6/17/13 Mon Day 34 Hot Sulfur Springs, CO to Frisco, CO 57 mi

This was a bad day.

Temperature was 42 degrees at  5 AM. We were awakened by blowing train whistles. The trains were coming through every 2 to 3 hours.

It was just this morning that I discovered the flat tire that had been caused by a piece of wire picked up the day before.  I fixed it that easily enough. As I was pedaling off the rear deraileur would not shift due to a broken inner cage.  No clue as to how it broke.  Had to shorten the bicycle chain and bypass the deraileur.  This effectively made it a two or three speed bike that would somtimes shift on its own as the chain would uncontrollably shift from one rear gear to another since the deraileur could no longer wrap the chain tightly around the cogs.

As I was dealing with this I met Phil who was doing the Trans Am. I also met Charles and Sue, a couple who had done the TransAm in 2006.

I went along like that for 25 miles before I finally decided that would never get  me to  the bike shop in Frisco, CO  that had my replacement deraileur 58 miles from where this all started.  Having it shift on its own suddenly was also dangerous.

I hitched a ride with a guardian angel who took me all the way to the Wilderness Sports Bike Shop in Frisco.  He was an electrical contractor who was doing some work on cell towers.  He had also been evacuated from Colorado Springs where they had forest fires that destroyed 484 homes.  His was spared.

I was in and out of the bike shops in 45 minutes with a new deraileur.  Having gears that work is such a wonderful thing!

After I got the ride from the electrition and got the bike fixed I doubled back on the bicycle to make sure that I covered the full distance of the Trans Am as a matter of honor and honesty.

That doubling back on the bike got me back to Frisco just as it was turning pitch black.I met Charlie  at Wal-Mart.We camped in the  city park in back of the store. 

As we were setting up the tents the automatic sprinklers started and gave Charlie a good cold blast of water. He was wearing just shorts and shorts short sleeved shirt.  Invigorating to say the least. 

Climbed 3143 ft today.

6/16/13 Sun Day 33 Walden, CO to Hot Sulfur Springs, CO 62 mi

The temperature inside the tent was down to 39 degrees at 530 in the morning. By 7 in the morning it was up to 64 degrees with the sun shining.

We had some of those cantankerous Colorado crosswinds for the first 25 miles. Then going up Willow Creek Pass the temperature dropped from 73 degrees down to 44 degrees and it became dark and  the cold rain started to fall until we got over the continental at 9672 feet.

As soon as we started coming down the other side of the pass the rain cleared and  the sun came out and the temperature came back up to 74 degrees.

The shoulder of the road leading into Hot Sulfur Springs was horrible. I picked up a small piece of wire in my rear bicycle tire (the supposedly nearly invincible Schwable Marathon Plus) and that was  my first and hopefully only flat for the trip.

We met three young TransAmers:   Sebastian, Louis, and Dominic who left Yorktown, Virginia 5/1/13 and will be finishing in Florence, OR. They are English.  They told they had just sold their 15 pound tent to safe on weight so they could all stay together better.  It is going to rather severely limit their camping actions.
We also met a nice couple from Brooklyn New York who were biking from New York City to San Francisco,California and doing part of the Trans America bicycle route. Their names are Tom and Jenna.

We met another group of three TransAmers but we didn't have much time to talk because we were trying to rush to the campsite since there was some severe  weather blowing up over the mountains.

I had a tall stack of pancakes at the Moose Creek cafe this morning and was able to finish them all.  Victory on day one!

Our climb for the day was 2910 ft.

We camped at the city campground located next to the railroad tracks. It was free but it was not without the price of being awakened every 2 hours or so by the very loud train whistles.

The picture of the tent is showing Charlie attempting to set up the tent from underneath  the tent fly which would keep the tent dry when it is raining.

6/15/13 Sat. Day 32 Saratoga, WY to Walden, COLORADO 68 mi

Today started with calm to mild cross and tail winds but changed to brutal cross and head winds as soon as we got to Colorado.

We thought we had escaped from the wicked winds of Wyoming only to find that they had been reincarnated as the cantankerous cross winds of Colorado.

We met a very pleasant family from Belgium: Steven, Heidi and approximately three years old Liesta.  The youngster gets her choice of the car seat or the trailer.  She seemed to be enjoying it.  They were only riding part of the Trans Am trail and were cutting over to the Great Parks Trail.

