Two Guys CACTUS (Cycling And Crossing The U.S.)

Day 18, Fri, 7/29th... The End: To Albuquerque.

2011-07-29T16:20:00.000-07:00

75 miles and done. Like this:

Into Albuquerque... is it a little tough to get excited about ending a trip in Albuquerque? Yes. Because once we got out of Santa Fe it was... well, what you might expect New Mexico to be, tan ground and a lot of scrub and choppy hills that went on and on and on and... and it ends in Albuqurque.

The totals are 1860 miles, 90K feet of vertical, and something like 17.8MPH for an average. So says Tom's Garmin. And we all know that's one machine's opinion.

The key quotes of the trip summary goes something like:

Ugh, this room stinks (Tom, on entry into our room)

I wish I had some ice. (Don, on the side of the road as I fixed a flat outside Rangely, which might have been true, but seemed just a little out of context on a hot dry road, as Tom said at the time, "want to wish for a beautiful woman to bring it to us too?")

Get a mirror! (Tom, after scaring another rider into the ditch on the way to West Yellowstone)

What am I doing here with you? (Tom, to me, as we sat on the sun room of the Yellowstone Hotel listening to the string quartet with our drinks)

You jinxed me! (Reg to Tom, when Tom commented on the lack of flats that Reg had so far... Reg got a flat the next morning...)

Feels like we never left. (Greg, after the second morning of breakfast in the parking lot and another smells-something-like-cigarettes cheap motel)

Our thoughts go out to the dozens of dead skunks. Not as much roadkill this year, but the skunk count was very high, like one per hour.

There must have been 15 flats today, throwing bottles out the window is sport in New Mexico... Poor Lou must have had 5 on his own.

Bike break downs and then dinner and then slide show and the ice cream and now all done. The first morning shuttles are at 6am. That's all from this year's tour... Don, Tom, Greg, Mike and ? on the frontage road from Missoula to Butte. Ending as always with the Rocky Horror Picture Show:

Cause I've seen blue skies through the tears
In my eyes
And I realise.. I'm going home.

I'm going home, I'm going home.

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 18 Sante Fe to Albuquerque, NM by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-29T14:22:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 18 Sante Fe to Albuquerque, NM by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 17 Chama to Sante Fe, NM by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-28T15:07:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 17 Chama to Sante Fe, NM by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

Indian Paintbrush (Top of Wolf Creek Pass)

2011-07-28T14:43:00.000-07:00

Day 17\Thurs July 28, Chama to Santa Fe

2011-07-28T14:39:00.001-07:00

105 miles.

Chama and then a long way down, out of forests and the lush northern part of New Mexico, through a valley to Espanola (the low point, about mile 80) and then back up to Santa Fe. As it got lower it got hotter... some relief back towards the top. 4,700 vertical feet.

The impressive thing was how the landscape changed, starting with awful yet-to-be-asphalted gravel roads through the rest stop at 24 miles, but we were impressed by how pretty the high plains and mountains were, full of trees, the comment "this doesn't look like New Mexico" was made quite often. Note the road conditions...

Then that slope from about mile 30 to 40... I hooked up with Bruce (New Hampshire) and Jerry (WI) and we had one of the trancendent moments of the tour (it lasted several miles), 30+MPH leap frogging each other and just pounding down the hill, little traffic, great shoulder and zooming fast down a canyon. Maybe too fast... we missed a turn which Tom and Don took to a huge half-sphere carved into the canyon wall where you can talk at one side and be heard at the other as the sound bounces around the stone. I remember seeing it but on we went.

When we popped out at the bottom of the canyon we were not in the trees anymore: striped eroded hillsides and red rock and scrub, complete change of scenery. This was at the 46 mile rest stop:

Then on to next rest stop riding with Cassie and then on to lunch back with Jerry and Bruce and absolutely pounding the pavement, probably averaged over 23MPH for the 15 or so miles, but then when you've got this to look at - scrub and rock - why not ride fast? Those thunderstorms stayed looming all day but we never got a drop, they awere to our east.

What the day will be remembered for is the glass. The shoulders were covered with broken bottle bits and shards, I think more tires were changed today than in the whole trip combined, everywhere was a road hazard. Shoulders were wide - no question - but with the amount of glass and gravel and broken tire bits they presented more of a hazard than riding in the road and risking the wrath of traffic.

From lunch at mile 80 into Santa Fe (105) was a lot of corners and turns but got in right at 2:30; now 4:30pm and everything and everyone is washed and ready for tomorrow, the last day. The main city square is only a block or two away so off to explore and get dinner, then, as the gang in Les Mis sings...

ALL
Tomorrow we'll discover
What our God in Heaven has in store!
One more dawn
One more day
One day more

The end is closing fast... thoughts of work, family, and upcoming adventures are prevalent (Karen is training for PBP that starts Aug 20th for example). I have to admit feeling a little lost: these legs can pound, these lungs that haven't been below 6,000ft in a week and over many passes at 10K or even 11K, meanwhile a string of seven 100 mile days in a row, and 10 of the last 11 days, not to mention the climbing of 5K to 8K vertical a day. How do I feel? FIGJAM, (Aussie racing slang... F#$# I'm Good, Just Ask Me, see all the good things that multi-cultural experiences lead to?).

So seems hard to walk away from feeling so able. But one more day.

Dinner was in two parts, with Greg and Tom on the plaza, pizza and beer in the rain before the music kicked off on the square, then 2nd round with the sister of a friend (Susan Thornton) at a small restaurant across from hotel.

Pictures: Day 16; Weds, 27th, South Fork to Charma

2011-07-27T20:07:00.000-07:00

Sun coming up, breakfast was at 6:15, load and ride at 6:45 to 7:15... Bikes already out at the trailers.

Going up to Wolf Creek Pass, sense of the rocks and again this was dry side of the pass. On the left is a HUGE congregation of RVs, a hundred or more of them in one place.

Pictures, Day 15\Tuesday, 26th: South Park out and back...

2011-07-27T19:34:00.000-07:00

So this was our loop ride, heading out in the morning the fog was at the rock tops, but it kept lifting bit by bit so we never got into any type of weather. This was close to South Park, maybe 5 miles out of town, the Rio Grande River to the left out of sight.

This was maybe 48 miles into the ride, I want to say north but who knows? Just up the road, but love this picture, it looks into the wilderness area where the headwaters of the Rio Grande River are. Nothing but open ground and the 100 moose they helicoptered into the area.

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 16 South Fork, CO to Chama, NM by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-27T16:30:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 16 South Fork, CO to Chama, NM by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

Day 16\Weds\July 27th: South Fork to Chama

2011-07-27T15:54:00.000-07:00

90 miles, was supposed to be but I backtracked a little at the end of the ride and made it a century, why not, only two days left. The big news of the day was getting up this morning in South Fork and climbing back over Wolf Creek Pass, an easier side to climb as it's more gradual, then a brisk and extended 40MPH downhill for a coffee in Pagosa Springs and then lunch and then into New Mexico, where we spent the last 20 miles of the day. Chama.. maybe only known for the old narrow gauge railway that ran from here to somewhere (oops, just found out the river is important in some of the paintings by Georgia O'Keefe), otherwise, like South Fork, the abandoned and for sale restaurants and shops and houses and mobile homes seem to outnumber those still operating. For you "Breaking Bad" fans Chama is also hotbed for meth production and usage. Property for sale and more of it - not sure if recent economic events or broader than that but it's plentiful...

Dinner was down the road, a fair walk, the Half Mile Restaurant, with a picture of the birthday celebration crew (minus Cassie, who took the picture):

Pictures: Day 14\Monday, Durango to South Fork

2011-07-27T15:47:00.001-07:00

This was over the Wolf Creek Pass. Looming clouds and a good sense of the road, see that little thing? The pass is actually to the left of the picture quite a bit, this shows looking down at two levels of the road as it goes into the valley. Note how green it is, the wet side of the pass (facing north I think).

Then coming down the other side, drier by far, not much snow in South Park. Rock formations a lot more dramatic though, almost like basalt columns of E. Washington.

Pictures, Day 13\Sunday, Montrose to Durango...

2011-07-27T15:32:00.001-07:00

Finally. This was from the 24th, Sunday, which means it was day 13, Montrose to Durango. So this was the road on the way up to one of the 3 peaks we climbed. At this point I have no idea which one... Likely the first. But in any case will give you a sense of the view.

Then, judging by time and date stamps, this is later the same climb, so must have been the first of the 3 we went over, ie, before dropping down to Silverton. I liked this picture because it shows two things, first, Tom's love of taking road pictures (literally) and 2nd the scree and sand of the top of the mountains, we were getting close not just to tree level, but to the "anything growing level".

Another guess, but I think this was climbing the 2nd pass, still sunny then and looking back. But not sure.

A Title For This Picture?

2011-07-27T15:28:00.000-07:00

The Grinch Goes Cycling?

Tom tries to use suntan lotion as chamois cream?

Or?

Picture Attempt..

2011-07-26T19:59:00.001-07:00

Well.. got one to load. How not to ride your bike - Tom's tube wrapped around his axel.

Day 15\Tuesday: Out and Back Ride or rest day...

2011-07-26T19:22:00.000-07:00

124 miles.

Various people did various things. Some stayed and read or rested. Some went to Creede for coffee. Some went to the first summit at 55 miles out, Spring Creek Pass, the continental divide, again... (lunch of hot spaggetti on a cold day was really, really appreciated), some went on the 2nd top at 64 miles and came back to first summit for lunch.

For the 64 mile folks, it was 6,500ft of climb or so, depends on whose Garmin you believe. Out of town following Rt 149 through the mining town of Creede (Silver, Zinc, Lead) and then up over one pass, down, up the next to Slumgullion Pass at 11,530ft. Way up there, highest pass to date. The ride was against a headwind going up and a headwind coming back, through some high rock canyons and some of the prettiest mountain views we have seen. And you can't see because Blogger won't let me load the pictures. Out past the meadows that our ride followed is a wilderness area where the Rio Grande river begins which followed the road from just after the first pass all the way to town. Oh, for a fly rod... between the Rio Grand and the San Juan Rivers the day before we've passed a lot of classic trout water (Madison, Yellowstone, Snake Rivers too).

Tom rode up with Greg and did the trip in 17.6 average, I left later rode solo just under 17 MPH.

Right now it's HOWLING out, and raining, wind coming straight out of the south, where we will be heading first thing tomorrow as we cross back over Wolf Creek pass from the other side. Supposedly tomorrow will be better but as now it looks like wind and dark clouds, we were learning into the wind on the way home from Biggins, another night at same restaurant.

Laundry time...

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 15 Slumgullion Pass out & back by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-26T16:37:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 15 Slumgullion Pass out & back by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 14 Durango to South Fork, CO by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-25T17:02:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 14 Durango to South Fork, CO by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 13 Montrose to Durango. CO by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-25T16:54:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 13 Montrose to Durango. CO by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

Day 14 Durango, CO to South Fork, CO

2011-07-25T16:41:00.000-07:00

117 miles.

Ride 90 miles, have lunch, climb a big hill to Wolf Creek Summit at 10,550ft summit (at mile 98), another cross of the continental divide, ride downhill for 20 miles to South Fork. That's the short version. It was cool with no headwind for the first 40+, got pretty warm as we got to lower elevations and a headwind kicked in, and the thunder was rumbling at the mountaintops by the time we had lunch... In terms of roads, the shortest path would have been Rt 160 the whole way, but we dipped south to almost New Mexico and turned north again, picking up Rt 160 for the last 2/3 of the ride.

Some people got to do the downhill in pouring rain. Spectacular mountain scenery on the way up with 12K ft peaks all around us and wide rock faces that stairstepped down the sides of the slopes. The narrow valley as we opened onto the plain above South Fork was as pretty as anything on the trip, but the views on the way up were impressive.

Another day, the 4th in a row, of between 110 and 120miles with about 8,000ft of climbing. Body parts falling off all over, more than a couple people taking rest days or opting into a van and out of the rain. Don broke his crank arm, had to ride a loaner bike for the day.... Tom blew out a tire, the tube was in shreds... see, it's not supposed to be wrapped around the hub like this (oops, can't post anything).

Dinner was just down the road at the one dining option, Biggins, good burgers and Andrew the Ozzie has talked them into being open tomorrow night so after our loop ride we can go back for dinner. I'd post pictures if I could get Blogger to post them for me, not sure what is up.

Day 13, Montrose, CO to Durango, Co

2011-07-25T16:40:00.000-07:00

112 miles.

There was discussion of Day 9 (and fear and trepidation) only because nobody looked at Day 13... The day in elevation...

So we did 3 passes over 10k feet in the day... it was a straight shot south on Rt 550. First we had to get out of Montrose, a bigger town than it seemed from the night before (a half vacant strip of shops with no taxi in town to take us anywhere for dinner...), so city driving down a strip of development, then into the open, then just riding steadily. At 38 miles, about where you see the bump in the elevation, that's the town of Ouray, nestled in a bunch of mountains, and boom, up the road goes. Second day in a row of something new: white line on right side of road, 6 inches of asphalt, 50 ft straight down\no guardrail. If you went front wheel first over the side in a bunch of places it was goodbye, so we tried to be careful. All the traffic, a beautiful Saturday in July, made it interesting. Jeeps w/ winches and roof racks and fog lights, FJ Cruisers, RVs and everyone towing something: horses, rafts, ATVs, 2nd cars, something. From 7,706 to 11,118ft at the Red Mountain Pass, somewhere there's a picture.

Then zoom, down, lunch in Silverton, all tourists, all the time. Gold mines, silver mines, Ye Olde Photo store and such. Silverton is the very bottom trough between the first two spikes because right after lunch, back up to 10,910ft, Molas Pass, complete with pelting rain on the descent that REALLY HURTS even when trying to go slow because rode is slippery. Lose 1,300ft... and climb back up to 10,640ft, Coal Bank Pass. Descend again, this time to Durango, very, very fast (hit 50MPH) and wide roads, the rain stopped and it was just really hot for the long ride out. Had to pass through most of town to get to hotel.

And when the day was done we were really outside Durango at a Best Western on the highway, jeez was it hot, so instead of a walk into town we went next door to Christie's Restaurant where we watched the Tour de France finale in Paris and sang happy birthday to Jerry (Wisconsin) and called it a night.

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 12 Grand Junction to Montrose, CO by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-23T20:11:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 12 Grand Junction to Montrose, CO by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

Day 12; Grand Junction, CO to Montrose, Co

2011-07-23T20:05:00.000-07:00

114 miles.

Something like 8,200ft of vertical. Do you know the joke about a man with two watches not knowing the time? It's like that... milage and vertical is a function of which person with which system ( mostly Garmin) I believe at that moment, the answers are never the same. On the other hand, 98 degrees in the shade as we had lunch at 2:00pm, that we all agreed was HOT!

Flowers, forgot to mention, we have been out of the high alpine world for a bit, lots of Black-eyed Susans and Aster with yellow center and purple petals along the road, then today back at altitude we had Yarrow, Bluebells, Daisies, spectacular yellow and purple Western Columbine and someting I stopped to pick but can't figure out, it was most like a butter-colored Indian Paintbrush. Hopefully someone other than my mom cares about these...

What we did today... we road out through big rock walls, we rode 20 miles up a hill to 10,823ft, we rode down the backside of the hill into high heat and then rolled out to Montrose. The support stops were as we started the climb, the mid-point of the climb, and at the top, then lunch down at 87 miles. The elevation should tell the story.

And at end of day Tom, Greg, Don, Regan and I went to Red Barn for steak and spagetti or both. Tomorrow another big day with a pass over 11K and another bunch of climbing.

So with that will leave with a picture of riding through the big rocks, we did this on the Interstate (70) for a couple miles out of town and then on a state highway, both were following waterways, the Colorado River or a feeder stream. Then across to the first rest stop and the start of the climb. Greg's time was just under 1.5hrs for 20 miles... not bad at 12MPH. Just on and on and on in the hot sun. The only remarkable thing was (and you can sort of see this in the elevation) the false summit near the top when suddenly, inexplicably, we weren't going to drop down on the perfectly good saddle we were crossing, no, WAY UP THERE, on the mountain above was a line carved into the rock, we needed to climb WAY UP THERE! It was the most surprised I have ever been on a bicycle, thinking from the tree profiles and land contour we were about to drop over to the left, and seeing that road up there to the right. But of course we did just that, we climbed it, almost 11K feet, highest I have ever been on a bike (or I think most people?). Then down, the road was in pretty good shape but not steep enough to be scary in the turns. Then lunch, then bad roads, then into Montrose.

If there's more, will have to wait, bedtime...

Pictures: Colorado National Monument

2011-07-23T05:13:00.000-07:00

Day 11, Rangely, CO to Grand Junction, CO

2011-07-22T20:19:00.000-07:00

112 miles.

Was to be 90 but we did an optional loop for another 22 miles and added 2K ft of climb. So total of about 6K+ vertical. Always hard to say exactly, nobody's Garmin agrees with each other on the statistics of the day.

But first, to close on yesterday, dinner last night was in the bar next to the hotel in Rangely... memorable because of our 16 year old waitress (isn't the drinking age 21 here?), and the expression on the local's faces as they walked into a bar full of Pactour riders (Germans, Swiss, Ozzie, Americans) watching, what is that... some bike race (Tour de France)? They'd chuckle and shake their heads before wandering outside to the smoking area; we stayed glued to the TV even if we already knew the outcome.

Today... to begin, some context because this trip is about to be a lot less about the miles and a lot more about the vertical feet, and even more about the altitude... So the altitudes to date. On Day 2 we climbed to Georgetown Lake at 6,300ft before descending to Anaconda and then Butte. Day 3 we left Butte and crossed the continental divide at 6,418ft, Pipestone Pass, a ride everyone should do. Day 5, as we did a ride around Yellowstone, we crossed the continental divide again, two passes at 8,262ft and 8,391ft a couple miles apart. Day 7 (after the town of Smoot) we climbed over the Salt River Pass at 7,630ft and then zoomed down into Montpelier. Day 9, between Evanston and Vernal and on the way through Flaming Gorge Recreation area, we topped off at 8,428ft although we spent about 12 miles over 8,000ft.

Can you hear the sucking sound of desperate breaths? The pain of low oxygen levels?

A brief interuption: for those of you reading in Seattle, I'm sorry. The temperature in Seattle this morning was 55 degrees, expected high of 75. We had 75 degrees with bright blue skies as we departed (7am) and it only went up from there. Another spectacular blue sky day, as they all have been since Butte to Ennis (day 3). As we left the Colorado National Monument about 3:00 this afternoon it was 89 degrees... in the shade. In the sun it was 100 degrees, and that was at 6600ft, about 2000ft higher than where we are now in Grand Junction. Time to break out the insulated water bottles: ice will last in them for 45 minutes vs about 5 minutes for a regular one.

Gettting ahead of myself here, about the day... If you are following at home then we were on Rt 139 south to Loma before bending east to Fruita and on to Grand Junction. Grand Junction is in the Grand Valley where the Gunnison River meets the Colorado River (guess what, both are hot chocolate brown, blech). Grand Junction and Grand Valley sit between the sandstone cliffs of the north and the Colorado National Monument to the south.

