This is the fifth of
a series of ten posts about my recent trip to Mountain Bike the Continental
Divide between Banff, Canada to Antelope Wells, New Mexico. Further information
about the expedition can be found at www.bikingthegreatdivide.com
Thankfully when I woke up the rain has stopped - in fact as the sun came up it
turned into a really nice day.
Day 17 - Improvised Camp by the Sweetwater River to Rawlings (120
miles)
After a breakfast of tinned fruit (bought at Atlantic City) and porridge
I was on the road by 05.00 and pushing by 05.03. I couldn't believe it, there
had been so much rain the road was a mud bath that jammed up my bike wheels and
BOB trailer. Given good conditions the next 100 miles should have been
relatively easy (mostly flat or downhill) but the mud was zapping the energy
out of me and this was a section with no real water source. I persevered for
over sixty miles sometimes making fast progress mostly on the higher ground
with good drainage and then sometimes having to take my trailer off carry it
for 200m and then go back for my bike.
By late afternoon it started to rain again, the track was getting worse and I
was running out of water. Looking at the map a realised there was a recommended
escape route going directly East from the A and M Reservoir and joining the
287 Highway further north than the original route. I didn't think twice
about taking it. If it carried on raining and the road didn't improve I might
have to push and carry my bike all the way to the highway. It did carry on
raining but the reservoir road was of better quality and I quickly made it to
the Highway and Lamont. I filled up my water bottles at a house at Lamont
(thanks Joe) and headed south towards Rawlings eventually arriving at the town
at about 10pm and booking into the first motel that I could find. I was
exhausted!
Rawlings
was the first place in a few days that I had an Internet connection and I was
able to check on the progress of Simon and Marco. I also got a text explaining
that they were heading back up Moran Junction to join back onto the official
route and I could see from the SPOT that they had now dones this and were
making good time towards Pinedale. This being the case it was unlikely that
they would catch me and it was time for me to change the rules.
My
aim was always to complete the route in 30 day – that was all the time I had.
When I left the UK,
I didn’t really expect to be able to do this. But the last few 100 mile+ days
had given me a lot of confidence. I realized I might be able to make the
distance. But as I wasn’t very fast I would need to make the most of every
possible moment in the day. This would mean long hard days.
Also,
to use a climbing analogy, I realised that I was trying to do a route in Alpine
time but with expedition gear. I needed to drastically loose weight from my
trailer and I felt a lot more comfortable doing this now I was by myself. So,
in my room there was a gear amnesty. I took a controlled risk here as a
probably posted over half of my stuff back to the UK.
This
included:
- All spare clothing
and spare cycling gear (I just kept one set, a top and my lightweight
jacket)
- The half tent
- Most of my cooking
stuff (I just kept one small pot and my Pocket Rocket Stove)
- Most of my first aid
kit
- The maps I had used
- The pages I had used
out of the guidebook
- My reading book
- All spare batteries
- My sandals
- Other miscellaneous
items
- And I even deleted the my unwanted songs from my iPod (anything to save weight)
The
girl behind the desk at the motel helped me weigh the package and we worked out
how much it would cost to post. I gave her the dollars to post it as I wanted
to get an early start. To my surprise it was waiting for me when I got home
(thanks Jenny).
I got to bed just after 12 determined that the new routine would start
the next morning.
Day 18: Rawlings – Steamboat Lake (108 miles)
My alarm woke me at 4 and I decided on another
hour’s sleep (and on the new routine starting the next morning!). In the end I
was away by 05.30h.
The first part of the route was along the concrete
road and then up a good gravel track to the Millwood Hill Continental Divide
Crossing (the #14th time I had crossed the divide since starting in
Banff). From the top of Millwood Hill the road ‘roller coastered’ along for a number
of miles until I was eventually grateful to reach the shade of the Medicine Bow
National Forest.
The Medicine Bow Forest Forest provided a welcome change of scenery and I really enjoyed cycling through ‘Aspen
Ally’.
As I reached the tarmac road on the other side of
the forest it started to rain heavily and then it started to hail. I had never
seen hail like it. As I continued along the road it built up on my clothing and
I started to get really cold (particularly my hands). Luckily, it only lasted
20 minuets and then the sun came out and warmed me up.
Just before Slater there is an option of two routes.
I took the route that went via Columbine – it was remote and beautiful. I
stopped near Three Forks Ranch just after the Colorado State border to fill my water bottles and chatted for a while to a
friendly ranch worker who was driving a 4by4 and drinking a beer!
The journey from Three Forks Ranch was hard. But I
made progress uphill and reached the top at about 21.30h. The forest was pitch
black and I was feeling quite spooked as I made my way down the rough track
towards the Steamboat Lake Campground. The rain started again at about 10.00h
as I pulled up next to the Ranger Station and Visitors centre at Steamboat Lake. Stupidly, not realizing it, I had
cycled past the campsite.
Desperate to get to bed I decided to just sleep down
by the reservoir but as I cycled down the road I came face-to-face with a small
bear. I don’t know who was more scared! But he helped me make the decision that
it would be better to cycle the 2 miles back up the road to the official campsite.
Eventually I got to the campsite at about 10.45 and
a nice lady made me a hot chocolate as I made my dinner and climbed quickly
climbed into my bivi on top of a picnic bench!
Day 19: Steamboat Lake – Green Mountain Reservoir (109 miles)
I should have felt really tired when I woke up. But I didn’t, it was a lovely morning and breakfast, packing up and getting on the bike all went quickly. I was away just after 5am and heading down the road towards Steamboat Springs. Where I stopped for a second breakfast!
It was a lovely day but starting to get really warm as a picked my way
up towards the Morrison Divide. The next seven miles to Lynx pass seemed to
take forever and I stopped for a long rest at the top. The rest seemed to pay
off and I seemed to make fairly good progress down towards Radium.
I decided to push on from Radium and just see how far I would get. I was
tired going up towards Inspiration Point and my gears were stuck on the front
middle cog. My left gear leaver had completely jammed – it was another bike
problem I didn’t have a clue how to fix! As a result I ended up pushing most of
the way until the downhill.
The next bike shop on the map was Silverthorn. But with only limited gears it was going to take me a while to get there. When I reached Highway 9 I flagged down a car, explained what happened and asked for a lift down the road. The guy smiled and said, ‘Sure I’ll give you a lift to Silverthorn, but if you want a bike shop that’s closer then just go to Kremmling’.
The bike shop in Kremmling is not marked on the map. But the guy gave me
directions and it was less than a mile to the north of where I was. Obviously,
the shop was shut when I arrived, but the owner was still working and for $10
he managed to dislodge a large stone from my gears which seemed to mostly solve
the problem! But the advice was that my back derailleur really needed to be replaced.
It had taken a bit of a hammering over the past two days resulting in it being
warn, bent and was in danger of snapping.
The problem was the bike shop in Kremmling was small and didn’t have a
replacement. I was however, pretty confident that I would be able to get one in
one of the next big towns but I needed to avoid any impact on my derailleur
until then.
Taking some advice from the shop owner. I got on my bike (it was great
to have gears again) and headed down Highway 9 where thanks to the man in the
bike shop I found a beautiful bivi spot by the Green Mountain Reservoir.
In my next post in this series I
will describe the route between theGreen Mountain Reservoir (near Silverthorn), Colorado - Horca, Colorado.
This series of posts is great Ollie. I eagerly await each new installment!
Posted by: Robert Jones | August 06, 2009 at 08:22 AM
Nice work Ollie. I hope you deleted the playlists on the iPod too, they weigh loads...
Posted by: Alan Parkinson | August 08, 2009 at 08:52 AM