James and Zoe Ride Bikes

The End!!

August 3rd/Day 62 - Loveland to Denver, 70 miles

The last day of a tour – he says as if he’s done all this before – can do funny things to your head. The beginning and end of the day were super-duper fantastic, but it dragged pretty hard in the middle. The problem, of course, was thinking we were pretty much done when we actually had 70 miles to ride. Avoiding an “are we there yet?” mindset was pretty challenging. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves!

 We had a spectacular breakfast thanks to John and Judy, and packed our panniers for the last time. As we rode off, we kind of felt like it was the last day of the Tour de France, that it was just a glory leg and that people would be cheering us on. Sadly, the frontage road on the I25 was not filled with admiring onlookers, only a few prairie dogs. Knowing that we were so close to Denver altered our riding habits: usually we’re good about eating before we get hungry, having long, chatty drinks breaks etc. But today we pushed fairly hard, sometimes forgetting how long it takes to ride across a major city. Honking up hills (standing up on the bike), passing slower cyclists on the Platte River and Cherry Creek bike paths, Zoe in particular faded in the afternoon, and needed a Gatorade and a sit probably only 15 minutes from our destination. All the while, Caleb rode like a madman – he lost us a couple of times – and could almost smell his home.

Spirits rose, however, as we realised we were only a few minutes away. (Caleb: “The good news is we’re almost there. The bad news is we kind of live at the top of a hill.”) As we got closer and closer we also got sillier and sillier, breaking out into the theme song from Indiana Jones. Then we spied the balloons out the front of the Dance house, one shaped like a giant champagne bottle. Frank and Carol, Caleb’s parent, ran out of the house as we came down the street, and there were hugs, photos and champagne all around. We really did feel like triumphant-yellow-jersey-types riding into Paris. The crowning moment was a ceremony in which Caleb’s parents presented us with engraved medals, and then led us inside for a spectacular dinner of rack of Aussie lamb and pear pie! Frank and Carol, you are stars!

All in all we rode over 2716 miles/4370 kilometers in the last two months. I don’t really have any profound closing pronouncements to make. Cycle touring is a pretty spectacular way to see the world, and I highly recommend it.  It’s really not that hard if you’re willing to be a bit sore and tired the first few days, and by far the most difficult part is finding the time to do it. I do want to sincerely thank our friends and family who supported us through a difficult last year, and whose generosity at our wedding made this ‘honeymoon’ possible. You’re the main reason I wanted to do this blog – I don’t think our prose or photography is deserving of any particular attention, but I’m really glad if this process has closed some large distances and we’ve stayed in your thoughts. You’ve certainly stayed in ours.

Signing off,

Zoe, James (and Caleb!)

August 2nd/Day 61 –Fort Collins to Loveland, CO, 20 miles (James)

During yesterday’s 105 mile ride, we’d formulated an ambitious plan to pull into the New Belgium Brewery for a tour and refreshments, but the place was closed and frankly we were shattered, so we just sat in our motel room, swam and ate a large double pepperoni pizza from Papa John’s as a pre-sleep snack. That left a lot to do today. Needing to cover only 20 miles to reach Caleb’s peoples in Loveland, we had time for a long breakfast of waffles, a dip in the pool and a ride up to the old part of town. We signed up for an afternoon tour at the brewery (and had a quick brunch beer), before deciding that we were hungry again. We ate our first Asian meal for a while, then had ice cream, then pottered around Fort Collins, which is a lovely college town with everything you could want.

New Belgium is a hugely successful independent brewery (the 3^rd largest microbrewer in the country after Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada). It was begun by an electrical engineer who learnt how to brew while cycling around Belgium, and they’re so fond of bikes that when they saw us locking up our tourers they gave us a voucher for 12 free cans!!! Their operation is impressively sustainable, it is entirely employee owned and it really does seem to be the most fun workplace imaginable. They also brew some tasty beers, including a really unbelievable sour which is fermented in old white wine casks for three years. The tour’s great but ran longer than we’d expected. By the time it was done, our watches read 4:30 and we had to get a move on. Plus, if we’d stayed to sample more beer, the ride down the highway might have been less than safe. Our departure, however, was thwarted by a broken combination lock. No matter how many times we turned the dials the lock wouldn’t open and out bikes remained locked to a concrete pillar. The sun was beating down and we were getting a bit flustered, so I went and asked for bolt cutters. There weren’t any. After a few more minutes, Caleb went and asked a guy for a large metal hammer, and we proceeded to beat the lock into smithereens. Voila. On the road.