The day: for real now, we started in Rangely, where you don't need to visit, and it was warm and sunny at 7:15 as we left. It was an interesting study in humidity riding south because the start was lush and green, I have never seen Sage grow so big, 6 or 8 foot dark and healthy looking green shrubs (I think it was Sage?) amid vertical rock walls of red and tan and not a single building of any type. Except the natural gas extraction plants. Which explains why every vehicle that passed us was either a diesel pick-up truck with a Jobbox in the back or an oversized semi with huge mechanical implements for delivery to one of the plants. And speaking of wide loads, after our lunch stop we had a wide load that took an entire lane and then some, it was three cylinders on their side and it was huge, trucks coming the other direction had to pull off to let it pass. Not quite sure how that rig or that load was legal.

Anyway, for the 40 miles to the top of Douglas Pass at 8,200ft it was green with Sage which set off against the dark red rock. The first 20 miles were Tom and I with Cassie and Greg after we broke off from a bigger group, the 2nd 20 miles were Tom and I catching Cassie, then Greg, then Jim, with each person we added making it easier to catch the next one out ahead. Because those southern headwinds? They're back. Starting right after the 1st rest stop at 20 miles they were relentless and we cowered behind eachother to gain advantage, a total slog for the person leading the way. Then the climb, a real climb, up and curving and around in open range territory (out of my way, cow!) to the summit for the 2nd rest stop at 8,200ft. This is looking down from the pass at where we are about to go, before it gets brown anyway.

Then downhill, and fast, memorable for both the painful bumps from asphalt patches as well as the speed of the descent. Which never ended, it went on, and on, and on. But it went on in a far different climate, this side of the pass was dry (!) and sandstone brown and the Sage was now a silvery green plant just a foot or two tall. Beautiful in a very different way, the cliffs and bluffs and rimrock were obviously of two types, a soft homogenous sandstone with harder rocky layers sandwiched in between. So it was easy to see the rock was hard and could sustain sheer vertical edges, while the sandstone degraded into shallow slopes, so the result was cliff, slope, cliff, slope. In some areas there were edges of rock that looked the prows of ships with the slanted hills of sandstone and the vertical cliffs of harder rock. And it was all over, everywhere, left and right, and we rode out right through the middle of it over ledge after ledge. I think there were 5 of them, ledges in the road where we thought it was over but then we could peek over the ridgeline and oops, one more down and up to go. Something like this: All the way down to Loma at 4,00ft, about half of where we were at Douglas Pass. Lunch. A quick ride to Fruita to buy bike lights as required by the park rangers at Colorado National Monument so we could pass safely through the tunnels. Turns out they have lights that bikers can borrow at the ranger station, it is so odd that the bike shop didn't tell us that (!). $17 for a light for me, off we went. This was the optional part, the original route sent folks up the river to Grand Junction, for the rest of us Fred had created a route up and through the Colorado National Monument, so about 10 of us (that I tracked) took that route.. Brett, Cassie, me, Tom, Don, Greg, Brian (Colnago..), Big John (with the Seven) and I think Jim was out there somewhere all went right and then up 2,000 feet along the rimrock edge of the park. It was beautiful, a more homogenous red than what we'd been through with lots of Juniper, Pinion Pine and Sage.

Then down, switchbacks on clean asphalt, it was a great decent, and back through most of Grand Junction the city to our hotel. Dinnner with Tom and Don as I try to record all this next to the hotel, huge steaks and drinks and tomorrow, the real fun begins. From now on, altitude and vertical.

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 11 Rangely to Grand Junction, CO by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-22T20:18:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 11 Rangely to Grand Junction, CO by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

Addendum, the Gang & One

2011-07-21T19:26:00.000-07:00

This is from yesterday, the long ride, three of us in a row. You can't see our flashing red lights unfortunately. Notice the parallel mirrors...
And I keep forgetting to mention Kevin.. Kevin, from Georgia, doing the whole trip in sandles. Yes, really. And on a fixed gear bicycle - 47x18. Fixed as in he can't go downhill any faster than his legs can spin, which is the only time anyone can pass him. And he comes in first just about every day. He's done RAAM (race across america on a bicycle) twice and apparently this is how he's decided to challenge himself... amazing.

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 10 Vernal, UT to Rangely, CO by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-21T16:58:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 10 Vernal, UT to Rangely, CO by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

Day 11: Vernal, UT to Rangely, CO

2011-07-21T16:50:00.000-07:00

52 Miles Just a quick zip between towns, out of Wyoming and into Colorado. Lazy breakfast, lazy loading of the vans and bikes around 9:00am-ish, the exact opposite of yesterday's early morning start and focus. It didn't even matter that Tom and Don stayed in their room until 9:30 watching the end of the Tour de France stage (Col de Galibier mountaintop finish), hovering over Don's iPhone. After that we stopped next door to check out the fossil and jewelry shop. Know what, fossils of dinosaur bones feel a lot like stone (they are stone...) and if polished they look like petrified wood and people make jewelry out of them. Learn something new every day. Personally a whole dinosaur femur might be interesting, but at 225lbs depending on animal it might be a tad heavy to care on the bike.
I'm stalling of course, you can probably tell that, but jeez what to write about? I mean 52 miles, the worst thing is your brain thinks it should be over as soon as you start so the ride feels longer than it is. And the scenery... well, as we headed west into Colorado we found a part of the west that wasn't verdent, lush, or leafy, it looked like Arizona at its best moments. Whoever named the Badlands hadn't been here, they'd be the Worselands, the rock outcroppings near the Dinosaur National Monument were neat, just don't look anywhere else... Sage growing through bare rock, brown grass with prarie dogs, a thin crust of brown dirt without a grazing animal to be seen.

And the roads, yuck, a lot of big trucks, several times they went past us with a car coming the other direction at the same time. The result was the car got forced onto their shoulder to make way for the truck and just a lot of noise and wind in a small space. The issue is the shoulder was full of rumble strips, those parallel gouges that make noise when you drive on them, which you can't ride a bike on so we had to stay close to the white line. More cheerful thoughts, the Green and the White Rivers are both hot-chocolate brown, and after the long shallow climb up to the ridge of the overlooking Rangely what you see is... Rangely. Free bumber stickers on request that say "I Love Drilling." Natural gas and mining, a tough, very real, Western town. Hot and dry and 360 degrees of brown. Lunch at 1pm on arrival, and that was after two (!) rest stops on the way, so lots of time for laundry, a new rear tire (mine, a 2nd flat today) and lounging about. As Tom said, when we left this morning (10am), we'd done more miles yesterday (70+) by that hour of the day than we were riding all of today. Back to the real stuff tomorrow...

Day 9 (the long day): Evanston Wy to Vernal, Utah

2011-07-21T06:35:00.000-07:00

150 miles, the day of many scenes.

Nervous energy, anxious people at the 5:30am breakfast, by 5:55 there were a dozen people standing around with their duffles ready to put them on the trailer and start riding. At 5:59 Susan said that people with their name on the trailer (ie, 20K and 10K PacTour riders) could load first, then the rest of us could. By 6:04am the lot was empty except for a handful of bikes, oh, including us (Don, where's Don... Don please stop sorting your socks by color and get out here, Tom's got steam coming out of his ears, I mean it is 6:06...). Then we were off in the early dawn light, the sun nowhere near over the hills to our east.

And east we went on Interstate 80 for the first 30 miles of the day, watching the sun peak over and then climb above the hills. It was surprisingly easy riding, the highway was being resurfaced so we had 20+ miles to ourselves with the eastbound traffic shunted over to share the westbound lanes. New smooth concrete and long straight hills and descents, just a question of making progress. I don't remember much about the scenery, just windmills lined up at the top of one of the hills and wondering if that was a good thing (tailwind), or bad.

Off the highway and through Fort Bridger (Rt 414) and then another 30 miles to the next rest stop at an abandoned general store and gas station. The section after the highway was flat and forever wide and we rode up to and through a bluff of wind-carved sandstone mounds. If you think of classic Utah national park pictures of rounded rocks, it was like that only painted in tans and browns instead of reds. We passsed through a gap to the rest stop at 60 miles, extra peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to hold us over to lunch. The one constant on this day, as everywhere we've been in the west, is how lush everything is. Sage, wildflowers, grass; green and more green, water pouring through the streams and irrigation troughs. Lakes have trees at their edge with water 3 feet up their trunks, just so much water, hard to hold it all.
By the way, don't go looking for any towns along this route, from Fort Bridger to Manila, Utah, you won't find a lot of anything except open ground. A 2 mile, bone-jarring descent down to a lake (reservoir? name?) then a 2 mile climb up the other side of the valley (now on Rt 44 for those of you following at home) and another descent to lunch at 91 miles. No more windswept mounds here in the Flaming Gorge Recreation Area, just raw edges of earth shoved up into the sky exposing layer upon layer of history in bright reds and brown. We sat in the shade of the tents under 300ft high rockworks that loomed high above, was a beautiful place to stop.

Then the fun started. From 91 miles to 129 miles was a climb from 6,700ft to 8,400ft, ah, just 1,700ft over 40 miles, easy, right? No, start with a 6 mile climb and 1400ft, then give back a lot of it on a descent, then climb again, give it back on another descent, repeat for 40 miles. I think the actual climbing along these 40-ish miles was about 3x the difference in starting and finishing altitudes, here's the topo of the day's route, the one big climb you see (mile 91) is what we did right after lunch.

The climb took us above the raw edges of earth pretty quickly and into forests of Ponderosa Pine, not much traffic, just up and down until we turned south on 191 and it was a straight shot (as the crow flies) south to Vernal. That's as the crow flies, as the bike rolls, up and down, up and down.
Oh, and see the pretty clouds? They got less pretty when they ganged together at the top of the mountain and Tom, Don, and I found ourselves racing to stay out of the hail and cold plops of water that started sprinkling down on us. We just did stay out in front, some of the folks behind us got nailed with rain and soaking wet.

After the last rest stop at 129 miles, another up and down and finally a long 9 mile descent on an 8% grade (southerly headwind included) before more ups and downs along the long run into Vernal. Signs along the way were about the history of the area; Vernal is a center of dinosaur history, so there were fossilized squid, alligator teeth, dinosaur bones, the bed of an ancient sea (at 7000ft...) in the rocky, choppy landscape.
Dinner at steakhouse and micro-brewery (and this in Utah, the Zion Bank and Gale's LDS Book Store and Supply across the street) and a lot of relieved and happy riders. As long rides go it was certainly interesting, pretty quick too at over 17MPH average.

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 9 Evanston, WY to Vernal, UT by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-20T20:55:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 9 Evanston, WY to Vernal, UT by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 8 Montpelier, ID to Evanston, WY by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-20T20:50:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 8 Montpelier, ID to Evanston, WY by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

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

2011-07-19T19:08:00.000-07:00

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.

Day 7: Grand Teton\Jackson to Montpelier, ID

2011-07-18T16:09:00.000-07:00

117 miles.

Back to business. After 3 days that weren't really right- too short on Day 4 and 5 (even if the Yellowstone Tour was worthwhile) and then the split day with a 40 mile bus ride on day 5- today was back to normal on PacTour. 117 miles and 4K feet of climbing, a full day and a strong effort. How'd we get here, well, we crossed the Idaho border at Geneva and came to Montpelier where if we went north the next town is Bern and if we went south the next town is Paris.

The detailed version is we followed Rt 89 south from Jackson, following the flow of the Snake River down and down some more under a blanket of clouds that suggested rain. Then at Alpine we switched tacts, although we didn't leave the highway, but now climbed very slowly against the flow of the Salt River past our lunch stop at Smoot (pop 100).

From there the climbing continued and got steeper as we crossed over two passes with a long decent between them, and then one more descent into Montpelier. All of the day was pretty, the first part dramatic with the steep canyon walls carved out by the Snake River and the surrounding hills full of pine trees. The second was agricultural but still interesting, the Salt Valley is a wide, flat, lush agricultural area so the National Forests and mountains on both sides must hold a lot of well fed deer and elk. And the final part was all National Forest (Caribou National Forest, were there ever caribou here) so no houses or businesses, just curving road through rolling hills of sage and wild flowers and a single cowboy riding his horse, probably looking after some sheep that were grazing nearby. Maybe it was also helped by the fact the sun came out for that part of the ride and it was a glorious afternoon to be on a bike.

From lunch we road with Cassie (Billboard) and Matthias (the 1 German, from Munich) so a slightly bigger group chasing each other up the summits. Which reminds me, I'm Seattle Mike (which must mean there is another Michael on the trip, but not sure who that is), and our group has picked up two new nicknames, "The Red Light Brigade" for our flashers and "The Three MUsketeers" (Don, Mike, and Tom). We also made Reg's name into a verb, which means to worry or to be concerned, in particular to doubt one's capabilities. Reg, naturally, was worried about this. He's riding really strong and taking quick pitstops (the food stops) so mostly we see him as a twinkle of his light in the far distance in front of us.

Tom got the town sign victory today, after I pulled the train of riders downhill from the second summit. Tom spotted the Montpelier town sign first and sprinted around me to claim it first. I mean, quick, ever remember the name of the lead out guy?

Tonight it's the Harry Potter movie in the Montpelier Theater for Mike & his roommate, Gregg (TN-edited)!

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 7 Jackson, WY to Montpelier, ID by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-18T14:57:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 7 Jackson, WY to Montpelier, ID by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 6 (2) Colter Bay to Jackson, WY by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-18T14:47:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 6 (2) Colter Bay to Jackson, WY by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 6 (1) Lake Yellowstone to West Thumb, WY by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-18T14:44:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 6 (1) Lake Yellowstone to West Thumb, WY by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 5 West Yellowstone to Lake Yellowston, WY by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-18T14:42:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 5 West Yellowstone to Lake Yellowston, WY by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

Day 6: Yellowstone to Grand Teton

2011-07-17T17:08:00.000-07:00

65 miles.

Shorter than the expected 115 miles because park rules required us to shuttle (by van) across the south entrance to the park through a canyon with no shoulder to the road. Thus everyone was packed and ready to ride at 7am, but the 12 of us that didn't have to be back at West Thumb until 10:30 had just a 20 miler following along Yellowstone Lake. We lolled about, watched the 3 buffalo in the lot in front of our cabins, got hot cocoa, whatever. Greg and I decided to figure out what was flowering along the roads so we bought ID cards and stopped to identify almost everything we saw. This was at great personal cost due to the mostquitos which were lying in wait as soon as we left the asphalt, hope you appreciate the research. Tom & Don on the other hand went to the other lodging along the Lake (the appropriately named The Lake Lodge) to find some leather couches in the lobby to sit/relax until it was time to ride to West Thumb.

In Glacier National Park we saw Bear Grass and something like clumps of daisies, but when we turned into the Gallatin National Forrest we've seen all sort of shapes and colors of flowers. The whites include Yarrow, little pillows of phlox lying low to the ground, and Western Bistort stalks that stand high above the rest. There is a beige something which looks like a cross between Yarrow and Queen Anne's Lace, maybe some form of buckwheat? Not sure. Yellows are dominated in fields of Heartleaf Arnica, a simple yellow center with yellow petals, and it's fireworks-like cousin, Yellow Salfify. We even found a roadside patch of Yellow Colombine. In purples there were Sticky Geraniums in a range from pale pink to a true purple, the occasional Indian Paintbrush, and as we got closer to Jackson Hole, Asters with pink petals and a yellow center. The most common color was blue in the Harebells, Lupine, and Mountain Bluebell which all look the same but the leaves are the key to telling them apart. The scariest looking flower was Elk Thistle, a bristling of swords points and thorns, and the one we had to look up later was Scarlet Gilia (sp?), which looked like a colombine-type floer on a single tall stalk.

(Phlox)

After retracing our steps the 20 miles to West Thumb, the van ride out of the park and into Teton National Park, then things got amazing, the road and cut-offs to see the Teton Mountain range to our right (to the west) as we headed south to Jackson. Will let the pictures Tom posts do the talking, but another day like yesterday, maybe the best one they will have all summer.

Beautiful!

Lunch was late and then just 15 miserable headwind miles into the city of Jackson by 3:30. Clark will be here soon to whisk Tom and I off to dinner, and almost as important, a washing machine!

Day 5 After the Fact

2011-07-17T17:07:00.000-07:00

It was better than expected, 75 degrees and bright sunny sky on a 70 mile counter-clockwise loop around Yellowstone National Park. The animals were here and there, we saw 4 groups of elk in various places and a bison right on the side of the road, then two more bison just 75 feet from our bike racks when we finished the day... we thanked Lon for arranging their presence so close to where we are staying, a nice touch. Walt says he saw a pair of moose. The day included an hour wait until 1pm which was faithfully rewarded with a 40 foot fountain of water at Old Faithful and stopping by turquoise blue or crystal clear hot springs, some of them merrily boiling away in the hot sun. Fly fisherman were everywhere on the Madison River which runs through the park but I have yet to see anyone in the state of Montana or now Wyoming in the process of catching something.

The riding was very up and down and narrow between the white road line and the steep edge of the asphalt. Included was a 20+ MPH headwind straight in our face for the first 50 miles and 2 crossings of the Continental Divide, the 2nd at 8,400ft, our highest point of the trip so far, tough for the climb and tougher for the altitude, some snow still hiding in the hollows among the trees. The fast decent from the Divide down into West Thumb where we had lunch was a definite highlight. And finally, cars were a constant companion but no troubles except a single honk from one large RV that was towing a Hummer...

Thoughts on Yellowstone.. did you ask? Two of them. First, wow. Soon after entering the park (on the west side), Tom said that he couldn't believe they planted the pine trees so close together. He was half right. The trees, a thick carpet of 8 footers covering valley and hill, was packed with trees, amazing there could be so many trees so close together, the trunks were just a foot or two apart. But he was wrong about planted, what we saw was the natural regeneration following the Yellowstone fires of the mid 1990's. Don took pictures to show his wife because he visited Yellowstone back then and all he remembered was burned trunks and desolation, now a complete renewal. On the east side of the park there was an obvious burned area from just a year or two ago, hard to miss the obvious signs of forest fire, and to think what it will be like in just a few years.

2nd thought. I think of Yellowstone and I see in my mind's eye Old Faithful, of course, but also canyons and waterfalls and today most of what we saw on a 2/3rds loop of the park was interesting only if you were looking down, ie, the hot springs and pools that were surface level at best. Lots of trees, yes, but not a lot of real vertical interest. So where were the snow-capped peaks, where's Thomas Moran's "The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone National Park" (you've seen it, yellows and browns and vertical)? Turns out that's in the NE corner, the one part of the park we didn't ride through, and maybe again as we leave the park tomorrow on the canyon road. But most of what was around us was trees and up and down riding among them.

Our day ends at the Lake Yellowstone Hotel, built in 1891 and remodeled in 1901 a huge Colonial yellow box 2/3 of the way up on the shores of Lake Yellowstone. Tom was impressed by this: I thought ahead this morning and made dinner reservations in the hotel's dining room because I thought it might be busy and it was, we were among the last to get in. Very happy about that, the hotel is a beautiful old building although the Old Faithful Inn (not the Old Faithful Lodge, mind you, that's different) has the stunning 3 story atrium I remember from traveling through Yellowstone in 1976. The huge stone fireplace, the peeled log posts, banisters, stairways and more which make it looks like a tree lot crossed with a Victorian mansion, the original look that launched a thousand faux log homes.

Sitting in the sun room, the pine trees in front, the lake beyond, then the distant snow covered Absorkas Mountain Range beyond the far shore... a great end to a great day.

"As we were... departing on our homeward trip we ascended the summit of a neighboring hill and took a final look at Yellowstone Lake. Nestled among the forest-crowned hills which bounded our vision, lay this inland sea, its crystal waves dancing and sparkling in the sunlight as if laughing with joy for their wild freedom."

