Adventures of Slackers on Bikes
finally, greg’s dream came true and we found a town with a rodeo. So far, the cows are winning. The whole town is out here in their sunday cow ropin best. There are as many cow girls as there are boys, altho I haven’t seen any women on bucking broncos. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
we made it through west yellowstone mostly unscathed by the super tourism and fleets of rv s. I went to my favorite women owned and operated bike shop. We destoroyed a pizza and discovered that artichokes only on one side is not the same as only artichokes on one side. The ride into west yellowstone was hard and long. We climbed 4000 feet over 30 miles, which was the easier route. But now we’re in the park. This morning we had to fend off the vehicle toting masses who kept trying to pitch their tents in our coveted hiker bicyclist only site. We saw a bison this morning just hangin out by the side of the road. We should be in tetons tomorrow, where i’ve been told all the moose hang out.
we had a great ride through the tetons, despite ten miles of construction that left us caked in mud. it’s been pretty chilly the past few nights – there was ice on the bear box the other morning – but it’s nice and cool for riding during the day. Right now we’re 60 miles into what should be our first century of the trip – the wind is pushing us across the high plains of wyoming. We should hit utah tommorrow!
we were warned back in montana not to go thru rock springs, but we didn’t have much way around it. It’s not the worst town we’ve been in, but the locals have been unfriendly and the only camping was a koa for thirty bucks a night. We slept on some blm land across the street from halliburton and around the corner from monsanto instead. Awesme. Next stop
we blew thru utah and are on to our final state
if you ever stay in the rv park outside of steamboat, remember to do a bear hang. No one bothered to warn us about the raccoon problem. We’ve had various problems with them along the way, but they were mostly just annoying. This time those little trouble makers very quietly dragged a food pannier from under the fly and ate all our food. Luckily, they know how to unzip things and didn’t destroy the pannier but did leave raccoon spit everywhere.
well, there’s just about 140 miles and 5 thousand feet of climbing between us and Denver. Unfortunately, we heard the escalator in rocky mountain park is down for maintenance, so we’ll have to climb up to 12200 feet under our own power. Good thing we prepped by doing a 3 thousand foot climb yesterday. We should be in Denver in time to celebrate megan’s birthday on monday.
We’re here! Details to come after we eat delicious food!
Well, we made it to Denver, into our buddy Hans’s warm, loving embrace, but the journey was not without peril.
Soon after we made that last post, the sunny skies quickly darkened. The winds picked up and started pushing us down the road at 30 mph, which was fun until the lighting started getting close. Really close. We just barely had time to duck under someones awning when the skies opened up – there was a crack of lightning that must have been less than a mile away – i probably jumped 3 feet into the air. And then, after about 10 minutes, it stopped and the skies cleared up again, back to a beautiful sunny day. Fickle mountain weather.
When we got Rocky Mountain, we found out that they don’t have hiker-biker sites, and that the campground we were heading to was closed for repairs. We called a private campground just outside the park, and I guess megan’s doe-eyes work over the phone, cuz they gave us their last RV site at a tent rate.
The ascent over Rocky Mountain park wasn’t terrible, just very long. The hardest thing about it, as you might imagine, was the lack of oxygen at 12000 feet. I’m sure I made several tourists at turn-outs uneasy as I stood there gasping like a goldfish on the bathroom floor trying to catch my breath. Oh yeah, we had the unfortunate luck to come through the park not only on a sunday, but during “Free Parks Weekend”, so there was quite a lot of traffic in the park. Anyway, things were going pretty well until we got to the visitors center near the top. And then it started snowing. It was just a few flurries at first, but as we rode up the grueling final 500 feet, the wind increased and the temperature dropped. Soon after the first summit, we looked out over the valley and saw some nasty stuff approaching, so we took shelter at some bathrooms at a pull-out. At one point it was snowing so hard, it was pretty much white-out conditions. Once it calmed down a bit, we started out 3000 foot drop onto the other side, but it was COLD! We we both wearing pretty much all the warm clothing we had, but it doesn’t take much for the wind to work through your gloves and numb your fingers. We stopped after the first mile to reassess our situation, and luckily a kind soul offered us a ride down the mountain. Megan, being more intelligent than I, accepted. I opted to bundle up and keep rolling. Between getting snowflakes in my eyes, the numbness crawling up my fingers to the rest of my body, and the gusts of crosswinds threatening to blow me over the chasm to my death, I didn’t really enjoy my hard-earned decent, but at least I survived it! Megan was apparently only waiting 15 minutes or so at the campsite before I arrived.
The next day the weather was much nicer – still a bit chilly, but sunny and clear. We had another great downhill run from Estes Park to Lyons, and from there we headed to Boulder, encountering tons of lycra-clad racer-type cyclists along the way, many of whom seemed stunned at the site of our gear-laden packhorses. Unfortunately, no one in Boulder knew a good way to bike the 30 miles from there into Denver. Someone at a bike shop gave us the “least bad” way. It was pretty awful – no shoulder, tons of traffic (much of which was not very friendly), and construction to boot! Halfway there, we found another bike shop that had a metro denver cycling map, and we found a much better route for the rest of the way. (I also noticed much more sane routes we could have taken from boulder, and that the route we took was not designated for cycling at all). We made it to Hans’s place just ahead of the lightning storm that had been chasing us, and just in time for Megan to have delicious vegan birthday dinner at Watercourse. Now we’re spending the day dawdling about, getting ready to catch our train back to Oakland tomorrow morning.