Lots of photos

Pictures from the trip!

Santa Fe

Making arrangements and enjoying Santa Fe before flying out on Monday. Photos and such:

Nachos with pork belly. Because America. And the divide.

Naked bikes! Weird!

In the box. Much easier than last time.

Jennie putting the finishing touches on her bike.

That's it. Bikeless in Santa Fe. They're being shipped.

To celebrate. Nice tequila. When in Rome.. (Or close to Rome)

The final push

Stayed in Chama last night. Weird campground.

We rode the 60 miles to Abiquiu before noon and didn't feel like stopping so we kept going. (No rain!!)

110 miles in the desert heat and now we're in Santa Fe! A fitting end to this trip.

This motel is terrible but looking forward to some rest, food, and beers.

Us. Bright sun. Tired. Relieved.

Camel rock?

Echo amphitheater.

Off route in New Mexico

From Del Norte we rode 12 or so miles up the road between thunderstorms to get to a cabin available for cyclists. It was not what we expected! I have a lot more pictures but this is the only one on my phone. It was an amazing place with everything homemade and a lot of metal work.

From there it was up Indiana pass to the highest elevation on the route! 11910! It was a high point literally and figuratively for the day. Shortly after we got caught in yet another storm. Fortunately we rolled up to a cabin full of atv'ers and they let us take shelter and fed us! We got rained on more on the way down to Platoro and were so cold that we just stopped riding there. Oh and we hit more mud that rendered our drive trains inoperable. Had to wash them in a stream best we could before continuing.

We decided after this ride, one of several in succession, that we were done. We were going to ride the route to Abiquiui or Cuba but the map warns of bad mud in rain and our nerves are shot from all the thunderstorms. We've been riding early to avoid them but they've been hitting before noon the past few days. We've been starting our days not looking forward to riding but dreading when the storms would hit and how vulnerable we'd be.

So we're riding roads to Santa Fe from here. We'll get there a bit early so we're hoping to ride some single track somewhere nearby once we get there.

Riding up out of the valley (Conejos canyon) we rode down from Platoro. Pretty but one of the worst roads we've been on.

Made it to NM today also. Rode the great divide route all the way through CO except for the last few miles where we diverted to the road.

Del Norte, CO

Saw a rattlesnake this morning. It rattled at me. A first!

Also saw big horn sheep!

Also saw rocks and sand! 

It was a very pretty ride. Sitting in Three Barrels brewery in Del Norte waiting for a hailstorm to pass before setting off another 10 miles up the road.

Beer rest day. Salida, CO

A rest day focused on beer, not a rest day from beer.

We rolled into Salida around mid day Friday and went straight to the bike shop. Despite a previous diagnosis and "repair" that didn't work, the bike mechanic at sub culture bike shop found my headset to be quite the train wreck. He was super nice and got us out of there in a few hours and with way less monetary damage than he rightfully could of. Feels nice now.

While the bike was being serviced we ate pizza and had beer at moonlight pizza. Their white ipa was tasty and a saison mixed with hard apple cider was surprisingly nice!

Then it was off to Amica brewing where I had another saison that was great. Best in a while. 

While picking up the bike, Murph arrived. We guided on the Lehigh river about 8 years ago and I hadn't seen him since. Murph was always one of my favorite people so it was great that his plans for going to the salida beer festival coincided with our trip!! We had a great time catching up.

The festival was Saturday and was fantastic. Lots of solid saisons, session pales, a few notable sours, and one or two stand out IPAs. Best beer festival I've been too hands down, and I was introduced to the pretzel necklace, which I'm sure will now be standard equipment.

Murph was also at the festival with a dozen or more friends from CO. It was great to meet them all!

Short ride today due to logistics. Up and over Marshall pass, just under 11k. At the top we got caught in a gnarly thunderstorm with a bunch of other people and all crowded into an outhouse. That makes two outhouse shelters for this trip. 

Nice descent to Sargents where we ate and watched pea size hail fall. Sleeping here tonight and then off to who knows where tomorrow. 7 days of riding left.

Notable animal sightings recently: coyote and porcupine. 

Hartsel ranch and moonlight.

Not sure I've seen a cactus blooming before. From our campsite for two nights in salida.

Me, Murph, pretzel necklaces.

Hartsel

In Hartsel, CO today after about 70 miles. It was a nice bike path cruise from Silverthorne to Breckenridge and then a nicely graded, very scenic climb up to Boreas pass, 11,482 ft! 