Explorer David E. Folsom, on expedition in 1871. Ulysses S. Grant signed the bill establishing Yellowstone as the world's first national park in 1872.

Day 5: Yellowstone Loop Ride

2011-07-16T05:57:00.000-07:00

Should be about 75 miles.

If you know Yellowstone National Park, it's a circle route around the edge of the park with several entrances (West, East, North...). We're starting at the West Entrance today (near West Yellowston) and following the road counter-clockwise past Old Faithful and ending on the east side at Lake Yellowstone Hotel, one of the grand old hotels from the railroad days (El Tovar in the Grand Canyon, Lake McDonald Lodge in Glacier National Park, etc). And since "Radio, television, and Internet hook-ups are not available in order to accentuate the natural essence of Yellowstone" I am posting this in advance, will be tomorrow (Sunday) night before any updates for Saturday (Yellowstone) or Sunday (Grand Teton National Park).

Focus is on going slow and seeing things - we may continue past the east side to the north for an out and back ride as the rooms won't be ready until 4:30 so we're either standing around in chamois or riding, might as well ride, maybe make it a century.

Because we're in the park and the National Parks hate bicycles, but love RVs, we have to have a riding escort... several guys that will ride along as paid escorts. They are with us today and then tomorrow they have to van\shuttle us out of the park's south entrance where no bikes are allowed and then from there we'll ride through Teton National Park and into Jackson. Should be a short day of riding but the faster riders (they have been keeping track, and yes, somehow that includes us!) have to wait 2 hours to take the 2nd shuttle trip so it will mean some sitting around in the morning. Beautiful sunny day, couldn't ask for better weather. Expecting a lot of traffic in the park with the summer tourists and a weekend to boot.

Onwards!

Until Day 4: A Recap and an Intro

2011-07-15T18:23:00.000-07:00

Here we are about to leave Montana after 4 days of riding and it has gone very quickly. Long days make for short evenings, and bad weather has the same effect, so let me see if I can get everyone up to speed in one fell swooop.

Dramatis Personae:

Tom, Mike: if you're reading this you know one of us, and probably know we've done 6 previous trips together including the Northern Continental (NorCon) across the US last summer

Don, Reg: Friends of ours from Seattle, both are PacTour Arizona training camp riders, but no previous trips, so their first time on a long trip. Don's a doc; Reg is a retired IRS auditor, both strong and steady on a bike.

Greg: my roommate, was on NorCon with Tom and me last summer, he was the Greg of "Greg and Greg's roommate Greg," a chiropractor from Sonoma, California.

Now many of you are probably stuck on the fact I have a roommate who isn't Tom, and before you go bad-mouthing him, thinking ill of him, considering him an Estonian hussy who, after we'd completed 6 trips together (spare me the Brokeback Bicycling jokes), just decided to take up elsewhere, let me say in his defense he was the first guy who signed up for this trip and I was the last, so it just didn't work. That said I am glad to have a roommate I know from last year who also had one of the key comments of the trip so far as we unpacked in a Super 8 motel room and washed out water bottles:

"It's like we never left...."

The Seattle gang of us has been referred to already as "The Light Brigade" since each of us has a bright flashing tail light which is visible from a mile away and is a welcome addition when riding in the rain and fog, and also "Seattle Slew" for our speediness. We'll see about the later as the trip gets longer. We tend to ride together and stay pretty organized in sharing the load, although Reg likes to leave quickly leaving the rest of us to chase him down.

So there's us, we 5, and then there are 35 (!) more riders actually on the trip; 2 more failed to show (injuries prior), 1 still to come (David, from Oz, with us last summer, will join in Jackson) and 1 to leave in Jackson (whose name we may discern only by process of elimination). That's still 34 people that are RIDERS, and 10 more as crew. Of the 34 we know several from last year's USA crossing (if you know us from NorCon: Tandem Driver Pat, Brian w/ the white Colnago, Walt, and Boston Gerry who lives in Arizona). That leaves 30... which includes folks from Australia (3), UK (2), Germany (2), and Switzerland. Of the 40, 8 are first timers to PacTour. Still, 30 names and histories in just 18 days compared to 30 riders in 30 days last year, well, we have a lot of people to figure out. And 7 new crew people (John Lake, Lon, Susan, Christopher, and Rebecca are back). The bottom line is we're grasping for unique identifiers for everyone we interact with to get a handle on who is who. What NOT to say is "the fit guy with grey hair and glasses" which could be about 10 different guys. There are some folks we do have agreement on:

The Australian couple - husband and wife

The Billboard - Australian woman who was sponsored by Hammer products and is all product advertising on her kit, all the time

Nascar or Pitstop: Karl, who zooms through stops in a matter of minutes

The Assos guy - all Assos, all the time, all black and white

The white guy - white jersey, white vest, white bike with white rims! He dons surgical gloves at the end of each day to undo the day's dirt to his very white bike. It takes him a long time. Note to self: don't buy a white bike

Fred - we just know who he is I guess, he writes for VeloNews

Patrick 1 or 2 - the two UK guys (one from Wales, one from England) are named Patrick, they ride with another guy who is American named Ron

Mattias - from Munich, strong climber

Karen - there are only two (single) women riders, she is one

The other woman - the woman who isn't Karen

Which then leaves at least 20 people we're still grasping to meet, 25+ including new crew members. And here's the trip data: it's just over half as long as last year’s in distance (1900 vs 3400m), and has 50% more climbing per day (88k vertical feet total) in 18 instead of 30 days.

Random thoughts on the journey so far that I need to get out of my head. What to call the Montana part of the trip: "The Tour of Gravelly Shoulders" or "The Concourse of SUV-towing 40foot RVs"? MOSQUITOS! A dead owl on the side of the road next to a dead ferret. The owl got the ferret, the truck got the owl. Bluebirds on barbed wire, meadowlarks singing. An antelope and a deer, not together. A rider saw a bear in Glacier National Park and warned some people about it around the next corner who promptly took off running to see it for themselves... and last week the first person in a bunch of years was killed in Yellowstone by a Grizzly sow with two cubs. The procession of white crosses on the highways marking fatalities: two lane highways and 70MPH speed limits.

And finally:

The perseverance to have lasted nearly seventy years amid such cold prospects was what heritage Dad had for me; I had begun to see that it counted for much.

Ivan Doig\This House of Sky.

So much sky here, so much space, all the open valleys and forests, so few people; it's a hard place to live or as a woman in Kalispell said "it's beautiful, but you can't eat beautiful."

Day 4: Ennis to West Yellowstone
71 miles, 3000ft of climb. Yesterday's weather had everyone nervous this morning as there were a few sprinkles, somehow, from the cluster of clouds that were directly, and only, overhead. Many were the leg warmers and booties and jackets donned in anticipation of another day of shivering, but just out of town and onto a long 1 or 2% grade, out came the sun and we stayed in it throughout the day. The ride followed the Madison River and we saw 100 boats either on or going to the river, I even got a Salmon Fly in the face at one point, so hopefully the season will move on. Just long and slow climbing, a brisk headwind that arrived with the sunshine; a rest stop out at 32 miles, another at 55, a set of up and downs through the Gallatin National Forrestand along Hebgen Lake, a right hand at the T intersetion, and then a last straight shot (naturally) into a headwind into "town." West Yellowstone. We arrived early, 1:00pm or so, with lots of time before the motel rooms were ready. Laundry drying on railings and clotheslines outside rooms in the sun was a sign of the times.

Dinner across the street, very forgettable dining, in a town built around the extraction of tourist dollars and the mollification of small children. Bleah, at least tomorrow we're into the park.

Day 3: Butte to Ennis
"only" 86 miles and 4,000 feet of climbing so no great hurry. Good thing, departure was delayed until 9am due to lightning and a hailstorm that pounded the hotel. Whee! We left with threatening skies and sure enough it started raining so we got drenched for our climb over the Continental Divide, somehow still a nice climb in the cold (55 degrees) and wet. On the other side we found dry roads and a cold descent of about 10 miles and 2,000 feet into a wide, dry valley. Here we parted ways with our route of last year. Last year we went straight to Bozeman, this year at the end of the descent we took a right hand turn over a bump and into a wide, wide, valley. It got better as we went along, more prarie and grazing land than sage brush, and more fly fishing: Twin Bridges, home of Winston Fly rods, the Four Rivers Guiding Company and the Three Rivers Saloon. Then on out the valley and another turn up through the ghost towns of Nevada City and Virginia City... the remnents of their gold mining still visible in mile after mile of rubble pile from washing all the dirt away 100 years ago. Around here everything is called Ruby: the Ruby River, Ruby Mountains, Ruby Valley, because the miners thought the red stones they found were Rubies. Actually they were garnets, and Montana garnet shops and digging sites were in every town or village. Lunch was right in Virginia City at 73 miles which meant we had 13 or so miles to our motel, but first we had a gradual 1,000 ft climb into heavy rains that began at the summit and led to a fast, shivering, soaked, long descent in Ennis. 40 MPH and faster, it'd be worth going back to redo that descent on dry pavement and worry less about losing control.

Dinner was somewhere along the one block of shops on two sides of the road that is Ennis, most of the shops focused on fishing the Madison River which flows next to it, home of the world famous Salmon Fly hatch which is running a month late due to high water. The Madison is actually the first close-to-fishable river I've seen in the state: the Blackfoot and West Fork of the Clark and anything else we've been near is high, opaque and glacial silt green. The motel owner in Ennis has had the worst spring he can remember for cancellations due to high water levels, as if Obama, the state's wolf population, and high gas prices weren't enough.

Day 2: Missoula to Butte
134 miles... if you really want to know it, read last year's blog entry, was the exact same route, on and off Rt 90, gravel in the freeway shoulder sounding like Rice Krispies under our tires, Snap! Crackle! Pop! A tree of cow skulls, the climb up to Georgetown Lake, along the lake, and then down into Anaconda. Anaconda is the Youngstown, Ohio, of Montana, or as Bruce (Springsteen) says:

Then smokestacks reachin' like the arms of god
Into a beautiful sky of soot and clay

Now a major Superfund clean up sight, the smokestack from the smelter still stands, once the city air was so dirty people couldn't see in front of them.

But what we'll remember of the ride is the hailstorm outside Anaconda that kept a group of us under a rest-stop tarp for 20 minutes and feeling sorry for the people who had to ride soaking wet through the hail to get to the rest stop. And feeling amazed that people who left 2 minutes earlier from the rest stop never got a touch of rain: the weather is so localized, unbelievable. And then the miserable, awful, hot, dry, hilly, strong headwinds and endless bumps from Anaconda to Butte. And finally the thunderstorm that hit the hotel just after everyone got in. Then it cleared and off we went to Fred's Mesquite Grill for dinner, driven by Bongo the only cab driver in Missoula, who let us off to look in the world's largest open pit mine where 1.4B tons of ore had been extracted leading to massive wealth for the "Copper Barrons" of Butte. Guess what, it's back in production, copper prices being what they are, did you know a copper penny (not the fake ones produced since 1985) is worth 2.5x it's monetary value in copper? Bongo was a riot, articulation wasn't his strong suit, but his tour along Mansion Row and commentary was worth the trip.

Day 1: Kalispell to Missoula
Riding from Kalispel to Missoula was 148 miles. On the road by 7am. Conditions to Missoula were warm/hot with some favorable winds and mixed roads. We started east to the foot of the Swan Mountains, then due south on Rt 83 between a long line of snow-streaked peaks, sentinels watching us pass by, to our left and either more mountains or a series of lakes and streams (Swan Lake, Lake Alva, Summit Lake, Salmon Lake, Seeley Lake...) to our right. Things were fine, road a little spookey with a white line and no shoulder, and then we took a right, due west on Rt 200 and climbed up and then down, following the Blackfoot River, into Missoula. Yes, climbed down, freaking uphill headwind made the last 20 miles into town a very LONG 20 miles into town. Dinner with Ned and family, two years in a row PacTour has put us together in Missoula (!).

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 4 Ennis to West Yellowstone, MT by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-15T15:00:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 4 Ennis to West Yellowstone, MT by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

PAC Tour 2011 Days 1 through 3 (short summary)

2011-07-14T20:21:00.000-07:00

Sorry folks, but updating the blog with daily postings hasn't been a top priority. Seemingly we have been busy riding especially long the first 2 days and haven't gotten into the routine of writing blog reports. I (Tom) have been able to download my Garmin data daily which should keep some people mildly amused and entertained:)
The riding from Kalispel to Missoula was 148 miles and the next days ride to Butte (on the very same route taken on last year's cross country ride) was 134 miles. Both ride took a little over 7 hours of bike time and 9 tp 10 hours of elapsed time. Conditions to Missoula were warm/hot with some favorable winds and mixed roads. While the section to Butte was fine until reaching Anaconda (about 90 minutes from Butte) turned ugly with heavy thunderstorms and pea-sized hail at times. Fortunately we were under cover at our final rest stop when the hails came...others were not and suffered stinging hits of hail.
Today's ride to Ennis (along the Madison River...world famous fly fishing) started later than usual due to a severe weather warning involving more thunderstorms. It was a "short" day with only 86 miles and 4,000 feet of climbing so there wasn't any hurry. We departed around 8:30 into threatening skies and sure enough it started raining enough to get drenched for our climb across the Continental Divide. Over the other side we found dry roads and a cold descent of about 10 miles and 2,000 feet into spectacular valleys. Lunch at 73 miles in meant we had 13 or so miles to our motel, but first to climb 1,000 into heavy rains and another fast long descent in Ennis.
For those foodies out there, we've eaten well with a couple of fine meals in Kalispel at the North Bay Cafe, in Missoula at Mike's friend's home for barbeque, in Butte at Fred's Mesquite Barbeque in the old part of town (taxi ride to and from there driven by "Bongo"....a truly memorable charactor who enlightened us with stories of him and Butte), and a remarkably good Chinese place in Ennis.
As for pictures of our travels....I have to say I am extremely disappointed that my camera has chosen this inopportune time to crap out on me. If you look at my pictures (I still haven't figured out how to upload my pics easily, quickly, etc......give me time) there's a dark spot on each of them....right about in the middle. The spot is not on the lense but rather inside the camera lense; probably some dust that I can't get out.
Another way to follow our cycle tour via pictures is to click on http://www.pactour.com/ under the Ridge of the Rockies tab and look for photos. You may even see us on some of the pics there taken by PAC Tour crew members and others who have uploaded there pictures to the site.
That's it for now.....it's late and bed is calling me.

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 3 Butte to Ennis, MT by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-14T19:39:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 3 Butte to Ennis, MT by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 2 Missoula to Butte, MT by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-13T15:30:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 2 Missoula to Butte, MT by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 1 Kalispell to Missoula, MT by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-12T18:09:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Day 1 Kalispell to Missoula, MT by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

PAC Tour 2011 - Pre-Ride Kalispell loop by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-12T18:01:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Pre-Ride Kalispell loop by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

PAC Tour 2011 - Pre-ride Glacier Park by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2011-07-12T17:57:00.000-07:00

PAC Tour 2011 - Pre-ride Glacier Park by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

Days before 2011 Ridge of the Rockies Ride

2011-07-11T14:42:00.000-07:00

Saturday - July 9, 2011
Drive from Seattle to Kalispell, about 8 hours with lunch outside Spokane and a lost hour in time change, so leaving at 7:15am and arrive around 5:00pm. Couple folks already in the hotel, lobby full of bike boxes that had been shipped in. Tom and I were joined by Tom’s friend Marko who will drive the car back, apparently he thinks driving is fun so came along for the return drive…

Sunday
Up at 6:30 and quick breakfast, Marko took us up to Whitefish where the Amtrak from Seattle was coming in at 7:30am. Don (Don and another rider Reg are friends from Seattle and on the tour, Reg flew instead, they have done PacTour training camp but never a tour). Anyway, Don got off the train, put together his bike and we warmed up in the sunshine outside a Starbucks, chilly morning. From there mostly due east to Glacier National park, through Columbia Falls and Hungry Horse, left turn into park and then along Lake McDonald on the Going to the Sun Highway. The GTS is not open yet, too much snow at Logan Pass, they hope to have open on Thursday, so most road traffic went around the park and we had the road to ourselves mostly on great new asphalt. Then the road was closed to cars at Avalanche Creek so we REALLY had the road to ourselves, just bikes and shuttle buses. Then at the Loop, the one hairpin, the shuttle buses had to stop so it was bikers and hikers (ferried up on shuttle buses) until almost the Pass itself, about two miles short (that’s the picture). Beautiful sunny day with blue skies, white snow, green mountains, grey rock, just spectacular day, we were so lucky with the road closure as it was really quiet. Then back down, had to shuttle to Apgar (road closed to bikes from 11 to 4 along the lake, go figure), had lunch, and back into a headwind west and then east. Nasty narrow road through Hungry Horse and Rt 2 south had a wide shoulder but covered in gravel and debris.

And we only had to ride around the block one extra time to get to exactly 100 miles.

Dinner both nights was in the same place, North Bay Grill, without a car you can ride or walk but it needs to be close. A sense of déjà vu, cheap hotel rooms, gear, bikes, lotions. Seems odd though, the trip is just over half as long as last year’s (1800 vs 3400m), has the same climbing (100k vertical feet) in 2/3s of the days (18 days vs 30). But then in the Pyranees 5 years back Tom and I covered 100K vertical in just 12 riding days so not exactly epic. But, most usual, here we are again, Tom and Mike, Tom with camera (too many pictures) and Mike with computer (too many words); yesterday when Don had turned around instead of going up to Logan Pass, us again climbing up and taking in the amazing views from the seat of a bicycle.

Monday

Right outside the hotel room now is chaos, two vans and trailers take up most of the side parking lot: people getting their PacTour shirts, leaving for test rides with newly assembled bikes, enjoying the sunshine, milling about. 7 new people out of 36 total riders, all others are veterans, don’t know them all yet. From last year Walt, Boston Jerry (72 years old folks, who lives in Arizona but has the accent), Pat (the driver of the tandem that did half the trip), and Brian (smaller, white Cervello) are all repeat riders. More European riders, a couple of Brits, Aussie, etc. Some of the crew, like John Lake, are back too. Lon has his usual smile…

So here we go, best to all –

We're back!

2011-07-09T20:50:00.000-07:00

Mike & I (Tom) are back together again on another PAC Tour for 2011. How quickly one forgets the pain and suffering of last year's epic cross-country adventure and then considers doing another long distance cycling Tour. This time it's PAC Tour's Ridge of the Rockies ride from Kalispell, MT to Albuquerque, NM along the Rocky Mountains in 18 days over 1900 miles. Not quite the 30 days and 3420 miles that we covered last year but still a challenge.....it's what we do for fun:)

To make things easier and not go through another set-up phase, I chose to continue blogging on last year's "2guyscactus" blog. There's still the 2 of us and we're still kinda of crossing the U.S., but in a North to South direction. Just about from Canada to Mexico! This time we are joined by Don (from my hometown of Edmonds) and Reg (from Seattle) who are PAC Tour veterans as well and cycling buddies from home. So you might call us "4guys" but Mike & I will be doing the blogging for the most part.

I will not be doing any fund raising on this year's ride. One can only hit up your "friends" every few years for donations, so we'll take a break from it this year. But I still encourage your consideration in supporting the UW's Baltic Study Program, especially as State funding is being cut from all directions.

Our (my) intent in continuing this blog on this year's ride is to document our adventure for later recall (as one gets older, I don't remember things as well unless I write them down) and to share our experiences, for good or bad or humourous, with our family and friends.

