pull the whole dag-gone 3 layers of covers over me.

Now we had planned to get going at about 6 am again as we had the previous morning. But wow, it was really cold this morning up in the mts, so at 5 am, Brad and I decided to just stay in our beds and let it heat up a bit. I mean it was a leg warmer/arm warmer/polypro top kind of morning. So we finally get up at about 6 am, and it was still cold. I had to pull out my fleece – the one I’d been lugging around for 2400 miles! I gave Brad one of my long sleeved poly pro tops and we attempted to get ready. I had a couple of muffins and 3 pieces of salami for breakfast, that and some Frito chips. Brad – dude had a cold braut wrap with two brauts in a burrito skin and slathered with mustard. Ouch!! We washed it down with some pretty weak coffee from the office and then we were ready to roll.

Got going just before 7:30 am, and this was one of the latest starts I’ve had in nearly a month. But damn, those temps were just perfect to ride in. Problem was that once we got on the road and looked up to the west, out towards the pass we were going to climb – it was dark and grey – and Brad, the mountain guy, kind of shook his head. Seeing that dark western sky, and knowing we were headed another 2000 feet higher, that was not a good feeling. But you just never know in the mts what’s on the other side. Could be a raging storm coming or could just be some broken cloud cover. I was pulling for the latter. But we headed up there nonetheless. Now last evening Brad told me he’d ride to the pass with me today rather than just descent back to the Fort from the cabin, so that was a very unexpected plus for today, just having a bud along for a pretty good 2-3 hour grunt to the top of the pass.

We got going right in time for the CO wind machine to greet us, and as usual it was blowing from every which direction. And once I started – wow, the legs were just two big pillars of mortar. Boy were they tired. And again, poor Brad having to plod along with me. Now all the while I had an eye out on that mass of dark grey off to the west, and slowly but surely it was beginning to disintegrate and break up. Now we probably had about 2 miles where the inclination of the climb was about the same as yesterday, but then things really changed, and I was fighting to NOT go into the little cookie. The pitches were much steeper, and I was out of the saddle way more than yesterday. And I figured to have about 14 miles of that to Cameron Pass.

We went through some pretty stunning sections where the Poudre River was just raging down the mt in a series of waterfalls and rapids, but then the Poudre just kind of disappeared and that was the sign that things were going to get pretty sustained and steep – and they did. You usually know that once the main river kind of disappears you’re going to be in much steeper terrain, and that the river will be replaced by braided streams coming out of the high mts. I eventually broke down and hit the little cookie, and then life was much better. My pride intact, I just hit a higher cadence and was able to keep my HR under like 160! Some of the long, steep sections were about a mile to two miles in length, and I’d be in the easiest gear I had. Now this was a far sight easier than some of the short, really steep climbs I’d done in KY, but it was just the length of these CO climbs that took it out of me. I’d stop on occasion to take some pics of the stunning scenery, then mount back up and continue the grunt.

In the first hour and ten minutes of climbing we covered around 8 miles. But it got tougher. There were times where I was just able to maintain 4 mph. Most of the time it was around 6 mph. And the climbing just continued. By about 2 hour into the climb we were at around 13 miles into the day’s climb, and we had stopped to take more pics and for some helmet cam action. And off in the distance to the west, a bit up the road was a big sign. So we at that point thought that we were about 2 miles shy of the summit. But after riding a bit further we were pretty amazed to discover that we were at the pass, with that big sign signifying such. And suddenly that was it. Mission accomplished. Brad took several pics of me at the sign and then the inevitable. And let me tell you, for all the good times I had visiting Brad over the last 4 days, it was a drag to say goodbye. I had a great time and having him ride with me all the way to Cameron Pass, that was a giant kick in the ass. It’s times like these that you really remember in a trip of this magnitude. Shook hands and he headed down the mt to the east and I headed down the mt to the west.

My descent was fast and furious for about 3 miles. Within that I stopped a couple of times to take some awesome pics of the North boundary of RMNP – these amazing craigs that I used to hike and backpack over 25 years ago. They were just beautiful. Then I got to descending down to the town of Walden. Now I dropped altitude pretty quick for about 1000 feet, and then the pitch leveled off a great deal, in much the same inclination as I’d experienced yesterday. And then I was riding on a very gradual false descent, where I could maintain 15-17 mph in this massive expanse of high country mountain meadows. It was so vast you could just see for 10’s of miles on both sides, and running through it was the Michigan River. Way off to the west wa in front of me was another mt range, and behind me was the one I’d just spent a day and a half riding across.

I’d finally took my vest off once I got down on that expanse of mt meadow, with the temp heating up to the mid 70’s. Now I had some rollers to ride across, but generally it was downhill, and I was able to stay in the big ring most of the time. About 1 hour outside of Walden a group of motorcycle riders passed me, and then down the road I saw one of the last riders pull over and get into his back bag. Just though he was going to put his jacket away or something. But as I got closer I saw that he had something in his hand, like he was doing a hand-off to me. And be darned if he didn’t have a cold bottle of Gatorade in his hand. So I did this U-turn and went back. Turns out Dave is also a bike rider and has done some touring and just wanted to shoot the ---- with me for a bit. And I was key to oblige. Great guy and really friendly. I downed the drink while kind of telling him my story. Filled him in on my Am. Dirt thing and how I’d still like to make that gig happen. He was really hoping to one day to a trans AM trip himself, so he was very inquisitive of my routes and my mapping strategy.

Dave gave me the lowdown on a good restaurant in Walden – Moose Creek Café - and then headed back down the road to join his friends. I made Walden about an hour later and saw Dave at a gas station. So got into my efficiency and then showered and washed kit. Next up cell and wifi service – could I rejoin the world? And the answer was a resounding yes. Great cell and my aircard worked amazingly fast . Seeing that I have a boatload of work to send out today, that was VERY reassuring. Then ambled over to the Moose Creek for lunch – burrito and some homemade chips and salsa. The lunch was a definite homerun! Thanks Dave. Matter of fact Dave was inside the restaurant while I was outside eating on the deck – what with these beautiful 70-degree temps outside at an altitude of 8099 ft – and he stopped by again on his way out.

Right now I’m enjoying a Wooly booger Nut Brown Ale, a microbrew from CO’s Grand Lake Brewing Co. Yum for sure. That’s about it for today. Riding 56 miles tomorrow to Steamboat Springs and going over one pass – Rabbit Ears at 9K feet. Until tomorrow…….Pete