Got poured on on the way down but then it was pretty cool for the rest of the ride to Hartsel. On pace for beer in Salida tomorrow!

On the road out of Breckenridge

Pass beer (a la summit beer) felt surprisingly good climbing up there.

2 lunches, 1 dinner, 2 days of snacks 

Silverthorne, CO

Climbs!

First we climbed up away from the Colorado river through the mouth of gore canyon.

Then we climbed through ute pass.

Now we are in silverthorne. Threaded the needle between some thunderstorms! 

Tough 65 miles today. Very tired.

The descent from Ute pass.

Look at that shiny new red pannier!

Bears on bears on bears

Well after bearing in mind the risk of not securing our food from creatures the whole trip we finally had an encounter.

We were camping in Steamboat Springs, CO. One of those busy commercial joints. We asked if they had somewhere we could put our food or if we should just bear bag it (hang from tree). The employee laughed and said that isn't a problem here but thanks for asking.

In the middle of the night we heard a bike fall over. We where very tired and it was very windy. So no investigation.

In the morning we found the damage. The bear had ripped into our dry bag/pannier and eaten nearly all of our food and our bug spray. It also shredded Jennie's front dry bag and cracked her helmet. 

Fortunately upon explaining what happened to the campground, the owner cut us a check to cover some of our costs. It was very generous and made the damage easier to bear.

We rounded up a new pannier, dry bag, helmet, and cache of food in steamboat. It was lucky we were in a town that had everything! We were riding by noon and by 8 or so had done all the miles we had planned to do.

Where we are camped is lousy with Mosquitos so it is probably best we got here late anyway. We are our dinner while briskly walking around the campsite to avoid the mosquitos.

Some really great riding today. Lots of climbing and a really cool descent! We are camped along the Colorado river! Lack of pictures due to time crunch.

60 miles today, Silverthorne tomorrow. Bear damages below.

Mixed emotions and Colorado

Well, we skipped a big chunk of trail. From Pinedale it looked like rain and thunderstorms were forecasted for the great divide basin. A long wide open section with no cover and sections that are impassable when wet. We didn't want to lose more time because of weather and were terrified of the notion of thunderstorms in the open so we got a ride to Rawlins.

We don't feel great about skipping. But since we aren't going to finish it seems like less of an issue to focus on riding as much as possible and enjoying ourselves.

Rode 15 miles out of Rawlins to a desert camp. Heard coyotes a lot, lots of wind. Very pretty.

Rode 70 or so to brush mountain lodge yesterday where we had lots of food and beer and had a great time talking with some local folks. That is an amazing place. If you ride the divide you must go to there.

Today we rode to steamboat springs. Waiting for the brewery to open. The ride was great! Big steep climb early then lots of descending and nice rolling riding. The first part of the descent may have been incredibly rocky.

Staying here tonight. Trying to get to Salida this weekend for a beer festival and to see an old friend.

Pinedale

Had a couple of great riding days recently. Unfortunately more storms yesterday. We hitched a ride for the last bit of yesterday to avoid thunderstorms and to get to pinedale before the bike shop closed (and closed for the 4th). It was a bunch of flat pavement so we don't feel bad :p. Good news is my headset is okay for now and the play in my front hub was a figment of my imagination or just not bad enough to worry about.

Taking a rest day here in Pinedale for our heads as much as legs. Our bad luck with the weather has us dreading the great divide basin section. It is a long way with very little shelter from bad weather. 

Forecast is pretty good though, so we'll see.

Didn't take any phone pics yesterday but this beer was good.

Halfway to somewhere: day 20

Camped with some fun guys from Knoxville last night. Some good southeastern camaraderie! 

Short day today on the count of limited sleeping options..50 miles or so. Hoping for pinedale tomorrow. That'd be a big day and hopefully a fixed headset.

Today a climb up to 9500 ft! It was great! Long climbs over rolling terrain any day.

A scene from the notch and the top of the climb.

Oh them Tetons is big now

Shortish 60 miles today through sweet terrain near Yellowstone. Then some highway to wherever we are now.

It is a campground on Jackson Lake.

It is FULL of people and we feel a little overwhelmed. Cyclist camping is secluded and nice.

There are gorgeous views of te Tetons everywhere and there is beer.

Climby on the morrow.

His and hers. Rode to the lake without our stuff. Our bikes were FAST!

Kid in the back is mad impressed by Jennie's glove tan.