I'll continue to have a separate posting each day with my downloaded Garmin data, showing the route taken and the metrics of the ride. We'll also try to post more pictures of our day's ride if I can only remember the tricks of downloading them from the camera.

We hope you enjoy the ride with us. Also, a little request......I encourage you to leave a comment in the comment section every now and then so that we also have something to look forward to reading....as well as feedback to our writings and riding. I'd also like to know who's out there reading this stuff:)

We start riding on Tuesday, July 12th. More then if not before.

Fund Raising Finale - How to Pay!

2010-08-12T08:40:00.000-07:00

First off, a big THANK YOU to all who supported us on the bike ride and pledged a donation to the UW Baltic Studies Program!!! If you haven't pledged yet, there's still an opportunity to do so.

Preliminarily it looks like over $10,000 was raised by our collective efforts.

The ride for me was 3,420 miles. Officially the route was 3,415 miles but there were about 5 miles of missed turns, getting lost, etc that directly benefited the Program. Hope nobody minds!

If you pledged per mile, the math works out as follows.....

1 cent per mile - $34.20
2 cents per mile - $68.40
3 cents per mile - $102.60
5 cents per mile - $171.00
10 cents per mile - $342.00
and so on.....

And for the mathematically challenged, your lump sum pledge/donation will be gladly accepted as well!

Checks should be made out to "UW Baltic Program Fund" with a note/comment "Napa bike benefit". If the donor's name(s) and address is different from what's printed on the check, please add a note.

Send to

University of Washington
Baltic Studies Program, Scandinavian Dept
Box 353420
Seattle, WA 98195-3420

Online donations by credit card can also be made at

http://depts.washington.edu/scand/support.php

Click on "Scandinavian and Baltic Programs", then select "Baltic Program Fund". After you enter your donation and credit card information, please enter the comment "Napa bike benefit".

Please remember that all donations are tax deductible. And all donations will be matched 50% by Laurie & me......so please make your contributions as soon as practical so that we can see how big of a check we get to write:)

Thanks again for your support of the ride and the UW Baltic Studies Program.

Epilogue

2010-08-12T08:13:00.000-07:00

The EPIC bike ride of a lifetime (so far) is over and I'm safely back home in Edmonds, WA.

Final stats.....3,420 miles...riding time of 192 hours and 8 minutes (or 8 days and 8 minutes probably in honor of of all our stays in Super 8 motels).....average moving speed of 17.80 mph (nearly 29 kmph..sounds faster)....total climbing of 113,221 feet...and total calories burned for me, over 141,000...no wonder I'm hungry all of the time! Road kill totals....too many!

I am going to take this opportunity (this post) to ramble on about various thoughts, themes, topics, etc., that I've wanted to write about and share but just didn't have the time to do during the ride. Mike was great in keeping everyone up-to-date with our daily rides with his posts while I dealt with the Garmin data collecting/transmitting, updating mileage meters, picture taking, tagging and uploading, mapping the next day's ride on Garmin, charging all electronics, etc., etc. Literally, there was hardly anytime for anything extra besides our "assigned" tasks. Mike and I became very efficient in our respective tasks off-the-bike....we had to be!

In no particular order of topics.....was the ride "fun" or "Fun"? There is no simple answer to this.....it was a lot of different feelings/emotions everyday, and sometimes changing by the minute. Just like a lot of things in life....the further away one gets from an event or experience... more good things are remembered as opposed to the bad. But right now, I am conflicted as to whether to honestly say that the ride was Fun. I am thrilled that we did it and had no incidents or accidents....but I can't say that I'd do it again...it was a lot of hard work...both physically and mentally.

For the past 10 years or so that I've been riding, just about every ride that I've taken (2+ hours) there are moments when the ride is physically or mentally (or both) demanding...may be just for a few minutes or miles...but it's just tough for whatever reason....the weather, the hills, the bumpy roads, the boredom, the other riders who may seem to be more "fit" today, etc. More often than not, thankfully, the same ride is stimulating, easy pedaling, thrilling, "I don't want to stop this feeling" type of ride. This ride across the U.S. had plenty of both....everyday....from start to finish over 30 days.

As Lon Haldeman told us at the beginning, long distance riding is mostly mental. Our ride was a testament to that, as the only 2 people to drop out of the tour prematurely did so from mental fatigue and not any physical aliments. For myself, often times I took to riding with my iPod playing tunes into one ear...just to break up the monotony, block the ever-present wind noise (and big truck traffic noise), and have a distraction from some temporary aches and pains. Listening to music or radio while riding can be done in a relatively safe manner but isn't recommended.

Thoughts on the bike? What does one think about while riding everyday for 6 to 8 hours a day? Often times when riding with others in a paceline or echelon, one is just concentrating on the wheel in front of you or the 50 feet of road in front of you. One can't let the mind wander to far from the task at hand but for me, I usually play a mental numbers game while riding to pass the time. With the Garmin unit collecting all sorts of data, I am forever viewing the data and figuring out how much I've ridden and how much further there is to go, how many feet climbed so far, what the average pace is, when the next rest stop or lunch will happen, etc. It's amazing how a little electronic screen will keep me informed and entertained as the miles go by!

Riding alone versus pack or bunch riding. I probably knew this already, but I much prefer group riding as opposed to riding alone. Although riding by yourself is a very much needed skill...primarily for the mental toughness that it brings, riding with others is much more preferable in doing this sort of long distance touring. The effort level is somewhat shared by drafting (upwards of 20%+ less effort when riding behind others in headwinds) and the mental aspects of riding are a lot more positive and reassuring when with others. At least if you're suffering, there are others to help you out or they're suffering as well so it isn't all bad. Definitely on a ride such as this, one should develop some friendships/allegiances with compatible riders.

Hammer products......where once I was a non-believer, I am a convert. I don't think I could have made the crossing as comfortably without taking the provided powders, supplements, etc. I never had any muscle cramping, nutrition or digestive issues during the ride. The Hammer products used were Sustain Energy, Heed, and Electrolytes in capsule form. The products even tasted OK but were better taken when cold. Highly recommend insulated water bottles in which ice will last for nearly an hour, even in 90F+ temperatures.

PAC Tour.......we have sung the praises of the Company and Lon & Susan (& crew) in previous posts but it bears repeating. If one is going long-distance riding (I hesitate to use the term "touring" as it connotes a more leisurely pace) PAC Tour is the only way to go. The organization from top to bottom, from day break to sunset, from ride start to finish is outstanding. There isn't a detail overlooked or anything they haven't seen before and managed/handled. I look forward to another cycling adventure with them, albeit shorter in days/miles:)

Westerns. We watched very little TV due to lack of time....although I discovered that people with no TV at home (Mike) have very curious TV watching skills. Mike would scan through the channels, not watching anything in particular...but watching "what else is on TV". Drove me nuts! Must have been an ADD kid.

Best nicknames.....one I bestowed on Big Bob. Whenever I'd seen him at lunch he'd always be drinking from a 2 liter soft drink bottle....so naturally he became Big Bottle Bob (or triple B) to me and others. The other favorite nickname was "Greg's roommate Greg". Two Gregs were put in the same room. The youngest rider at 17 years old was one of them and became known as Greg's roommate Greg. May be you had to be there to appreciate it! There were other nicknames out there (Hot pants Wes) but we may see these people again and would rather keep a friendly relationship going.

Pictures......I was remiss in not setting up and testing an appropriate way of posting our trip pictures on line. We had to figure out on the fly how to do it and were not always successful. Let it be known, that I took nearly 2000 pictures and have posted on Flickr only a small portion of them. Given some time at home, I will edit all the pictures and re-post the better ones, and appropriately label and sort them by date (hopefully). So stay posted on this and return to the blog to see updated pictures. (Note...I had thoughts of taking some road kill pictures....I never did as it was often just too sad and messy.)

FINALLY.....I'd like to thank Mike for inviting me on this adventure of a lifetime and sharing it with him. Couldn't have been a better roommate (but may be a better riding partner....I'm getting him a mirror!) over the 31 nights 30 days of the trip. And there's the huge THANKS to my wife Laurie, who supported me from the time I started thinking about joining Mike, through the pre-ride training, during the ride with encouraging phone calls and taking care of the home front, and finally picking me up at the airport with a welcoming crowd of good friends and supporters (and balloons!). And thanks to all who followed us along the way on the blog. Your comments and well wishes were very much appreciated.
(Note....a separate post will address the fund raising aspects of the ride and how to pay for the pledges.

Addendum....I may add more comments (or edit these) as I have more time to reflect on what happened over the past months or so. Stay tuned, Tom

Day 30 PAC Tour - Ashland, VA to Williamsburg, VA by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-08-09T13:28:00.000-07:00

Day 30 PAC Tour - Ashland, VA to Williamsburg, VA by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details: "Share"

Day 30: EFI Dreams

2010-08-09T13:04:00.000-07:00

When we left Everett on July 10^th and arrived in Monroe (mile 34), Tom pointed out we had ridden 1% of the trip. Today, 16 miles out of Williamsburg after an early morning of quiet, tree-lined, roads in the mist and shade, Tom made the point we were 99% done. Then Williamsburg, then down the Colonial Parkway towards Yorktown, then a regroup with everyone getting together in a rest area for a final, double-wide, 40 person pace line to the beach. Many pictures, standing in the water with our bikes, and lunch. Then back to the hotel, stuck between a Dairy Queen and a Hooters (where this is being sent from, something about the wireless in the motel…). And then it was done. Every freaking inch (EFI) of it, across the country, in 30 days, 3420 miles, now we’re taking the bikes apart.

So what to say in closing? Tom is still figuring out if this was a “Fun” or “fun” ride, but glad he did it. I don’t need to do it again, but I really, really like being on a bike, so the right question is what trip will be next. Then there is our inspiration, Gerri\Tucson, who today finished his 7^th cross country trip at 71 years old. And Jerry\MN who completed the 2010 tour after having to leave the 2007 trip at the Mississippi. Everyone here has a story… 34 years after I got the idea in my head and 9 months after Tom’s “sounds like a sufferfest” response when I asked him about joining me, it’s over.

The best lines of the trip, a quick recap:

“guys, if you want to be serious about cycling, the first thing that needs to go is the family” Australian Jonathan, explaining how he could take so many long trips.

“well, I have these big ones in the front and these little ones in the back” Doug the farm equipment repairman, a friend of Jerry’s, when asked what kind of gearing he was running.

“why don’t you pick on someone your own age?” Tom, speaking to me, in the middle of another viscous attack by yours truly up a hill in the last couple days

“thanks for trying” Vicki, to Scott, after Scott got done pulling the group along. Actually she said “thanks for pulling” but we thought it was pretty funny the other way.

"riding across the country is 90% a mental thing" Lon Holloman, to whom all problems are simply a contest of will

What to leave you with? Lots of Bruce Springsteen lyrics on my brain during the trip (getting wasted in the heat\Backstreets; Well keep pushin till it's understood, and these badlands start treating us good\Badlands), recently some Led Zepplin (So I'm packing my bags for the Misty Mountains\Misty Mountains Hop) and of course John Denver (Country Roads). But when riders in the group doing their first cross country trip talk about the journey they always use the word “dream”, they “dreamed of doing it”. So to close my random set of lyrics that drives Tom slightly crazy when I yell them out while riding down the road… here’s Abba:

I have a dream, a fantasy, to help me through reality
And my destination makes it worth the while
Pushing through the darkness still another mile

See why it drives Tom crazy J

Thanks to Janelle, where it all began, to everyone who donated to Tom’s Baltic Studies match program (raising $10,000!) and to Kathy and Laurie for saying it was ok. And the roadkill for those that care: 2 squirrels, a deer, 3 raccoons and an opossum.

Best –

Michael and Tom

Day 29: And Then There Was 1

2010-08-08T17:12:00.000-07:00

Day 29 in the books, 122 miles and 5,200ft of climb, a big peice of it in a 3 mile climb that started the day (at the top was Shenendoah National Park) and then a great descent and roll out to first rest stop and we were on with it. The only thoughts are annoyed drivers (I'm gonna get me to church so get outta my way!) and pretty country roads. And always lurking: stay safe, just stay safe. Lots of up and down rolling hills, some lagging legs certainly from the flat country folks for whom 10,000ft of climb yesterday were truly special. But brains were elsewhere. Discussions about airport drop offs and who is staying in DC or getting picked up vs flying home. I don't think most people are out of it physically, we could ride day after day, more that it's almost over, time to get one with what's next. I know I could keep going from riding perspective, it's now automatic, the PACTour processes (wash hands, bring down bike, breakfast, rest stops, wash bike) and the eating model (powders in the morning, electrolytes at every stop, liquids and ice cubes in the afternoon) seems figured out for survival. Everyone stayed up with rubber side down, nobody went down (so far!) with a broken bone so seems like we'll all get there tomorrow. The corn fields and the wheat fields of Washington seem a long, long time ago.

Day 29 PAC Tour - Harrisonburg, VA to Ashland, VA by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-08-08T13:07:00.000-07:00

Day 29 PAC Tour - Harrisonburg, VA to Ashland, VA by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details: "Share"

Day 28: The Last State, the last 200

2010-08-07T17:37:00.001-07:00

Not quite in order of the day, starting with last first, but have to start here. Where? The Virginia state line, the last state, a touch over 210 miles to go in the next two days. Shouldn't we just jam it all in one day? Worth thinking about anyway... We also saw a sign for "Chesapeake Bay Watershed Area" and crossed the south fork of the Potomac River today. Everything points to getting so very, very close. You probably think that's obvious, I mean what does 28 days on the road get you if not close to the Atlantic? But seems like a dream if that makes any sense at all. I mean, we're on BICYCLES for goodness sakes, you can't take a bicycle that far from home no matter what the map on the side of the silver trailer says and the state line signs say and everything else points to. Can you? Seems so silly right now, but that's the way it feels.

So somewhat back to chronological order, our first epic day of the trip, in fact first epic day of the year for both of us. We may have over 30 century rides each in 2010, but not a single day over 10,000ft of vertical until today. So call it 105 miles and 10,600 vertical feet in something like 15.6 average or just over 8 hours total time. Not bad for day 28. Actually the climbing felt great, we're both very comfortable on less than 10% grades which was what the whole day was like.

Almost forgot, two comments on West Virginia to close that state out. The last two nights we went to "family restaurants" which are restaurants that don't sell any alcohol. Hello, how does any parent deal with children without alcohol providing assistance, that just makes no sense. You can buy beer\wine at every gas station or grocery store but not in a family restaurant (don't think McDonalds, think the Moutaineer Steakhouse). Also the trees. It's all been cut at some point of course, but how neat to see so many 60 ft Maples and other hardwoods in the forests, I don't remember that from growing up on the east coast, they seemed bigger and straighter than what I recall.

Then today. We started at 7:00am, again in the cool fog that was so thick that sunglasses were too dark to wear, climbing immediately out of the motel (oh do I hate climbing first thing in the morning!). We went up, we went down and repeated the excercise about 6 times today. First a sequence of 5, then 1 big climb, 1 small climb, and finally 1 big climb over the Shenendoah range and into Harrisonburg.

Here's the visual starting out, fog and mountains and trees.

The roads were quiet at that point which was good because the shoulder was terrible, we had to ride on the road, in fact Brian went down (but continued the day) when his wheel got stuck between the shoulder and the roadway. Five "mountains" were Mt El (2,550ft), Shaver's Mt (3,760ft), Middle Mt (3,180ft), Rich Mt (3,350), and lastly Allegheny Mt (3,290ft) each with a long descent between them and all along Rt 33.

Then we broke out in the sun and into a long valley where we did a valley traverse on a narrow asphalt road, lots of loose gravel, felt more like a goat path than a legal road. At the end of the valley we went up again, not sure of the mountain name, but there was an overlook of the German Valley where Tom is posing, below. We pounded very hard up the 4 mile hill to the overlook, Tom passing me 4 times and me passing him 5, which led to some muttering about my Inprudent Attacking, my Unappreciated Immaturity, etc, etc. But funny how he kept keeping up with me in the midst of my unappreciated behavior. It was just fun to be on a hill.Then a big downhill, long and fun, a bump up and then into lunch. After lunch was the long climb over the Shenendoah Pass (range?), not sure, it was where the Virginia state line was, and then a 20 mile roll out and down to the town and our hotel. Since it is Wes's last night we had dinner with he and his wife\3 year old daughter, he is off to ride in a club event tomorrow so we won't be seeing him (or his circus pants) again. Sore legs from the climbing, but a great day, did we have to wait 28 days for this? Roadkill included a deer, a fox, 6 raccoons and 3 skunks. Almost included a doberman that chased Tom for over a mile and was in the wrong lane for oncoming traffic, but it got lucky when the truck slammed on its brakes.

Day 28 PAC Tour - Elkins, WV to Harrisonburg, VA by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-08-07T13:28:00.000-07:00

Day 28 PAC Tour - Elkins, WV to Harrisonburg, VA by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details: "Share"

Day 27: Sauerkraut wins the Stage!

2010-08-06T17:53:00.000-07:00

A busy day, not sure where to start it though. Things on people, places, and other thoughts. The basics were 123 miles and 8,600ft of vertical. We've had this day on our minds for a long time, it looked like the toughest day of the tour in vertical on the tour t-shirts everyone wears (9,500) but it wasn't so bad in reality.

Day started cool, in the 70's, and right out of hotel we're onto Rt 50 for 44 miles due east, right at the rising sun, pretty huh?

We've seen some roads on this trip, this was a celebration of government pork: the Robert Byrd Memorial Highway. 4 lanes, two in each direction, divided highway, a white line to mark the highway edge, a good 2 feet for rumble strip, and then another 8 feet of wide asphalt shoulder. You could race Indy cars on the shoulder and not impact the highway traffic it was so big. Unfortunately also full of gravel and glass shards, we must have set a record for flat tires on one day in the group but Tom and I were both lucky (go Continental 4000 4 Seasons!). 7% grade up, 7% grade down, a long (1 mile) for each, and repeat for 44 miles through a forest.

We got a good start, you know, at 7:01:43 so we weren't last, just far back and out on the highway behind a cluster of 15 riders or so and Tom says "I want to go easy here" which is coded language that means "let's blow the snot out of these jerks, pound the ups, crash the downs, and be the first to the rest stop by a mile." Which we did, for reasons I still don't get, we're never first, but we were today. (Note from Tom.....it just worked out that we both felt great this morning at the same time!) It helped that Racer Steve got a flat so he wasn't in competition and most of the other fast guys were like yeah, whatever, but still we were zooming, the only guy with us with Roger (the German) who tried to break away but we both caught him. So Roger Nascars the rest stop (37 seconds) and storms back out to the road while Tom and I are trying not to laugh (what, he's going to win a PAC Tour stage?) when it comes out from some other guys who come in that Roger has said he's going to attack in West Virginia since day 2 of the tour. OK, he's attacking, but is it attacking if nobody else cares? He was also very vocal about the terribleness of the road, the glass and debris, so someone gave him the nickname "Sauerkraut" which immediately stuck. Off he went, never saw him again. (He did finish the ride at 2:00, an hour before anybody else, waiting for the luggage trailer to show up after 3:00...so what's the point?)

After 44 miles on the highway we turned off on Meathouse Fork Road (hello, it's West Virginia) which was exactly what you think of West Virginia country roads. Valleys, trees, ups and down and full of cicadas screeching at the world. Beautiful riding, could have done that all day, unfortunately it was just to lunch at mile 71 at the....Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. Really. Started during Civil War and closed in 1994, a castle-like brown sandstone structure in the middle of nowhere that once housed thousands of patients. We had lunch and then went for a tour which wasn't so interesting, mostly peeling paint, old bedrooms and lots of mentions for what the buildings and spaces once were (butcher, bakery, kitchen, offices, etc) from a docent who worked there for 40 years. Here are some PAC Tour riders, zombie-like, being drawn to the hospital.

