Tuesday, September 8th, 34.8 miles and 925 accumulated vertical feet up.
Short easy day today, we rolled down hill most of the route to a bike shop on the North Side of Steamboat Springs. I had a broken handlebar Grip that needed replacing and my back brakes were noisy. Scott had brake issues and a little adjustment here and there. We went across the street and had a beer and our bikes were ready to go when we got back to the Orange Peel Bike Shop, a great group of young men working in there.
Here’s a few quick pics
This afternoon we met some great friends (Don & Jean) of John’s, they have driven up from Silverthorne Colorado to take John to safety. He thinks that because of the high elevation we are riding through he is not able to eat properly and his lips are extremely chapped and dry. John C. We are very sorry to see you leaving this adventure, we’ll catch up in Silverthorne. Don and Jean were very good company for us to share a great Stake House dinner with this evening. I found their conversation very interesting and a tremendously good change from my biking routine… we will be meeting them at the hotel breakfast tomorrow and again when we get to Silverthorne in a few days!
Wednesday, September 9th, 35.6 miles and 2994 accumulated vertical feet up.
We are camping in Lynx Pass Campground at 9000 feet above sea level. Today’s ride was one of the best so far, for the following reasons: it was short, the weather was perfect, there were zero head winds, the roads and trails were in good condition, the scenery was varied and wonderful, the campground is quiet and pretty and finally, the only other campers in this campground are a group of 4 hunters who realize how difficult it is to bike pack this type of adventure… They gave us a jug of water, four home made freeze dried meals, some Honey Stinger Waffles and several other nice food/treats. Very Nice!!! Thank You hunters from Michigan!
Prior to about a week ago we were seeing bicycle tracks in the dust/sand on the GDMBR in front of us on a regular basis, sometimes as many as 4 tracks and we were regularly getting updates from North Bounders about who was ahead of us. Now nothing, we are beginning to think we are the only South Bounders left on the GDMBR this season.
Maybe you are wondering, why did they have such a short day today and other days are considerably longer?? Well along the GDMBR you find yourself in the most undeveloped areas of country, like today (and many previous) we didn’t pass by any gas stations, or C-stores or hotels and only a limited amount of suitable places to camp. Also we need to consider the terrain, if we go up 2500 ft and the only way to extend the days ride to the next place we could stay is to go up another 2500 ft we probably will stop. Like today we had the ability to get to a campsite about 20 miles further but it would not benefit us, it would make the following day very short and we didn’t know what that 20 miles ahead campground was like but the one we were in was very nice.
We also saw a very good looking Bald Eagle Today!
Gotta tell you— after lunch I was pretty much out of water so just up the road from here I saw a construction worker moving a truck inside a gated home’s yard, I waved the young man down and asked if he could fill my water bottles, he did, I drank and what a surprise, the homeowners well was a naturally carbonated mineral water that was Awesome! Anyway we thanked him and he asked us a few questions about our adventure and we rode on. Tremendous Water!
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