Day 8, Montpelier, ID to Evanston, WY (via Utah!)

94 miles.

94 miles and 2500ft of climbing, which is really a way of saying "flat.". If you assume that 94 miles is something like 500,000ft (-ish) and then 2500 feet of vertical, the math works out to about 200 feet of straight for each foot of up. And in our case a big chunk of the up was in one hill that separated the first part of the day from the second... Part 1 was 40 miles of dead flat, we were over 20MPH average in our pace line heading south along the western shore of Bear Lake, where the first settlers (British) passed in wagons way back in 1830 (yes, that's right). The second half of the lake was in Utah, the hills to the west covered in very large houses, maybe folks from Salt Lake (just a couple hours away) that come up for holidays, certainly not locals. At the end of the lake was the separation stage, a 1,200 foot winding road up through red rock walls with Sage brush accents that dumped us into a totally different place. Below was the lake and the hills, here in Part 2 of the ride it was a lot, and a very, very lot it was, of nothing. Sage brush covered hills that went to every horizon, not rolling, more chopped and angled, but a long, long way in every direction of nothing.

And we weren't even in Wyoming yet, just somewhere in Utah where the south-west most corner of Idaho and and the northwest corner of Wyoming come together. Lots, and lots, of space. And headwinds, oh what a day. Those southerly breezes that run up to 25MPH that we first met in Missoula have followed us as we've gone south, and today was just a wind tunnel. With no wind we were 21MPH+ without really trying, just the Don, Mike and Tom club staying organized and taking turns. Into the wind we were about 15MPH doing 1 mile pulls. Sideways to to the wind Don opened up a can of woop-ass and we jammed along at 25MPH, but that only lasted until the next right hand turn.

So today wasn't really about the wide, wide, open spaces of the high plateau, the sage grass hills becoming more lush and turning to grass, not about the Prarie dogs which stood guard alongside the road or even the ceaseless wind in our face for the last 40 miles. No, today was about Tom. Tom the dictator, the capon, the patron. Tom who you can take out of an accounting role but you can't take the accountant out of Tom. Someone needed to keep the group (3, or 4, or 5, then 4 again) of us in line, lined up, organized, aligned to the smallest detail of spacing and turn, and thus what it was was a day of Tom's directives. A small sample:

Move over, no, to your left, car back, pull up, sweet spot is farther back, car back, take it down, keep together, car back, move over, trailer back, don't forget to drink, ok, trailer back, mile marker (his always came a little early I think), move left, not too fast, ow! (gravel getting shot out from somebody's wheel and bouncing off bike or rider...), car back, move left, a little slower, not too fast....

And that was just in the first minute! Amazing he could ride AND talk so much. In his defense it is a trick of group coordination with quartering headwinds so instead of just riding in a straight line you have to ride in a wing or echalon with the following rider's right hand about 2 inches off the left hip of the rider ahead of them. And somewhere in a 2 ft front or back range of that hand to hip position there is a lot of efficiency in being one of the followers. Meanwhile the front guy is getting tossed around by the gusts and the other riders are trying to hold their line despite the gravel and debris and all of them togeher are tucked in a 5 ft shoulder between the white edge of road line and the grass. But it worked, we were last out of the parking lot and last out of all food stops and out of lunch too and arrived exactly at 2:30 when the rooms were open, so an organized, steady day... with a lot of directions en route.

Good that it was an efficient day, followed by a big Mexican dinner, because tomorrow, ah, tomorrow, Day 9 is tomorrow, tomorrow is... the day. 150 miles and 8,000ft of climbing, apparently a 9mile uphill after lunch tomorrow near or to Flaming Gorge, something like that. Hardest day of the tour, breakfast at 5:30, on the bikes and out at 6:00am... Day 9, it's been on people's mind since Kalispell, and here we are.

Last thought before an early bedtime tonight, a new bird for my bird list, the White-faced Ibis, and one I've seen just once before, Yellow-headed Blackbird. You know, first flowers and now birds. Greg and I decided by the way that what we saw a lot of in Yellowstone but didn't write about was Subalpine Buckwheat. Like a light brown version of Yarrow but very different leaves. In case you were keeping track.