Ok, we did learn two things. Time to skip this if squeamish or reading to kids. First, we learned about trans-orbital lobotomies. Electro-shock patient to unconscious (1 to 6 charges). Pull up eyelid, insert ice pick into head above eyeball, tap through spinal membrane with hammer, wiggle around in frontal lobe, extract, repeat on other side. Cures hysteria, anxiety, homosexuality, truancy, fits, etc. Yuck. Happened thousands and thousands of times in this hospital until public pressure turned against it. Second, ghosts. Sure, the Asylum was featured on the ghost-hunting TV show (Taps), and has a signed statement from the Paranormal Society, but look at the decaying halls and rooms, floors and floors of them, and listen to the docent who worked in the hospital for 40 years while it was operating. The ghosts untie her shoes, play with her hair, pull off her scarf, move things around, etc. She's not afraid of them but she's quite sure they are there. They have a real cuckoo's nest there, too. Anyone want to turn on some lights?

From there, more back roads riding parallel to Rt 33, including a 4 mile uphill and very fast downhill (loose gravel, so no speed records!) and then the last few miles on Rt 33 into Elkin, which we had to ride through on a Friday afternoon past drinking time. Maybe not such a good thing but needed to be done. Interesting about West Virginia, no "For Sale" signs on houses like there were all over in Ohio, but every house has at least one "No Trespassing" sign, I think that is so if you are trespassing they can shoot on sight. It doesn't look particularly poor but not very inviting either, as the Swiss couple said "what do these people do here?"

Dinner was across the street at the Steer Restaurant, our first buffet dinner, everything that could be fried was fried, and then some. But it was all you can eat. Took nerves of steel to cross the highway, 4 lanes of it. Roadkill report was quite light today, I remember a skunk and a couple URP but that was it. Good weather for tomorrow is the forcast and a lot of climbing. 3 days. Really? Just 3 days? It's come too soon.

Day 27 PAC Tour - Parkersburg, WV to Elkins, WV by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-08-06T13:58:00.000-07:00

Day 27 PAC Tour - Parkersburg, WV to Elkins, WV by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details: "Share"

Day 26: Everybody Sing!

2010-08-05T16:07:00.000-07:00

Ready? Here we go....

Almost heaven, West Virginia
Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River
Life is old there, older than the trees
Younger than the mountains growin' like a breeze.

Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West Virginia, mountain mama
Take me home, country roads.

We're in West Virginia, just barely, over the river from Ohio, 100 miles (and 4 penalty miles for failing to follow the route sheet) and 3,000ft of climb across Ohio although the roads sure felt like what you'd think of West Virginia country roads. Left, right, up, down, twist, curve, drop, climb. Never, ever, thought I would be so happy to see hills but after the prairie tour they were a welcome sight. The corn and the soybeans have been left behind, only small patches in the flats of stream valleys, otherwise trees and more trees. Wish I could name them all but if you think of tree-lined roads you've got the visual.

But the real news of the day is the weather. Day 2 of riding soaked. Yesterday it was the high humidity, 30 minutes into the ride (which I did all of solo until lunch) and the sweat from my legs had pooled in my shoes so that each pedal stroke was squish, squish, squish. That was the sweat that wasn't running off the end of my handlebars. So much sweat was flying off some people that other riders wouldn't ride behind them. Then of course at the end of the day we got in just before the biblical thunderstorm which was one of top 3 storms of my life. Clouds boiling and churning right on top of the motel like Mt Doom in Mordor when Frodo is on the final climb to destroy the One Ring (that rules them all, but you knew that, right)? The 30 foot telescoping metal sign next to the bikes creaking and groaning like it's going to land on us any second, the winds picking up, lightning amidst the rushing wall of darkness and crashing of thunder. Most people were outside trying to take pictures of it but none do it is justice, this is one little piece of the sky, you have to imagine it boiling like a pot of water. Epic for all of us. Then the rain, then 15 degrees cooler and sunshine.

Then today. Well, first there was a Big Talk by Lon to the assembled riders with their bags in a crowd at 7:29am where he let loose with his frustrations about people riding out in such a rush, the big packs of riders that make it hard for cars to pass, and the general silliness of trying to be the first person to stand around the next hotel at 2:00pm. Everyone listened quietly, figured it was someone else he was annoyed with, and the second he moved to the side descended on the trailer as they always do to drop their bag and hit the road. So much for having impact. The fast guys and the men who love them shot off the front, never to be seen again. Today's version (it varies) of the "no biker left behind, well, except Michelle but she's on a recumbent" gang glommed up at the back. And the rest of us, promiscuous, highly non-monogamous, chase any wheel so long as it's a fast, characters spread out in doubles or in singles in between. Here's the morning scene that so annoys Lon. This is definitely specific to our group, I think a couple guys set the mood and cause panic among the rest, for example creating anxiety in a certain roommate of mine who gets nervous and jittery about being late. It's ironic, I was the one wasted in the heat of South Dakota riding solo and Tom the one's nervous about riding solo. Although, as I've said before, it is an unsettling feeling to come out into an empty parking lot and feel late and alone in the ride (ie, me, yesterday morning). If I could I'd do more solo riding, there's more time to think and less need to pay attention to someone else's wheel.
Oh, I said we were wet today. As from picture, it wasn't raining at 7:30am, but it was at 8:00 and it was absolutely pouring shortly after that. POURING! Thunder and lightning, pouring buckets of rain in mass quantities, whatever, it was WET! Most people jumped off under some type of cover, in particular those that saw lightning strike a telephone pole just ahead. I rode straight through it because who ever heard of a cyclist getting hit by lightning? It let up, then got worse again, the tree-covered hills wavering ahead of us getting lost into fog, nothing to do but get through it. By the rest area it was over, it stayed cool through lunch (where I waited for Tom and then we rode in together) and then it heated up but we were in by 2:30. I promptly for some reason took a nap.
So here we are, less than 500 miles to go, a hop, skip, and jump over the hills, the Atlantic is calling. Roadkill was light, an opossum, a raccoon and a skunk. We've left the fields of Queen Anne's Lace for things that are delicate and purple, here's that visual if you want to look them up. Dinner was just down the dead end street we're on at Mountaineer Restaurant, steaks and pasta and 14 of us in one room eating everything in site. A good mood pervades, but the energy and stamina is I think running a little dry, 3,000 miles on a bike sooner or later is going to have its say.

Day 26 PAC Tour - Circleville, OH to Parkersburg, WV by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-08-05T13:48:00.000-07:00

Day 26 PAC Tour - Circleville, OH to Parkersburg, WV by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details: "Share"

Fund Raising & another thing......

2010-08-05T03:35:00.000-07:00

For new readers of this blog and others who may not have read the previous requests....I am raising funds on a per mile cycled basis (or lump sum amount) for the UW Baltic Studies Program. I am personally matching everyone's contribution by 50% of the pledged amount. Together with funds pledged so far, we are over $9,000! If you wish to contribute, please leave a comment here or send me an email at tnapa@comcast.net or Laurie an email at lnapa@comcast.net Thanks for everyone's support so far....we're nearly there!

The other thing......Mike & I are running out of steam with writing "themes" on the blog. May be it's too much corn and soybean farms. At any rate, if anyone has any questions (or comments) regarding the ride, landscape, food eaten, motel recommendations, etc.....please leave them here and we'll try to incorporate your questions in future postings.

Day 25 Hot and Humid

2010-08-04T18:51:00.000-07:00

Today's ride from Troy to Circleville started out in warm humid conditions (72F and 90%+ humidity) and got hotter and more humid as the day wore on...can you have more than 100% humidity? It felt like it as the sweat just pored off of our bodies.

I took off at the start (a late 7:30 start since it was a "short" ride day) while Mike was still in his casual clothes looking for his gloves. Wasn't gonna wait around and then push hard to catch-up....too much drama in that approach for me and not enough margin for something to go wrong (flat, nature break, etc) and then be really behind the curve. I rode the first hour at a leisurely pace (17mph) with a double line of about 12 riders having a nice conversation with Charles (MN). As we were passed by a group of 5 riders, it was time to turn up the speed. Charles & I were joined by "tattoo" Tom (ID) and we soon formed a fast (+25MPH) rotating paceline and put a gap on the group that previously passed us. We worked well together and found the ups & downs and curving roads to be conductive to keep the pace high. Can't say that I remember too much of the landscape other than that was still a lot of soybean fields. But we did roll through Urbana, OH before the first break and saw many old mansion type houses lining the tree-lined main boulevards....some restored to former glory and others needing help.

At the first stop, Lon had set up a spot where we each had our picture taken with our bike. Apparently we each have a nice picture memento in the mail to us after the tour is over. As per usual, whatever allegiances there were before the rest stop, they did not exist after the stop......as nobody waited for anyobdy else to get and start riding. It was just get up and go....catch somebody in front, ride alone, or get caught by others and join up. I rode on my own for about 5 miles until the tandem, Captained by Craig (CA) and stoked by Jonathan (masseuse) showed up pulling Jonathan (AUS) at a healthy 25mph. I quickly grabbed Jonathan wheel and worked hard at holding it for the next 15miles until the next stop. One would think that it's easy holding onto the draft of a tandem....and it can be if you're the next wheel. But back a few riders and it becomes a bit more difficult. I was drenched with sweat at the next stop where I took my time taking in fluids and recovering.

The next 25 miles or so to lunch I was back with Charles at a more leisurely (ie sane) pace but still sweating buckets as the temps were now in the mid-90's. The only memorable sight was the huge correctional facility that we passed.....there must be a lot of correcting going on for a lot of people because it was mamoth. We both wondered if the inmates were suffering without A/C as we were....I doubt it as it would certainly be cruel and unusual punishment!

Lunch was more rehydration than food replenishment. A group of 7 riders formed a good wind-aided paceline to finish the remaining 20 or so miles to Circleville. As we were told that our evening's motel rooms would not be ready until 2:30 at the earliest and it was 1:30 upon arrival....we found a local coffee shop with inside temps around 65F.....it was pure heaven along with the large iced coffee and/or smoothie drinks that we all ordered. The only downside were the pools of sweat that we dropped on the floor wherever we went in the cafe over the first 10 minutes of being there.

Where was Mike?.....never did see him during the day as he was playing catch-up from behind most of the day. As I left the stops I did ask riders that were just arriving if they had seen Mike....and they reassured me that he was doing OK in the heat...just a bit behind. He did finally show up at the coffee shop with Rebecca (of Lon and Susan) and they apparently rode together from lunch. After about 20 minutes of socializing, Rebecca got a phone call from her mother saying that she was driving through a thunderstorm outise of town and that she probably had another 15 minutes before it would hit Circleville. We quickly got on our bikes as the skies were now turning dark, the temperatures dropping 10+ degrees, and the winds starting to howl. We made it to the night's motel (about 2 miles away) fortunately just befoe the storm hit. On the evening's news, it was reported that the storm blew over 3 semi/container trucks on a nearby highway and also blew down a barn, killing 2 people. These storms are nothing to fool around with. Thankfully the weather forecast is for the thunderstorms through tomorrow morning and then clear sailing through the end of our ride on Monday....fingers crossed.

This evening's meal was with Rebecca, Susan (her mom), and Tim (crew) as we commandeered a PAC Tour van to take us back into town to a very good Italian restaurant. Food was good and plentiful, the wine OK (apparently in the mid-West, Great Lake States, or whatever they call these parts...the servers just pour the wine without you first tasting it or fooling around with the cork, etc) and the company/conversation, interesting.

Roadkill.....about 6 raccoons and 2 opposums....and 5+ URP's.

Tomorrow we are in our next to last State.....West Virginia with less that 600 miles to ride in 5 days. Plus there's more climbing as we start seeing the Appalacians. It'll be good to start using the leg muscles a little differently and getting out of the saddle to climb a bit. Truth be told....my butt's a little sore, but no "hey roomie..." yet!

Day 25 PAC Tour - Troy, OH to Circleville, OH by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-08-04T12:05:00.000-07:00

Day 25 PAC Tour - Troy, OH to Circleville, OH by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details: "Share"

Day 24: Are We There Yet?

2010-08-03T17:44:00.000-07:00

If a man with two watches doesn't know what time it is, then what does a 6 person pace line equipped with 3 GPS systems, two odometers, and at least five strong opinions know? Not sure... but they definitely don't agree on where they are and if they should take a right or left at a "T" intersection.

And other thoughts of the day.

The cemeteries, more and more of them along the roads as we head east, bigger and older. One graveyard today had tombstones that the years had faded off of although it was easy to find dates from the early part of 20th century and last part of nineteenth. In another Jerry\MN and I saw a heartbreaker of a family story all on one simple monument. Dad born 1880, mom born 1876. Infant son died 1902, daughter died 1904, son died 1905, dad died 1907 and mom lived til 1950. Ugh. We also passed our first civil war monument in the middle of a town intersection, "for those who lay in unknown graves in the defense of the union 1861 to 1865". Seems like there are more interesting old houses along the roads, weatherbeaten, peeling paint, tall narrow windows with broken panes, a shadow of their former glory with their stone lentils and roof dentils and fancy decorations. They depict wealth and a bygone era here, certainly, interesting to wonder if maybe they were made a bit too fancy for their owner's good, the lower costs houses without the ornamentation seem more likely to be lived in still today. I can't find a good picture of one of them, will get Tom to take 30 or 40 of them tomorrow. This is best I can do in the meantime, it's got Veronica, Ann, Tom and Michelle (in that order) riding along, a not so cool house off the to the right. By the way, you can tell the riders by their jerseys and way they sit their bikes, we're getting good at this.

And trees, our first 1/2 mile through a woods with trees on both sides of the road and almost over the top of our heads, first time we've been in such dense woods since western Washington. True, the the Black Hills were a forest but they were burned out recently and looked much more barren.

The real issue of the day was the short distance. We left at 7:30, our latest start to date, for a quick 83 miles and 874ft out of Indiana and into Ohio. 83 miles... as Tom noted that would have been a long training ride just a month ago, now it's the second shortest day of the trip. 83 miles? We have lunch some days at 83 miles. The only problem is the expectation in your brain of how quickly it should go by vs the reality of getting it done. So off we went in a gloom of grey clouds, warm temps and very high humidity, we were dripping sweat just getting out of the parking lot. 15 minutes later our expectations fire up.

ARE WE THERE YET? No, dork, we've only been riding a few minutes and it's still a 5 hour day.

NOW ARE WE THERE? No, we're riding slowly, talking to Jerry\MN or Tom is riding solo in the small chainring by accident.

WHY AREN'T WE THERE YET? Because it's not even been an hour of riding! Settle down!

YOU KNOW THERE IS A LOT WE COULD BE DOING IF WE WERE THERE. Yeah, but we're not and we're not going to be for a while, here, I'll speed up a little bit.

OH GREAT, IT'S GOING TO STORM, A SHORT DAY BECOMES LONG DUE TO POUNDING RAIN AND WINDS AND WHAT A WASTE! Well, sure, there's a dark threatening cloud system with weird swirls and folds that looks like TROUBLE to the north that is moving over us by the minute, but it's not raining on us, more sprinkling, soaking everything through, but it's not bad situation yet. (it looked like this):

ARE WE THERE YET? No, but with the pace line with Tom and Jerry\MN and Tom\Mojave we jammed from the 2nd rest stop to lunch, and after lunch it's a quick 13 miles to the end which we'll reach by 1:00pm, so fine. We'll even head out for a delicious coffee in the quaint downtown area of Troy. Now would you please shut up? (note from Tom.....who is in Mike's head and would someone let him out?)

And so that was it, we arrived early, wasted some time on coffee (if it's ever a waste). Then went out at 5:00 for dinner with two guys that live an hour north of here that Jerry\MN knew from his attempted 2007 crossing, Doug & Dan. We had a great dinner in an old bank building, the Coldwater Cafe, just down the road in Tipp City which seems a lot cuter and interesting than Troy. If you visit, stop there. Our hosts were awesome, they hadn't done any bike touring before the 2007 Northern Continental, they just showed up and jumped in, a tad unprepared perhaps for the gear heads and the challenges ahead. The line of the night was when Dan was asked back then what kind of gearing he ran he answered "well I've got these big ones in the front and some little ones in the back." Good fun, great to get out of the chain restaurants. You realize you could grow up here and never visit an independent restaurant in the maze of Friendly's, McDonalds, Bob Evans, Ruby Tuesday, Appleby's, Sonic, etc..

Another short day tomorrow, will try to leave the expectations at home, they are quite annoying. Roadkill...more of the same....6 raccoons and 2 opposums.

Day 24 PAC Tour - Anderson, IN to Troy, OH by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-08-03T12:46:00.000-07:00

Day 24 PAC Tour - Anderson, IN to Troy, OH by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details: "Share"

Day 23: The "Hey, Roomie..." Discussion

2010-08-02T18:17:00.000-07:00

Since it was a flat and "short" day of just 118 miles through soybeans and corn it seems like the right time to have the discussion. Yes, that discussion, the one you've been wondering but afraid to ask. Because you can't help but wonder: even though we're counting down the days to the Atlantic, we're still counting up the number of hours (184 so far according to Tom) we've been sitting on about 6 square inches of saddle. Sure, you have 5 contact points on a bike including hands and feet but most of a rider's weight, where they feel the frost heave lines and road joints and cracks, that would be in the tush.

So the butt talk. For now, happily (!), our butts are doing fine, bruised of course from sitting on a little saddle but no open sores or issues. We are regular users of chamois cream both to start the day and with reapplication available at all rest stops. It takes some getting used to to watch (the guys in particular) get a squirt of it and then see their hands disappear down both the front and the back of their bike shorts (front for inside side of legs, back side for where you sit). Usually this is done just prior to getting on bike and riding off so it's not like they jump back in the food line without washing by the way. Post ride it's time to wash any tender areas and at night a little Bag Balm (or A&D ointment or Neosporin) on any raw areas and next day you're ready to go.

Not everyone is so fortunate though in the healthy bottom discussion. Not this trip, but in 2007 Jerry\MN had to drop out and go home for surgery on an infected spot on his you know what. And several guys have recently resorted to the "double shorts" approach of one pair of bike shorts on top of another to get extra padding if it hurts too much with just one. Apparently if you really want to maximize effectiveness of this approach you wear the outside pair with the chamois facing out so the two pairs fit lycra to lycra and therefore create fewer hot spots. Nobody, however, has opted for this which would give them a big orange patch across their bottoms like a babboon at the zoo.

And bottoms aren't the only issue. I have a rub mark on the front of my thigh (why?) and many guys have sore nipples from being rubbed raw by sweaty biking jerseys. What causes this is back pockets full of stuff which creates a lot of pull on the front of the shirt and hence the drag against the front of the chest. I wear my shirt open not for the macho thing (sorry, Julia), but because it helps avoid the pain. The picture of Karl putting on little round band-aids in the photo list speaks to the issue, he's certainly not the only one. Even if guys with headlights from band-aids do take getting used to.

And lastly, as delicately as possible, there are the powders. Hammer Corp nutritional powders (HEED, like Gatorade, plus Perpetuem long distance fuel and Recoverite for the end of the day) are in the silver trailer for adding to water bottles in the morning and available at every rest stop. People swear by them and use them non-stop, as well as the Electrolyte tablets (I take 8 or 10 a day post South Dakota). The powders however take some getting used to in the beginning. May I suggest leaving the room so you can blow a 4 second note on a tuba in private prior to rejoining polite company. No, it's not just me.