The ride was uneventful, but the reception in Loveland was great. Judy and John put out the welcome mat with lots of food, beers, a couple of guests and a good night of chatting. It was lovely to be in a home for a change and the hospitality was just terrific. A great end to a great day. Tomorrow: the final leg.

CENTURY!!

August 1^st/Day 60 – Walden to Fort Collins, 105 miles !!! (Zoe)

I frequently think that people are more impressed with cycle touring than they should be. You don’t have to be super-fit or really into cycling to do this (I am neither). I do think you have to be a bit stubborn. Mostly you have to want to see things, and be able to find the time to do it – that’s honestly the hardest part. BUT! Today, we are kick-ass super-ninjas! Today we deserve your respect. Today we rode 105 miles! That’s 169 kilometers! Sure, you might know someone who’s ridden a century. You might even have done it yourself. But have you done it fully loaded, lugging your tent, your stove, your complete works of Tacitus along with you? No, sir, ma’am, you have not. But we have!!

It’s amazing just how refreshed we were after our day off, both physically and mentally. After a second night in Walden, in the high valley of North Park west of Colorado’s front range, we were up at 6:00 to get moving early. Cameron Pass stood between us and Fort Collins on the eastern side of the range – at 10 276 ft the highest pass of our trip. Since Walden is at 7800, it’s a bit less intimidating than it sounds at first. Our road to the foot of the mountains took us along a winding river which is one of Colorado’s top moose-spotting areas (“prime for Moosedom”). Caleb was desperate, desperate to spot one. He even has a song about it. And…success! Two females spotted by James’ eagle eyes. Tick!

The climb up the pass was actually the easiest we’ve done in a very long time. The road never got very steep, and we were at the top by noon. Which left us with a decision: to camp in the Poudre canyon as we’d planned, or try to make the remaining 70 miles to Fort Collins. We’d heard from tourists coming the other way that the descent down the canyon was incredible, and they were not wrong. On most of our big post-pass descents we’ve had 5-10 fast miles, then another 5-20 miles of gentler slope, where you have to start peddling again, but you’re still making pretty easy time. This was a descent of a completely different order. A sign telling us there would be steep gradients for 15 miles prompted whoops, but even once these steep slopes tapered off, we had another 45 miles of gentler downhills. The canyon was like nothing I’ve ever seen: it just kept winding and turning, always downward. The winds were generally behind us too, though down between the steep cliffs it got twisted around and occasionally turned into our faces. Only the last ten miles of our trip were flat, and even then we had a pretty consistent tailwind. Fort Collins is at about 5000 feet, meaning we dropped more than half the altitude we’ve gained over the last 4 weeks. Whoa! (Also: Cameron Pass is full of hummingbirds. Awesome.)

In Fort Collins we sat, stunned, in the first Chipotle Mexican Grill we’ve seen on our trip (those of you who know Caleb know how important this was). Both physically and mentally, we were all a bit stunned. But happy! This was our last chance to make a century, and we did it on the day of our highest pass. We’re now set up in a Best Western, taking full advantage of the pool, the TV, regular towels – all incredible luxuries. Tomorrow is a short, 20 mile day to Caleb’s aunt and uncle’s place in Loveland, so we’ve earned ourselves some play time here in the morning. Pretty proud of ourselves!

July 31st/Day 59 - Rest Day in Walden

Today was a blissfully quiet, chillled out, non-bicycle dependent day. I really needed it! I slept til almost 8 o’clock, which hasn’t happened in a month. We said farewell to Goran and Laura, who are great people, and wished them the best of luck on their way north. A brief debate about oatmeal/diner for breakfast led to the best french toast of the trip - we can’t eat like this for much longer, and I’m gonna make the absolute most of it. We also ran into Goran and Laura again, who’d gotten bogged down by pancakes in Walden’s other eatery - good form, friends, good form.