Later, we met Ben and Kate, a young couple who started a week ago in Denver Colorado and did theTrail Ridge road at about 12, 000 feet talking with you before joining the TA to go to Portland, OR and then take the Pacific Coast Trail south.

Some words of advice that should have been intuitively obvious to the casual observer:  Despite using Eurostyle Chamois Butter and excellent fitting chamois shorts, I had to treat myself for some saddle sores.  I also decided to abandon the highly touted chamois butter and approach the preventative aspect by using Goldbond powder which deals with both the moisture and friction causative factors.  It is best applied to the chamois at the beginning and midway through the ride. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DO IN THE WIND:  IT WILL NEVER MAKE IT TO THE INSIDE OF YOUR SHORTS! Another lesson learned.

Went through little town of Cowdrey with no listed population, but it only had a few buildings,  one of which was a liquor store.

We camped at the Walden, CO city park. They just had a population of 724 and had a few bars, cafes and little shops.  It makes you wonder how they survive here.
There are no Home Depots or malls!  They have to drive two hours to get some items.

6/14/13 Fri Day 31 Jeffrey City, WY to Saratoga, WY 111 mi

I awoke and got up early by mistake this morning because Wade got up at 430 and I didn't interpret my watch (which I had left on EDST) correctly.

Wade is from Austin Texas and is going to Anchorage Alaska alone. Simon is doing the Trans America bicycle route to  Astoria, OR.

After having a tall stack of pancakes at the Split Rock Cafe in Jeffrey City we set out on our way. If you look closely at the picture with the hill five miles down the road you can see the split in the rock.

While the winds were calm when we first set out they built up considerably as the day went on.  However, they were nowhere as strong as they were yesterday.

We met a Korean named Ingster who was doing the TA from VA.  He told us he was blown over six times in the fierce winds yesterday.   As we were standing talking to him his bicycle was blown over by the strong winds.

At the Annalope Cafe Thane was our young greeter.  He was probably 6 or 7 and quite talkative.

In Saratoga we slept in a baseball field behind an elementary school.

Our climb for the day was 3681 ft.

BAD NEWS:  back home we had some torrential rains and we had 4 feet of water in our basement, sustaining a lot of damage.  I was feeling so guilty for not being there by Joy's side.  Fortunately,  we were blessed with two helpful sons and Kelly any others from our wonderful church family at Pittsford Baptist Church who helped in our time of need. 

6/13/13 Thur Day 30 Lander, WY to Jeffrey City, WY 60 mi

We slept well in the beautiful city park setting.  This was one of the nicest city parks that I have seen especially considering the population of 7,000 people.( someone must have died and left a lot of money.)

This was a very rough day on the road with severe crosswinds that could blow you over very easily.  We stopped at the Sweetwater station area for about one and a half hours due to the high winds and fatigue we had experienced fighting the winds.
While waiting there,  there was a 65 degrees wind shift causing the winds to go from crosswind to tailwind.  Thank you, thank you.  We then went the remaining 19 miles to jeffrey city at speeds of 19 to 31 miles per hour.

However, not all was quiet on the Western Front. 10 minutes after leaving the rest area, we experienced a sudden lightning and thunderstorm with rain. In the wide open expenses of Wyoming where is one going to hide from all that?  Nowhere!  You just keep on riding and being very thankful that Charlie is taller than I am!

The winds were up to 50 - 60 mph and really too dangerous to ride in at one point due to not being able to control thr bike.

We met Wade who is a retired banker and real estate developer and part time photographer. He is doing part of the Transamerica route and going on to Alaska.  He had an acute Achilles tendonitis and was given a steroid dose pack and he is using duct tape to minimize the movement.

The other rider is Simon from England.

Jeffrey city is a defunct ghost town. It has the Split Rock Cafe where we had some lunch and the next day had some pancakes.

We pitched our tents on the concrete at the defunct Lyons Club Park.

Climbed 3182 ft today.

I can't wait to escape the wicked winds of wyoming.

6/12/13 Wed Day 29 9 mi W of Dubois, WY to Lander, WY 89 mi

For Wyoming,  the wind was not bad.

Two pictures below can sum up a quick impression of Wyoming from a bicyclist's perspective.

There is a lot of interesting geology that we passed by.

Charlie had the food sack and was nowhere to be seen for 60 miles, so lunch was a chicken strip and cinnamon bun and regular (for the calories) Pepsi from the gas station on the local Indian reservation.