Which brings us to the last point, the "Hey Roomie, can you look at this?" discussion. Tom and I have happily avoided anything close to this, but very funny to hear how people deal with needing, um, assistance with a medical applications to parts they can't easily reach with precision. As one person said, "hey, it's a PACTour thing, you'll never see them again so if you have to ask, no big deal". In the meantime, Tom and I preface at least a sentence per day with "Hey Roomie..." just to be annoying to each other.

So that's what you really wanted to know, the black magic procedures for riding long distances over many days without issues in the shorts seems to be mostly tribal knowledge so we'll continue to report on what we find.

Day 23, oh that, 118 miles, a lousy and long (3 pages!) route card for a journey that kept us on just 2 roads. East, east, east. It's not complicated. We lost an hour due to time zone change, we crossed into Indiana, we saw corn and soybeans on quiet roads. The two of us with Ernie and Jerry\MN (and Karl later in the day) just bolted it out, our 2nd fastest day of the trip in a tad over 6 hours ride time or just under 20mph. At the end of the day I got to see Kathy's aunt and uncle for a bit which was great (we went to a laundromat!) and dinner was with Jerry\MN and Swiss couple at Ruby Tuesday next door. Anderson, Indiana, is all atwitter, the Colts (US pro football team) are here for 3 weeks of training camp, about 5 to 8K people go to watch, the kids next to us had their Colts jerseys and Payton Manning signatures to show for it. Bedtime, late start tomorrow for the short day (85 mile) day. Happy birthday mom!

Day 23 PAC Tour - Danville, IL to Anderson, IN by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-08-02T17:12:00.000-07:00

Day 23 PAC Tour - Danville, IL to Anderson, IN by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details: "Share"

Day 22: CORN! becomes corn

2010-08-01T19:40:00.000-07:00

First some notes:
Addendum 1) forgot "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" for the list of rain songs.
Addendum 2) in discussion of fun and our trip, I forgot to say how much we enjoy\appreciate the overall PACTour experience and leadership. The rolling circus of 1000 details has kept us fed and watered and organized, we'd do one again (Wisconsin tour 2011, Normandy to Nice in 2012, for example) and strongly recco the Lon and Susan experience to anyone serious about riding, this is a great, great team.
Correction 1) Mississippi River drops 676ft from Minneapolis to the gulf says Jerry\MN. Jerry should know: he paddled it in several stages from in front of his house all the way in an ocean kayak.
Note 1) if cleaning your shoes with dirty water, how do they become clean (picture from after the mud crossing on the day 20)

Day 22. Something flipped today, big time. Maybe it was the note on the silver trailer's dry erase board that read "call Williamsburg hotel to ensure your bike box is there." Maybe it was dropping below 900 miles to go (out of 3,500). Maybe it was the last of the long prairie days, 8th day of 136 mile average, which leaves us with 3 short days and 5 mountain days left. Maybe because tomorrow we're on Eastern Standard Time, or that the states (Illinois, Indiana) are now going by us at a rate of a state per day. Something flipped: we're near the end. Barring catastrophic accident we're going to make it, we can ride constantly, survive weather issues, endure whatever we have to because now the end is getting very close. For the first time we're talking about the end of the trip as a reality instead of a probability that we might be able to achieve. Again, not discounting the challenges ahead and the accident issue (says the guy who fell over on his bike today while trying to dismount to, um, pee), but something changed.

To arrive though we have to ride, so ride we did, by far our most efficient effort of the trip. 136 miles with 1,200ft of climb in just 7:15 (so 18.6mph), every mile of it in a paceline from start to end. Start was at 6:30am in heavy fog, could see from 30 to 100 yards depending on when and where you looked, the result was between water vapor and sweat we were all soaking wet within 30 minutes, everything dripping. The fog slowly turned bright white with the sun until it all disappeared at 8:30, then blue skies. As for riding we were 12 pairs in the line, a typical Sunday morning coffee ride at 19 or 20mph, take a turn and then let another pair pull the group, this lasted 30 miles to 1st rest stop. After that it was 5 pairs (the fast guys Nascar-ing the 1st break) through the 2nd rest stop at 50 miles and then broke to a single line of 6 individuals which lasted to lunch (80 miles) and through the two rest stops in the afternoon into Danville. Take a mile pull, pass to the back, do it again. Mike, Tom, Ernie, Jim\NJ, Jerry\MN and Brad, waiting for each other at stops if someone dropped a water bottle, nobody getting dropped, just efficient and friendly. Brad joined us for the day, another PACTour honored guest (he has the Hall of Fame jersey) out to ride with the group for the day, very happy to have a pair of fresh legs to do some extra work. The wind from the north so a lot of time echelon right formation since there was so little traffic as we headed due east.

Really the only issue of the day was boredom, there was one 17 mile stretch on a single straight road that give us a bizarre sense of vertigo, like we were standing still and the world rolling under us while we didn't move. The corn continuously on both sides of the road. The Queen Anne's Lace and purple Aster on both sides in the 15 feet of border between road and corn rows, the concrete road and the straight, straight line to the horizon. Tom was afraid of falling asleep (his heart rate was in the 80s for this, and that was at almost 20mph), just ride, ride, ride. Here's a visual on that.

And as the title says, sadly the corn has lost it's charm. What in the world do we do with it all, that's the question, but 2 states worth is enough for this trip, and likely a lot more yet to come.

At the end of the day, which started early at 3:00pm or so, a great ending. Mike's Freshman Crew coach from U of Wisconsin (ie, 1982\83) was passing through Danville on his way home so he picked us up at the hotel and we had a great dinner at the Possum Trot supper club down the road. "Supper club" for those not in the know are like restaurants but are called supper clubs and for some reason are a Midwestern phenomena, like fireflies they never made it west of the Rockies. It was complete with lounge area and comfy cushions, we had a very good time catching up and our best meal of the trip, big steaks and potatoes. Coach is now running the crew program at Purdue University. Good visits for Tom and Mike have been happening all along the route, this is definitely another highlight for the fun list.

Roadkill was light, just a pair of raccoons and possum. Tomorrow is more leisurely, breakfast starts a half hour late with "just" a 117 mile day.

Day 22 PAC Tour - Pekin, IL to Danville, IL by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-08-01T14:07:00.000-07:00

Day 22 PAC Tour - Pekin, IL to Danville, IL by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details: "Share"

Day 21: 21 Days of ....something

2010-07-31T19:58:00.000-07:00

Before the day's report... It has come to my attention that some people aren't sure how to answer the question "So is Tom\Mike having fun?" Well jeez! I mean, gosh, um, actually.... it's complicated. I am not sure "fun" is the first word I'd pick for the experience. And there are so many dimensions to the trip that it's hard to use "fun" as a universal descriptor.

For example, the physicality of the trip. Fun? Not the right word. But what is the right word. I am amazed, amused, agog (and those are just the words that begin with "a") at what we are churning out in physical execution each day. We've averaged 135 miles a day for the last 7 days, and that includes a "short" day of 115 which was a horrendous experience in 100+ heat and high humidity (and stong winds from the South). And we're going to go do it again (136 miles) tomorrow. So if not fun it's an impressive result, at least to me.

Or the people. The trip introduced 30 people new to us, plus staff of 12. 6 of them have already left (4 planned: tandem, steady Bob, David Soloman, 2 unplanned: homesickness and boredom). That leaves 36 personalities in close proximity for last 2+ weeks if not 4 weeks to sort out. Some inspire: Jerry\Boston who is 71 and doing his 7th cross country trip, or Craig and Charles, two of the most unassuming but competent bicyclists we'll ever meet (Craig: 100+ rides over 200 miles, Charles who did the elite tour in 2007). Some are new friends like Karl and Jerry/MN who we hope to see again. And some annoy, their odd riding or interpersonal habits wearing a groove into our brains like fingernails on a chalkboard. And yes, there have even been some new takes on old friends. I didn't know how well Tom could channel Ann Bancroft in "The Graduate" as he rolls on his thigh-high black nylons, I mean compression hose, each night to help keep down the swelling after a ride.

Physicality, people... place. Wow, the places. They have far exceeded any expectations, who knew CORN! was so pretty or the Badlands so bad or the meadows of the Bighorn so filled with wildflowers. All these fly over states (except Iowa, we don't like pig trucks and states with no shoulders on the highway) have been so much more at ground level than expected. Today, for example, was the Mississippi River, we crossed it. What an amazing thing to see it, big and brown and wide, sure, but more importantly to have the context to care about it. That massive drainage for every creek, stream and river (like the Mighty Missouri) we've seen since Butte, almost already down at sea level (drops just 850ft from Minnesota to New Orleans), to see it and to care about it for the first time, that was neat.

Those are just 3 dimensions to our trip. I could spend a whole blog on our newfound appreciation for the impact of weather on humans. And what about food? (ugh). However many dimensions though it's very hard to put everything under one umbrella of "fun." A better question; Are we glad we're doing this? Tom will throw his answer in, mine is this is the greatest experience I've ever been part of. Riding. People. The America of farms and fields. The greatest thing I've ever done, 2 days of South Dakota heat stroke misery included, from an experience perspective (so as not to insult wife and kids!)

(note from Tom.....Mike's a great "wordsmith" and that's why he's the primary writer on this blog. His reflections of the trip/experience are very much shared by me...but I'll have some additional thoughts that I'll share when I have more time....)

Day 21: 139 miles (can we just say 140, it makes it sound better) and 2,409ft of climb in a very rapid 19mph average, the fastest average speed in 2 weeks. We just needed to get through the day and one more long day tomorrow as part of the prarie days so we teamed up with Karl and then later on with Ernie and Jim\NJ and Jeff (who is not on the trip, he has done 19,900+ miles with PacTour and came out for a day from St Louis to just ride along) and pounded it out. Out of Iowa, over the Mississippi, across a lot of Illinois. Being in a fast group means focusing on each other and the road so the scenery I am sure was very nice but don't quiz me. Roadkill was an even dozen items split between raccoons, squirrels and opposums. Also my second Indigo Bunting of the trip: very blue, very small, and quite dead by side of road.

East and more east, it looked like rain when we started out and again later in the afternoon but didn't. Dinner next door at Italian restaurant. The white van broke down and since Lon and Susan were already considering buying a new one they bought it and had to scramble resources this afternoon to get everything ready for tomorrow, I think we'll be ok. Fresh corn for lunch and great pies from a Mennonite Bakery just before we crossed the river. And I forgot to mention the sound of summer since the grasshoppers in South Dakota has been the cicadas that sit in trees and make noise, here's a picture for West coast people who haven't heard or seen one, they make a loud electrical power-line buzz. West coast people also may not know Fireflies, which we also saw outside the motel two nights ago glimmering across a meadow, very pretty.
An odd list of notes for Day 21, but a good day overall. Cause you know we're having fun!

Day 21 PAC Tour - Mount Pleasant, IA to Pekin, IL by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-07-31T14:55:00.000-07:00

Day 21 PAC Tour - Mount Pleasant, IA to Pekin, IL by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details: "Share"

Day 20: Songs about the Rain

2010-07-30T18:33:00.000-07:00

Day 20 is done. 2/3 of the days, 2/3 of the miles. Tomorrow we cross the Mississippi River 35 miles into the route. The progress is getting real, we can't smell the ocean from Iowa, of course, but we can define the path to get there: 2 more long prarie days, 3 shorter days to rest up, the final 5 days on the Appalachains. We both know well that distances don't say it all in terms of difficulty. In Europe, amount of climb defines the degree of challenge for the day, in the plains states, the weather defines the misery index (wind, temp, rain). So if not in miles we are both very aware we still have challenges ahead...
Today was the longest of the 5 consecutive prarie days - Tom says they aren't prarie days because they aren't flat and he's right, but anyway - 141 miles and 3,600ft of climb. We each averaged about 16.6mph for 8.5 hours but the total time was long, at least 10 hours.
But before more on that, a word on a previous post. Tom said that we shouldn't talk about baby wipes, which I disagree with. I think they are a great discussion point and in fact everyone should always carry baby wipes in their purse, back pocket when cycling, or briefcase. Because just imagine that you require something and have to choose between straw stubble and dead grasshoppers or the baby wipes you conveniently brought along. I mean how much of an obvious choice is that?
Back to the day: 6:30am start, warm and heavy overcast, everyone rushing out right on time as it's a long day. Within the first couple miles the drips start, nothing too hard, just raining lightly, only hurts on descents when the rain feels like needle pokes at 28mph. Up and down, around the cornfields and pastures, light traffic, all going east and south, a stairstepping route down to Mt. Pleasant. On the way we passed through 3 county seats - Newton, Montezuma, and Sigourney - which were all picturesque little towns with the county courthouse in the middle of a town square and then 4 streets of businesses\retail lined up around it. These and other little towns and farm houses from the late 19th century now surrounded by thick windscreens of 100 year old Maple and Oak trees gave the day it's charm.
2 rest stops, lunch at mile 69 in a school parking lot, been raining lightly by then for 4+ hours, most people have their raincoats on but certainly not cold enough for concern. The sky is a smooth fabric of taupe except for two horizontal cracks to the south that look like folds which are deep gold and seem ominous, but it's what's moving below those clouds that brings the excitement, just a good old fashioned thunderstorm with buckets of rain, noise, and occasional lightning. So what to do. Well, some folks (like Tom) had already left so they had to ride through it, you can't stop for shelter (you'd get too cold) and it actually was a warm rain with great tailwinds so he enjoyed it. Some of us were about to leave lunch and decided to wait out the worst of it so we huddled in the food trailer since the tents outside were being blown down in the high winds. We were soon joined by the slower folks who got caught in the rain and now had to stop to eat and were thus soaking wet and cold. Our break lasted about 1/2 hour til it went from buckets of rain to just regular rain. Riding along in it wasn't bad at all and it gradually died down as the storm moved ahead of us; we could watch its trailing edge quite clearly against the high overcast. In fact by the next rest stop at mile 95 it was actually sunny and HOT so all the newly aquired cold weather jerseys came off and our morning jerseys went back on (from a gear bag in the trailer where you can leave and pick up equipment during the day).
Another small note of record, can't leave Iowa without a nod to Queen Anne's Lace, Smooth Asters (purple), purple clover and the long stemmed Black Eyed Susans that have been along the roadsides, very pretty time of year. The state flower is a Wild Prarie Rose but not sure we've seen one, the other flowers have been everywhere. Not so many flowers as the CORN!, of course.
Then there was the mud. We'd been riding on roads closed to traffic but no issues so far, just a warning fence or two, and then in the last 100 yards of the road before it came to a T there was 50 feet of just mud we needed to cross (it went over a bridge, so no skirting it), apparently the last part of the construction project to be finished. Tom and I weren't riding together, but we both tried to cross the mud using covers on our cleats and both of us lost our covers, had to walk back through the mud to get them, and then had to deal with cleaning out the cleats to be able to connect to our pedals. It was a huge mess, I used muddy puddle water to rinse and a peice of straw to pick out the dirt. Tom rode a couple miles up the road before he could get water to rinse out his cleats and use them again. If you haven't tried it, riding without cleats attached to pedals is a very bad idea and the pedals we both use (Speedplay) are notorious for getting jammed up with road gunk.
Finally a last 25 miles into Mt. Pleasant, only the last 6 of which were terrifying, another highway with no shoulder (why doesn't this state have shoulders on its highways?) and truckers that are apparently unhappy with bikers. A few light drops of rain in the final bit, the real challenge was getting everything cleaned up and ready for tomorrow. Bikes cleaned, chains oiled, bike shoes cleaned out, clothes washed, and all this starting at 6pm or so due to the long day and hiding from the rain. Finally a quick dinner at Pizza Hut next door, to blog, and perchance to sleep.
Oh, and songs about the rain, plenty of time to think about that, it's what 10 people in a small trailer can do to stay busy for 1/2 an hour: The Who (Love Reign O'er Me), Aretha Franklin (I Can't Stand the Rain), ? (Singing in the Rain), Temptations (How I Wish That it Would Rain), Prince (Purple Rain), Peter Gabriel (Red Rain) and Supertramp (It's Raining Again).
Better weather prospects for tomorrow.

Day 20 PAC Tour - Colfax, IA to Mount Pleasant, IA by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-07-30T15:24:00.000-07:00

Day 20 PAC Tour - Colfax, IA to Mount Pleasant, IA by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details: "Share"

Day 19 Bumping through Iowa

2010-07-29T20:01:00.000-07:00

Tom here.......the day started off with an early departure (6:30) from Denison, IA (where they have the nicest dentists and dental assistants!) as this was the 2nd of 6 long (130 miles+) days of riding across the fruited plains of Iowa and Indiana. The weather was clear with dew on the grass and some spotty ground fog...temperatures in the 60's and just a bit muggy. Our first turn out of Denison was onto Donna Reed Parkway......named after the most famous product of Denison, outside of corn. The first 10 or so miles were on nice smooth pavement and light traffic. This changed quickly to a busy Highway 141 (Eastbound naturally) with very poor cracked & potted concrete roads. When we weren't bouncing over seams/cracks in the concrete, we were trying to stay upright as huge trucks hauling corn or pigs or cattle or something passed us going 60+. This stretch of road carried us to lunch...so about 4 hours of tense bike riding.

The remainder of the day were on less traveled roads, but just as poorly maintained. Probably shouldn't critize the State of Iowa since extreme weather conditions do adversely affect the roads in these parts....BUT (and I use the word figuratively as well), bike riders feel every crack, road joint, pothole, etc. Let me point out that there are 5 "contact points" that a rider has with his or her bike. The hands, feet and seat (Mike says, in particular the sensitive areas on the front of the seat!). After today's ride, all 5 points hurt...some more than others. As much as we rode today, our bikes were probably bounced around over 10,000 times....meaning our contact points took a lot of pounding today. Roadkill report...only 1 skunk....apparently there are no other animals (in Iowa) except humans and pigs that eat corn!

A note on the landscape change we noted today riding from Western Iowa to Central Iowa. There's still a lot of corn but the rolling hills have given way to more flat ground. And there appears to be more little towns and people now as we move easterly.

Tonight for dinner we succumbed to the McDonald's across the street from our Comfort Inn in Colfax. Cesar salads and Angus Burgers go pretty well with the Coors Light for Mike and a PBR for me that we bought from the adjoining truck stop shop. (It was OK'd by the McD's manager!) Dessert was McFlurry's.

Tomorrow's weather forecast has the potential for our first rains...even thunder showers....some severe! Our goal is to ride hard in the morning and try to outrun them...we'll see if we succeed. Stay tuned!

Note for bike geeks.....my bike is geared with a compact crank (50/34) and an 11/28 cassette. The combination works beautifully...especially the 11 as there a lot of downhills and wind-aided flats where you want to push a lower/harder gear...and sometimes just to keep up with the fast guys and their 53's. Tires...I am using Continental 4000's 4 Seasons and I may go all the way with just this set. I've suffered only one flat due to an industrial staple. I'd definitely recommend these tires for long distance touring. One other recommendation is a mirror of some sort....helmet or bike mounted. 2 reasons....one to see upcoming traffic and the second purpose is to see your fellow riders in case you dropped them and opened up a gap. It's no fun playing "yo-yo" from behind! Mike says, in other words Tom is being polite and tired of me bolting ahead without knowing where he is and him having to catch up. Oops. I do wish I had an 11 on my cassette, can't fly down the hills and you want to take advantage of that momentum where you can find it.

Day 19 PAC Tour - Denison, IA to Colfax, IA by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-07-29T14:47:00.000-07:00

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Day 17 & 18: South Dakota, Iowa and the Fruited Plains

2010-07-28T19:28:00.000-07:00

The way this blog is supposed to work is Tom takes pictures (by the hundreds) and I write words (similarly overdone) and that's how it goes. But nothing from me for the last couple days, it was the most grueling time I've ever spent on a bike or maybe anywhere else.

The bad started on the second half of day 15, from the Badlands to Murdo, which was 149 miles in the heat with southerly winds that picked up in the afternoon. The last 20 miles I had an escort of Jerry\MN, Tom and Karl (crew guy who rides 1/2 the time from Seattle), 2 in front, 1 beside, escorting me along. The next day started cooler and seemed doable. Then, as Tom said in his note, we missed the opportunity for protection and that turned into 146 lonely miles, the last 60 for each of us solo, just a drudging effort against the wind and more importantly the heat. 12 hours on any bike any day is a long day: it took a very cold bath to get rid of the hives from the heat on my legs. Then yesterday, day 17, a mere 115 miles. We started early (learning our lesson from the day before) riding with some faster guys for protection but I couldn't hold it, I was dry heaving alongside a cornfield 30 miles in (Happy Birthday Me!), and from there it took everything I could muster to not abandon the day. I couldn't eat or even look at food, could only stomach Coke, water and Endurolytes. Heat index which is heat and humidity was either 103 or 107 depending on who you asked, and the freaking afternoon wind was pounding. If you are 4 miles from the hotel riding straight into wind, every flag on the route standing straight out in the wrong direction, and you can only manage 8 mph, that's a half hour of time to really wonder what you're doing. Finally got to hotel. Wanted to go home. Sat in the cold swimming pool. Decided to see what tomorrow brought.

Through the whole day by the way, Tom was right there. Ok, he was telling the sag wagons not to stop for me, but still, he stayed out at least 2 extra hours vs riding off on his own in that miserable heat making sure I was still going. There were 5 or 6 people who left the ride yesterday due to cramps, throwing up or just exhausted, just that kind of day.

And then Day 18, this morning. It stormed overnight so everything was wet and we started 1/2 hour earlier (6:30am, just light) for a little more cool weather riding time. It got warm, up into the mid 80's, but the wind was from the north which helped push us south, and overall just a nicer day. Tom had to ride ahead with the fast pack to arrive early so we didn't see each other all day, he had a run in with a corn chip at dinner last night and fractured a tooth so had set up an afternoon dentist appointment waiting for him here in Denison. That all ended well, he got a temporary filling put on the tooth. Best of all, the dentist didn't charge for the appointment being the hospitable Iowan that he was; he also thought it was rather cool that cyclists were riding across the country and through his little (pop. 7600) town. Meanwhile I went solo almost the whole day, 128 miles and 4800 feet of climb, average of about 17mph (vs 15.2, 15.6, the previous two), Tom was much faster.

But the important thing is we're out of South Dakota, maybe it's not the state's fault we were so miserable but good to have it in the rear view mirror. Into Iowa, we reached the state line after the first 15 miles this morning, and it's wonderful. Really, it is. CORN! and Soybeans. And CORN! Like a wall to wall shag carpet on a very bumpy floor with little lines cut out North\South and East\West where they put in roads, but otherwise CORN! that goes forever and is planted like wheat, not in wide rows, but as thick as shag. And quaint towns and then more CORN! that is everywhere except the valleys between the hills where a muddy brown substance flows between the rocks. Yes hills, almost 5000ft of them, rolling down, rolling up, nothing flat, nothing too severe, just rolling hills up and down. Tom likely has a picture of that. Some trees too for occasional shade, but mostly really it's CORN! Verdant and lush and lots of it. CORN! (Tom here....once you've seen about 10 miles of corn fields in every direction, it's really not so exciting anymore....although Mike thinks it is. Whatever makes him happy...or may be he's delusional from all that heat?)

With the last two nights being so rushed and painful, tonight was massage for each of us and Pizza Hut delivered to the room so we could fix things (cleat), wash clothes, and catch up on computer time. Roadkill... hmm, I recall the unidentified objects of today, before that frankly it was either grasshoppers or Tom's rear hub (metalic red) that I remember seeing.

Day 18 PAC Tour - Vermillion, SD to Denison, IA by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-07-28T13:13:00.000-07:00

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Day 17 PAC Tour - Mitchell, SD to Vermillion, SD by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-07-27T14:49:00.000-07:00

Day 17 PAC Tour - Mitchell, SD to Vermillion, SD by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details: "Share"

Day 16 PAC Tour - Murdo, SD to Mitchell, SD by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-07-26T17:27:00.000-07:00

Day 16 PAC Tour - Murdo, SD to Mitchell, SD by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details: "Share"

Day 16 Brutal!

2010-07-26T17:21:00.001-07:00

It was a day we'll never forget...and not in a good way! Both of us were "cactus", Aussie slang for being totally exhausted, both physically and mentally.

The day started out like most previous rides. Mike and I were near the last ones on the road at 7:10...our first mistake. Then we stopped at a convenience store to buy some baby-wipes...don't ask, and then we looked around a low key but interesting pioneer museum at the first rest stop. Now we were well behind most other riders that we usually gang up with (Jerry\MN, Walt, maybe Wes if he is feeling slow) and facing a relatively strong SSE wind (10 to 20mph) winds on terrible roads. We were headed East, so not exactly a headwind but enough to slow us down by 3 to 5mph. The winds lasted the entire day, getting stronger in the afternoon. Absolutely the wrong day to be without a pack to share the load, like when Phil Ligget talks about a rider being stranded solo, we were that someone. Most days we start late and are plenty strong enoguh to ride through to folks to work with, this time being late early caught up with us.

The roads too were not our friends. These were old farm roads with lots of cracks, seams and frost heaves. And they were seemingly uphill most of the time as we were battling the wind. We actually rode on I90 (the Interstate) for about 10 miles which we liked as it was smooth and was more gradual in it's inclines and declines.

Temperatures approached 100F in the afternoon....but with the wind it only felt like 95F! It was hot.
Mike & I rode together until Chamberlain which is where we crossed the great Missouri River. Chamberlain is also where they have the South Dakota Hall of Fame. Quick.....can you name at least 2 people who are in the State's Hall of Fame? We couldn't come with any until later in the evening when we went out with a friend or a friend living in Mitchell, S.D. Give up? Two of the more famous South Dakotans would be George McGovern (ran for President in 1972 as a D against Nixon....and whose office was broken into at Watergate) and Tom Brokaw, the long-time anchor of NBC Nightly News.

Back to the ride....about 7 miles out of Chamberlain was our lunch stop where I arrived ahead of Mike by about 7 or 8 minutes. Turns out he nearly ripped a cleat off of his cycling shoes (he's a big powerful guy!) so that he was basically pedaling with one leg/foot. A screw was missing leaving 2 remaining which he tightened down and after lunch, rode to the next rest stop where he replaced his shoes with an extra pair out of his baggage (which was fortuitously at this stop). Since there wasn't anything I could do, I left Mike after lunch and road the remaining 62 miles by myself (as it turned out...Mike did as well).

Hot temperatures affect us differently....for me, it was bad but for Mike it was a lot worse. He would go through 2 water bottles within half the distance of the rest stops, and have nothing for nearly an hour of solitary riding. And he couldn't cool himself fast enough....he was about to go "cactus". I had a 5:00PM massage which I knew I couldn't make but Mike had one at 5:30 which I busted my butt to get to....rode the last 24 miles in 1:20 against a sidewind....basically a time-trial effort. Made it exactly at 5:30 but the maseusse looked at me and told me to get a shower first and he'd see me at 6:00. The massage near felt better. Mike finally showed up a few minutes before 7:00 and went straight to our room to take a cold shower to get his core temperature down. He succeeded somewhat and we were off to a 7:30 dinner with our Mitchell acquaintance.

What did we learn? Don't leave late/last.....drink lots and keep drinking....headwinds suck....and we're tired of South Dakota.

Stats......145 miles in a little under 9 hours for me (+10 hours for Mike)....16.4mph. Road kill? Too tired and hot to bother counting...and we can't remember. Suffice to say...there were deer, skunks, etc on the road.

Day 15: Our Day with the Acrididae Family

2010-07-25T18:37:00.000-07:00

Day 15: 148 miles, 2,800ft of climbing in something under 10 hours. Tom did it faster, the last 20 miles he took off to finish strong, I limped in with Jerry\MN riding next to me to make sure I was able to keep riding, pretty Cactus was I. It was a lot of big and flat ground with the very interesting Badlands National Park exactly in the middle of it. We had lunch there, plus 2 breaks before and 2 after due to the heat. Temperature was probably 95 degrees but it was over 100 on people's thermometers in terms of skin temp. Hot and dry. And after a calm morning we had a strong wind from the south nailing us as we headed due east. Doesn't sound as bad as it was because it wasn't a headwind, but it was howling and riding sideways to it still slows you down. The up and down of the last 40 miles of the trip became incredibly tough, the descents were very slow due to the wind and then it was just climb after climb. Too bad, the roads were awesome, a lot of new asphalt all the way to and through the park, and then very quiet frontage roads thereafter.

So a slog for 10 total hours in the sun, lots of tired faces tonight around the motel. Interesting things today were the snake that coiled in front of us and made our group of 4 scatter, you've never seen people move so fast. And there were the grasshoppers (Acrididae family). According to USDA there is a 25 year high in the grasshopper count - maybe the wet spring. They are everywhere, everywhere, twice as many as usual. It was like riding through a great big popcorn machine, they jump up, they get velocity, they smack you all over. The scary ones were the ones that were flying towards you and so the 30mph smack was noticable. Frequently they bounced off or into the spokes (PING!), sometimes the cassettes (people had to clean out their gearing of grasshopper guts). Tom was feeling persecuted because he thought he got hit more than anyone else (Jerry, Tom, and I did all the ride from lunch, joined later by Karl), but really we all got pinged, Tom just dislikes insects the most. So the sounds of the second half of the ride were squish, squish, PING! (off the spokes), squish, OW that hurts! (Tom), squish, squish, etc.

We lost another hour on arrival so feeling rushed tonight to be organized. Dinner at Sands restaurant, one of two here, with Bob (he of the 5 Bike Fridays).

Roadkill report was 3 deer, and antelope and a raccoon. And 10,000 grasshoppers.

Good news is that we are 15 days into our journey...with 15 to go. Half way in term of days and just 90 miles or so of being half way across the U.S. in terms of miles. No rain so far and winds mostly favorable. We're hoping for more of the same!

Note: Article on us in the major Estonian newspaper did publish in print and is available for viewing at www.postimees.ee/?id=290624

Day 15 PAC Tour - Rapid City, SD to Murdo, SD by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-07-25T15:25:00.000-07:00

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Day 14 PAC Tour - Custer, SD to Rapid City, SD by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-07-24T18:49:00.000-07:00

Day 14 PAC Tour - Custer, SD to Rapid City, SD by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details: "Share"

Day 14: Almost Rest in South Dakota

2010-07-24T15:59:00.001-07:00

Day 14: 1 more day to half way through the trip. A short ride today, 45 miles for Mike, 74 for Tom (although he had 6,000ft of climbing) in an untracked amount of time as we were indifferent to average speed. Why so short? Because PACTour planned the day to see things in the Black Hills of South Dakota including the Crazy Horse Monument, Mt Rushmore (overrated in my book…), amazing wildlife (see pictures of buffalo and antelope), and to ride carefully avoiding the pickups towing campers and 40 foot RVs. By the way, we’re in the part of the world with drive through liquor stores and if you buy a mobile home it comes with its own junk car collection…

So… we had a short day, up and down and up and down (they are the Black Hills, after all) from Custer through Keystone and out to Rapid City so our faithful readers (both my mom and Tom’s wife Laurie) can have a short time reading about it.

Early dinner tonight, early breakfast tomorrow (5:30am), 148 miles through the Badlands and the flats in 90 degree heat await. Minimum road kill today, I don’t think anything to report in fact.

Addendum from Tom…..my “long” short day was one of my Top 10 scenic bike rides I’ve ever done! The loop through Custer Sate Park was fantastic with numerous ups and downs on smooth quiet roads through pine forest and open meadows. The highlight was cycling on the road through a herd of buffalo as they were grazing on the sides. Lots of antelope and gophers (prairie dogs) to be seen as well. The loop took us on a small road restricted from RV’s and big trucks, mainly because of some short small tunnels carved through the rock/hillsides. One of the tunnels was lined up perfectly that one could see Mt Rushmore through the other end. I must say that Mt Rushmore from a distance is just as impressive as up close. Looking forward to a nice meal in Rapid City this evening and a good night’s rest in preparation for what could be the most challenging 2 days of riding so far this trip.

Day 14: Easy Times in South Dakota

2010-07-24T15:59:00.000-07:00

Day 14: just 1 more day to half way through the trip. A short ride today, just 45 miles for Mike, 74 for Tom (although he had 6,000ft of climbing) in a random amount of time as we were indifferent to average speed since it was so short a ride. Why so short? Because there is much to see in the Black Hills of South Dakota so a short day was planned by PACTour around stops at the Crazy Horse Monument, Mt Rushmore (overrated in my book…), beautiful wildlife viewing (see pictures of buffalo and antelope), and avoiding the pickups towing campers and 40 foot RVs. By the way, we’re in the part of the world with drive through liquor stores and if you buy a mobile home it comes with its own junk car collection…

So… we had a short day, just up and down (they are the Black Hills, after all) from Custer through Keystone and out to Rapid City so our faithful readers (both my mom and Tom’s wife Laurie) can have a short time reading about it.

Early dinner tonight, early breakfast tomorrow (5:30am), 148 miles across the badlands and the flats in 90 degree heat await. Minimum road kill, I don’t think anything to report in fact.

Day 13: Leaving Wyoming, into South Dakota

2010-07-23T15:36:00.000-07:00

114 miles, 6 miles short of what the route card said, in 5:4_ with 3,872ft of climbing and average of 19.7 (Tom) or 19.9 (Mike). Another of the "I can't believe how lucky we have been with the weather" kind of day, morning in low 70s and up to mid 80s by the time we arrived in Custer, blue skies the whole day. As one example, on Monday there was a very nasty hailstorm near Gillette that broke windows and dented cars, something we completely missed.

Before today's recap though a small addition for yesterday. After we left Sheridan through 20 miles of landscape as drawn by Dr Suess (humps, bumps, and lumps in a crazy configuration that made no sense whatsoever) and before our first antelope we massacred 'em by the hundreds. Grasshoppers that is. They were everywhere, invisible to us on the sand colored asphalt of Rt 14. They make a little crackle when the tires crush them, they ping off the spokes, and they slap into your chest or legs. But they are all over: hopper season is upon us and apparently it gets painful at times as a big bug and 20mph don't mix well.

Today. We started off after 7am and rode for an hour - 20 miles - and still we were along the remnants of Gillette's "The energy capital of the nation!" industrial footprint in the form of very long train yards. If you like mile-long trains of coal by the dozens, industrial plants with tall smokestacks belching white smoke, open pit mines, pumpjacks with its horse head nodding up and down or natural gas refining center then get to Gillette and head east. Tom is a fan (industry!), I am less so. When we finally got out of Gillette's long footprint, it was, well, boring. Just continuous pastures rolling a bit in all directions with short grass and sage and the very occasional cow. The two highlights were a brief glimpse of Devil's Tower to our north, it looked like a small blue thimble on the horizon, and the act of topping a small rise in the prarie, seeing the next 8 miles of road extend to another little bump, riding that distance, topping the next little rise, and repeating the exercise.

We had two rest stops and then lunch in Newcastle, all of this along Rt 16 so easy to find our way, and then it got more interesting. As Tom said it looked like the area west of Spokane with pine trees starting to pop up and then becoming predominant. Then we started into South Dakota and the Black Hills, which are very much hills with real ups and downs amid a burned out forest of dead pine trees. Tom and I parted at the last rest stop, 17 miles to go, with me racing Kurt (the Swiss rider) up and down the hills which is maybe not such a smart idea (Kurt won the time trial up the Bighorn) and Tom following shortly thereafter. We had held a 20mph average all day by bombing along the flat roads (24, 26mph), right up to the start of the Black Hills but there would be no more of that.

Now we're in Custer, short day tomorrow to Rapid City and we're off to new places. Dinner at the Cattleman's Steakhouse with Jerry\MN, Steady Bob, Walt, and Australian Jonathan. Very fun dinner full of ideas for future trips i.e. 4 month trips from Peru to southern tip of Argentina, riding in the Race Across America, but "first thing is the family has to go."

Attrition report: Greg (Vikki's husband) only had a week to ride so he left last Sunday; Bob on the Bike Friday (Vienna, Virginia) joined us in Powell, Montana; David Soloman (Oz) left us in Sheridan to go back and work; the tandem riders who we never really got to know are leaving after tomorrow (the husband also did the Elite tour earlier this year...); "Steady Bob" from Virginia is leaving tomorrow for a bike trip in Alaska; and Tom (Silicon Valley) is calling it quits having done the mountain riding he's excited about. Janae continues to ride\not ride based on how her knee feels, everyone else is still pumping along. Including some (like Tom) who just got back from a little extra ride out to see the Crazyhorse monument (me, I have a massage...)

And roadkill: people don't like skunks I think, 4 dead and 1 deer plus a couple squirrels here in the hills.

Day 13 PAC Tour - Gillette, WY to Custer, SD by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-07-23T14:24:00.000-07:00

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Day 12; Where the deer & the antelope play

2010-07-22T20:34:00.000-07:00

Started off the morning in Sheridan, WY to a beautiful sunrise and comfortable temperatures in the high 50's. We both liked the Western feel to Sheridan....the main street with shops to buy saddles and real cowboy hats and boots! But there's no shopping or stopping at 7:00AM rollout time...it's time to ride! We were on our way to Gillette, about 110 miles away on Hwy 14. Just one turn to make out of town onto the 2 lane State highway and go East.

The route was memorable for the rolling green hills right out of Sheridan. Mike kept asking....where did this come from? The views to the Southwest were of the mountains that we just climbed over the day before...the Bighorns. As we got further away from Sheridan, may be 15 miles or so, the hills started to get smaller and browner and soon we were in a drier and less agricultural lands. We did see the occasional cattle herds scapering away from the road as we passed as well as some beautiful horses (wild?) grazing alongside...but the real treat were the Pronghorn antelope that peered at us suspicously as we rode. We were truly in the land where the antelope played!

Right outside of Gillette, we passed a huge strip mining operation with the classic gigantic dump trucks hauling ore (or dirt?) from one place to another. Gillette calls itself the "Energy Capital of the Nation", we imagine that's from all the natural gas operations in the area. Gasoline is a bargain here at $2.62/gallon. No wonder Wyoming has so many big pick-up trucks!

Staying at our 6th Super 8 motel with a 7th night tomorrow in Custer, SD. Mike & I went the mile into town and found "the best pace" to eat in town......the Chop House"....and it was very good...filled with locals eyeing us as suspciously as the antelope we saw earlier when we walked in with cycling shoes and t-shirts/casual wear.

As a side note, my sister reminded me that the Gillette community was a sponser of various Estonian refugee families after WWII. One family, the Repnau's spent a number of years here before moving onto the L.A. area. Apparently there were a couple of waves of Estonian immigrants to Gillette.....one in the teen's and twenties and the other, after WWII. I tried looking up some familiar Estonian surnames in the phonebook (under "K" and "T", mostly) and found a few families that could very well be 2nd or 3rd generation Estonians in the area. A further side note, An email from my friend Andres remarked that his only memory of passing through Gillette many years ago was that the local high school team was named the "camels"....probably due to arid look to the local landscape!

Back to the ride today......108 miles in 5:58 for an 18.1mph pace. Nearly 4,000 feet of climb over many rollers. Roadkill...4 skunks and 1 antelope. Both Mike & I are pleasantly surprised that we feel as good as do right now. No real soreness or aches....the massages really help. The weather conditions have been extremely favorable for us through the first 12 days.....absolutely no rain and tailwinds for the most part. And the forecast for the next few days is more of the same.....as Mike would say....woo wee!

Finally, the article in the Estonian newspaper "Postimees" of us cycling across America (and raising funds for the UW Baltic Studies Program...for me anyways) has published. Unfortunately it is on the Internet site only and it is by paid subscription....so not readily accessible. If anyone out there has a subcription and could find the time to write and short synopsis in English in the following comment section...that would be great. Otherwise the author of the article has promised to send me a paper copy of the article in the mail...which I'll see when I get back in mid-August. Seems like a long time from now and many miles away but it's going by fast!

Day 11 PAC Tour - Powell, WY to Sheridan, WY by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-07-22T17:15:00.000-07:00

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Day 12 PAC Tour - Sheridan, WY to Gillette, WY by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-07-22T14:25:00.000-07:00

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Day 11: Across and Over in Wyoming

2010-07-21T21:29:00.000-07:00

Day 11: 123 miles in 7:14 with 7,500ft, average about 17mph. Which is a massive understatement for the day it was: big ups, big downs, a time trial, verdant alpine fields, and our high altitude mark for the trip. The relevant data is… Powell, Wyoming is at 4,390ft, our starting place. We descended over 32 miles to Bighorn Lake at 3,760ft which was the base of a time trial to climb 4,500ft over 18 miles, then still another 10 miles and 1,500ft to the real top at 9,340ft, enjoyed first stage of a fast descent to lunch, then an amazing second downhill to 4,340ft, and finally a 20 mile roll out to Sheridan at 3,742ft. To put our Wyoming day in perspective, our previous highs were Steven’s Pass (4,080 ft) in the Cascade Range, the Continental Divide (5,902 ft) near Butte, and Bozeman Pass (5,712 ft) in the Gallatin Mountains. Today we did the equivalent of starting at one of those and adding another 4,000ft.

Since long climbing days increase the time we're on a bike we had an early breakfast at 6:00 and were on the road by 6:40. The morning roll was incredibly quiet, nobody up at that hour, and much warmer than the last couple days. The time trial was optional for those that wanted to participate. Jerry\Minnesota (2 Jerrys, 3 Gregs, 3 Jonathans, and 4 Toms, but only one Mike on the trip) set up a competition where you bought in at $5 and guessed your time and the person closest to being right got the pot. The all time PacTour record for the climb is 1:25. Again that’s for 18 miles and 4,500ft of vertical following 14 Alt (there are two Rt 14s on the map, this was the more northerly route near Burnt Mountain). I guessed 2:27 (my birthdate and 2 hours more). Tom guessed 2:05 figuring he was within a mile per hour of the best time during the last trip which was 1:45. First 9 miles were an increasingly steep false flat, looked easy but had to ride in the small chain ring at 14 mph. I got to 9 miles in 37 minutes. Then steeper around some corners, I had 12 miles in 1 hour. So then it was just a question of holding 6 mph for 6 miles to beat two hours which I thought was more than honorable. Grind, grind, grind up the barren steep hillsides. I finished in 1:43, Tom in 1:37, the second fastest for guys! Priska (Swiss girl) set a new record for women at 1:45 (she is slight thing who together with boyfriend Kurt maybe weigh 225lbs). A lot of tired people at the end point\rest stop.

Then it got interesting, from way down below it looked like another mountain chain, so get to the top, and then go down the other side. But no, it’s a 100mile by 20 mile plateau that runs NW\SE so at the top of the time trial first there’s more climbing and then there is the traverse. And it’s beautiful, down in the valley below either it’s irrigated or it’s desolate. Up at the top was Switzerland in Wyoming with vast high meadows, evergreens, cows (but no cowbells!), snow in random crevices and acres of wildflowers in bloom. I took notes: purple Lupen, small white pillows of Alpine Phlox, yellow Shrubby Cinquefoil (looks like buttercups), delicate blue clumps of Alpine Forget me Not and both Wild Buckwheat and Bistort which throw up beige bulbs at the top of an 8 inch stalk. All we needed was Julie Andrews to complete the scene (and cowbells, we need more cowbells!). This lasted all the way across the top and the first part of descent until we started dropping down the far side\2^nd descent through some non-triumphant construction. The 2^nd descent was twisting and dropped about 12 miles with consistent 35 to 40mph speeds back into the heat, overcast skies (it was perfectly clear on top) and the desperate need to water or grow nothing. The last peice was racing the overcast sky that threatened to open up on us before we reached Sheridan. Arrival was close to 4:00pm.

Dinner was at the 1893 Inn and Saloon with Jerry, a Buffalo Bill Cody hang out back in the day. Steak was good, that and frozen things (shrimp, walleye) seem to be the only choices in these parts. The town is cowboy central, many shops with hats, boots and saddles and feels completely authentic, no ski town "come dress like the locals" feel to it at all.

Roadkill count included two raccoons, a porcupine, a couple completely unknown creatures (or “urp”…unidentified road pelts) . There were deer (live ones) throughout the trip in the low areas.

Day 10: 1,000 Miles and Wyoming too!

2010-07-20T20:43:00.000-07:00

Tom here.....this morning we left Columbus, Montana in weather very much like home (Seattle). Overcast skies and cool temperatures. Nearly everyone brought out vests and arm warmers, and either carried their rain coats or wore them, so the first 10 miles were slightly uphill and a good warm-up. Then it got ugly quickly....we were in a road construction zone for 6 miles. Much like riding Paris-Roubaix (not that we've ever ridden the cobbles) with patches of soft dirt thrown in. Twice we had to stop and follow a pilot car, much to the chagrin of the following cars and trucks which were limited to our 15mph. But we all got through it safely and found ourselves in big hill country....wave after wave of lush green hills due to the wet spring where we'd launch off the top of one crest down into the trough and grind our way back up (8, 9, 10, 12% inclines), only to repeat the excercise time after time. The waves formed an ocean of ridges to all sides except to the south where off in the distance were mountains with their tops enshrouded in clouds. We finally climbed onto a plateau and immediately dropped to a river valley and the town of Red Lodge. Harley Davidsons outnumbered pick-up trucks which is hard to do in Montana. The town obviously caters to this set during the summer months which is the access point to the Bear Tooth mountain pass (at 11k feet) as a "must see" for the motorized set...we quickly rode through town in our spandex!

Another short climb and we were out of the lush green grass, which was replaced by fields of sagebrush, setting up a very fun 2 mile steep descent before the second rest stop. Speeds on the descent were 40+mph (almost 50mph says Mike, but we don't want to scare wives, moms, etc) and the highest since those wind-aided sprints in Eastern Washington. We joined a fast paceline into lunch at the Montana Wyoming border. ...our 4th State this trip. Amongst the choices for lunch were regular or chili hot dogs served with baked beans. There was talk of having a separate paceline after lunch for those who had the chili dogs...for obvious reasons!

The remainder of the ride was incredibly bleak as far as the landscape. Mostly shades of brown and gray, lots of sandy soil. Nothing growing except ground hugging cactus (ironic) and small scrages of sage brush. Think of the painted desert without the paint, or the hunting scene in "No Country for Old Men." Desolate, deserted, dry, empty. The only sign of life a vulture peering down from a high vantage spot on a rocky outcropping as we rode by, not exactly a good sign. But after a mile climb at mile 95 up onto another plateau everything changed back to green (sugar beets, I think), ah, the wonders of irrigation.

8 miles straight, 7 miles left and we were done, arrived in Powell around 3:00PM...110 miles, in a little over 6 hours for an 18.1mph avg...and a little over 5,000 of climbing. The weather did manage to clear before lunch and heat up to the mid-80's by mid-afternoon. Once again it's a Super 8 stay with dinner at the next door Pizza Hut....hey, they have pasta as well! Road kill report...a deer, a skunk, and an "urp" (unidentified road pelt, sometimes that's all that's left).

Yesterday, Day 9 I did feel great...probably due to a great massage the afternoon before and eating, drinking and resting appropriately. And as Lance explained, some days you're the hammer and some days you're the nail. Yesterday was more the hammer and today somewhere in between. Tomorrow Day 11 is supposedly one of the toughest days of the Tour with a climb up Big Horn....18 miles and 4500' of gain.

Day 10 PAC Tour - Columbus, MT to Powell, WY by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-07-20T14:40:00.000-07:00

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Day 9, Flying Along

2010-07-19T14:40:00.001-07:00

104 miles (which required a Tour de Parking Lot to be able to get that last .13 miles, I told you Tom does things like that) in 5:16 so a shade under 20mph average with just 2000 feet of climbing. In the interest of complete disclosure there was a 1400 ft drop from starting point to ending point, hence the trip profile was an incline to Bozeman Pass and then a 90 mile shallow descent to the end of the ride, thus the high speed (2.5mph faster average than yesterday) and short day (into hotel at 1:00pm, earliest yet). The route was either on I90 or on frontage roads the whole way, so pretty easy to follow the path.

The next time Tom fusses about "gosh, I don't feel like it was a rest day for me, I'm sort of tired...," which he did yesterday, don't believe him. Between the massage last night and listening to his iPod this morning I had to chase Mr Piss and Vinegar all the way to lunch, he was flying! Not always the best road, unfortunately. The Bozeman Pass on I90 was heavily sanded in winter so the space we ride between the rumble strip (the concrete dents that make noise when you drive on them) and the guard rail was filled with tire fragments and small sand dunes that were very squirrely. Passing another rider was tough too: jump over the rumble strip trying to hang onto handlebars as you get tossed about by the uneven asphalt into the traffic lane (checking first for cars) and then back over the rumble strip to safety like a clown fish darting out from an anemone. We all got through it with only a honk or two, one rider was stopped by state police for crossing the white line into the traffic lanes. Um, how about that truck that couldn't be bothered to inch away from his side of the white line when he passed us? It really isn't that scary, semis are fast and close by, most important thing is to stay steady and straight, they have other things to do. Susan, however, was fired up about the police stop and from then on every siren she heard led to "must be one of those evil bikers again!" At the top of the pass there was a plaque dedicated to Lewis and Clark which noted they were of different temprements but worked very well together to accomplish amazing things. I pointed it out to Tom but he was too busy reprogramming his Garmin to provide a rolling week over week average of his heartrate to notice...

After the pass lots of frontage roads that provided training for South Dakota: dead flat and straight for 14 miles at a time. Livingston and Big Timber (where there are no more timbers) were two of the towns we went through. Livingston is heart of fly fishing in these parts and where I visited Kathy back in 1994 (she was 22, I was 29) during the first summer we dated. That doesn't sound right: I came to visit her and happened to fly fish while here, maybe that's better?

The pass also brought a change from red-brown dirt hills which gave way to grey rock escarpments and stubbier trees, a more desolate and arid climate. The sky is still big though, today was "oh beautiful for spacious skies" day although late in the afternoon it sprinkled just a bit, our first sign of rain. Columbus is a quaint working town, a row of shops and bars on a single road opposite the railroad track, a working grain elevator and small train station in the middle of it all, then a glory of truck stops and fast food shops closer to the highway. We've seen a couple defunct grain elevators and a practical ghost town at Springdale, this was the first one still working.

Also today the group's first attrition: one rider with torn knee ligiments (Janae) and the other just because. Janae will take off a few days and go on, not sure about the other. Which reminds me that last week we saw a video of Lon and Susan setting the cross country record on a tandem in the early 80s and I asked afterwards when he figured out he was a metabolic\oxygen freak of nature. His answer was that he wasn't, he'd done the testing (VO2 Max, muscle fibre composition, etc) and in his mind it was just about determination. He also said that any number of riders over the years have (to his face) said they could do RAAM faster than he did and his answer is always the same, well, you should do it then. And not one of them ever has. One thing to contemplate, another to make the claim, and yet another, much harder to do, to find the motivation to keep the legs moving every day, day after day.

Road kill was plentiful unfortunately. 4 deer, 3 skunks, 2 fox, a couple rabbits, 3 magpies, 2 little yellow warblers and a Mallard Drake. Also saw a live snake (rattler?) and a cute little ferrit hop out of the grass and dodge back in. Dinner was in town, Tom and I rode our bikes in (helmets, cycling shoes, street clothes, a great look) down the front street and ate at a steak house where I enjoyed an imported bottle of beer dated "best by April, 2008". In Montana, drink the draft...

Day 9 PAC Tour - Bozeman, MT to Columbus, MT by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-07-19T13:34:00.000-07:00

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Day 8 "Super 8"

2010-07-18T19:47:00.000-07:00

Tom here....how appropriate that on our 8th day of The Ride, we are going from one Super 8 motel in Butte to another Super 8 in Bozeman. Only to be followed by another Super 8 stay in Columbus, MT tomorrow evening! We're really getting to know the interior decorating scheme fairly well...plus the room layout and TV channel line-up. Unfortunately none get Versus TV so there's no Tour de France coverage except for a blurb on ESPN.

While Mike calls the past 2 days "easy", he's speaking for himself. For me, there were moments where I just didn't feel on top of it...or as a fellow rider put it...I just didn't have any snap in my legs. In the pre-ride info packet, they did say that fatigue can start settling in after the first week of a long tour. So I'm trying to be careful about getting enough rest/sleep, getting off my feet whenever possible, and drinking and eating enough of the right stuff. A massage earlier this evening should help matters as well.

I believe Mike did not update the blog readers as to a road kill count for today.....it was epic....easily into double figures with a variety of critters/animals. The only ones I can easily identify are the skunks and deer...coyotes, bunnies, foxes, prairie dogs, etc. are left up to Mike. Either he really can identify smashed and flattened road kill or he just speaks convincingly of it (he was in Sales & Marketing after all) I don't know. At any rate, in a following blog entry he'll update the tally.

I hope blog readers have clicked on my daily Garmin downloads. The Garmin 705 unit that I use is full of neat/cool data (I was an accountant after all!) including average speed, top speed, elevation gained, various heart rate data, etc. Note that it's my heart rate and not Mike's...he's much younger! But what's really cool is the detailed mapping of our daily route. All the side roads, getting off and on I90, etc. You may even see spots where we've made a slight detour for an ice cream or a "nature" break!

We're roughly 25% of the way across the U.S. and enjoying the journey (for the most part) so far.

Day 8: relatively a rest day

2010-07-18T15:54:00.000-07:00

Into Bozeman from Butte: 101 miles and 3778 feet in 5:54 ride time so just 17.6mph. After the last two days of 135+ this felt easy, out of the hotel at 7:15 and into Bozeman hotel 7 hours later, exactly when motel room keys were being passed out so arriving any earlier would have been meant cooling our heels in the McDonald's next door to pass the time. Same cool morning, clear blue skies, and just into the 90s in the afternoon that we've had the last couple days.

The route was simple, out of Butte on Rt 2 and over Deer Lodge pass (at 5902ft). Due to the very leisurely start to the ride and the climb it took an hour to get the first 11 miles done. The continental divide is there at the top, as we crossed it we left the forrested mountains and rivers and dropped in broad grasslands. Still hills and stark edges of course, it's not Kansas, but lots more brown vs green in the scenery and the fields in some place rolled to the edge of the horizon against the distant snow covered peaks. Jerry (Minnesota) pronounced the day "purple mountains majesty day" which really fit. We saw the amber waves of grain in eastern Washington, here we're in another stanza. The Tabacco Root mountains to our south, Gallatins to the east, Pintlers to the west, big snow streaked peaks on all edges of our position in the middle of it.

From Rt 2 we switched to Rt 359 through Harrison and and then 287 through Norris and a left there onto Rt 84 all the way into Bozeman. Rt 84 parallels the Madison River which runs wide and shallow, full of float tubers and fisherman on a hot, sunny Sunday. We had lunch on the shore of the river, 25 miles out of Bozeman, watching the rafters go by and wishing we'd remembered swimming suits, even for a quick shallow dip. The road was busy with 1 lane in each direction, a 70mph speed limit, and shoulders to ride on, about half the time. Not the best with all the rafters and occasional semi going by but we all made it in.

Tomorrow's the same profile as today, 100 miles and 3000 feet, so a couple itineraries that fill well in the context of a short day before some significant climbing in Wyoming and of course there is the day after day aspect of the trip to survive. But so far, excellent.

And the road kill report: 2 deer, a fox, coyote, couple skunks and rabbits. Busy keeping track! Dinner was with John and Mary Jo, good friends of Mike's from Seattle and now in Bozeman, and Tom was off to dinner at the Montana Baccus (on the main drag of Bozeman).

Day 8 PAC Tour - Butte, MT to Bozeman, MT by tnapa at Garmin Connect - Details

2010-07-18T14:32:00.000-07:00

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Day 7, See, it got harder, like we said it would

2010-07-17T19:05:00.001-07:00

From Missoula to Butte, 134 miles, 7:25 ride time and 18.1mph average including 4900 feet of climbing. Another beautiful day of blue skies and mountains and rivers and all the things you expect in a Montana summer, plus road kill, more on that later.

For the first morning Tom and I weren't last out of the parking lot, which was interesting to watch happen. At exactly 7:00 (can't load bags til then, remember the atomic clock on the trailer? no loading til it's time to load, a Lon Rule) there was a line 20 people long waiting to dump their bags. By 7:04 many bags were loaded and the parking lot was 1/2 empty of bikes. We were somewhere towards the end of the scrum, but still earlier than usual, with arm warmers and vests for a 60 something degree morning. The route was on Rt 200 east and a frontage road for 17 miles, then onto I90 in a 6 person fast paceline for 17 miles, and then a frontage road til we were 51 miles down the road and turned onto Rt 1, the Pintler Scenic Route. It was definitely scenic, we turned a corner coming into Phillipsburg where we had lunch with big mountains capped with snow straight ahead (the... Pioneers?). Post lunch a quick climb (after a long morning of rolling hills and edging upward) to Georgetown Lake at about 6300 feet, then fast down into Anaconda and I90/backroads into Butte. Two long days in a row, some tired faces tonight and slow standing up from dinner as a result, but everyone seems to be in a good mood (the smoothies that Susan made for us while cleaning bikes helped). Dinner was across the street at a Casino\restaurant, nobody was walking much further than that. The one thing that is mounting is annoyance that we can't stop more often: there are small museums, interesting main streets, antique shops, outlooks, the Butte copper mine (one dang big hole in the ground) and yet we left at 7 and arrived at 4:30 so we feel pressured to keep going in the midst of so many possible distractions.

Road kill was more interesting today, 2 deer, 1 fox, 4 skunks and a couple rabbits. Greg, the 17 year old on his 3rd cross country tour (!), didn't find a single license plate though, he collects the ones he finds by side of the road and found 5 of them yesterday. That said, we did all ride over one (including him) but he was in a paceline and didn't dare stop to pick it up.

And a special treat, Ned's sister Buffy was driving to Missoula today and spotted us and pulled over to wave her arms so we'd stop; she knew to look for us and was great to see someone familiar out in the wilds of Montana.