We sat and read in the city park when we’re camping, caught up on the blog, watched lightning hit the rockies on the horizon, taught Caleb how to swing Really Really High on the swings (a skill he’d somehow missed out on!), James explained the debt ceiling ”crisis” in terms Caleb and I understood. But the highlight was two young girls who were playing in the park. The oldest, Gracie (10) rocked up first, asked our names, and sat down for a good old chat. She’s a bit slow, and we thought this might be the reason for her boldness, until her younger sister Rosalind (7) did exactly the same thing half an hour later. Gracie rode up on a trike which apparently belongs to a friend of her, and which she’d found in the yard of a third party. “Someone had stolen it, so I’m taking it back.” God knows what the actual story is. She saw our blueberries, said that she loved them, and that she likes to eat them by the handful - “like this!” Both she and Rosalind, who visited separately, felt that any lapse in the conversation needed to be filled by the demonstration of some awesome talent. Both led out with their pig impressions, but there was also eyelid-inversion, ear-wiggling and stitches-picking. Apparently the small-town talent of casual conversation with strangers starts really young!

We’re now back in the Moose Creek Cafe, where we had monster burgers last night (James had a patty of mixed beef, pork and elk!), eating chicken wings and drinking a beer while we use their wifi. Four Very loud Aussie harley riders have come in, caused their Russian summer-exchange-waitresses to collapse in giggles with “You little ripper!” etc, and Caleb and James are now having a loud chat about the quality of American beers/touring in the states. There’s a moose-paddle lantlern above their heads. There’s no doubt large amounts of meat in our near future, and the world is a much brighter place than it was a couple of days ago.

July 30th/Day 58 – Riverside, WY to Walden, CO —50 miles (Caleb)

We set out today with spirits high because we made a firm plan to take a rest-day in Walden tomorrow.  There was also the added excitement of making our final state-change of the trip.  If I’ve been following the numbers, both James and Zoe have been to the same number of states in the US now – an even 14.  And this was my first time entering Colorado on this particular road, so I was looking forward to seeing a new “Welcome to Colorado” sign.  There have been a couple of disappointing “Welcome to …” signs (ahem, Wyoming, ahem), but I was feeling optimistic that Colorado wouldn’t disappoint.  Anyway, we set out from Lazy Acres RV Park at a leisurely hour and rode our final 28 miles in Wyoming.  This included some gradual climbs and descents through lovely landscapes with acre upon acre of grazing land.  At one point we spooked a prong-horn that was grazing on the side of the road, and it ran away alongside the road for a few hundred feet before ducking under barbed-wire and watching us ride by at a more comfortable distance.  Zoe commented on how few livestock were on the land, and we considered how unforgiving the weather must be to ranching in the winter months.  But I became thoroughly distracted when we finished climbing a hill, and I caught sight of a couple of snow-capped peaks jutting into the air.  There was Colorado.

As it turns out, Colorado uses the exact same sign for this route (State Highway 230/125) as it does on the interstate coming from Kansas: “Welcome to Colorful Colorado.”  James and Zoe pointed out that “colorful” had been misspelled, and James also observed that it was kind of strange that the sign was brown and white.   The sign for Wyoming on this side was much nicer too.  But we snapped some pictures and then jumped back on our bikes for the final 30 miles.  It was remarkable how quickly the terrain changed.  The flora appeared to be considerably lusher, and there were more cattle (tons of calves!) to watch us ride by.  The bicycle terrain also changed.  The shoulder pretty much disappeared, but the pavement was slightly smoother for the first several miles.  20 miles later, we were in our first Colorado town.  Cowdrey.  Population?  Very small.  Myrtle, who was holding a garage-sale, was happy to refill our bottles for our final 10 miles into Walden.  She had made 12 dollars since she began the sale on Monday.  Her family has lived in the area for a couple of generations, working in the timber industry, but now she’s the only one still around (geographically and, with the exception of a brother in Missouri, biologically).Even though she had lost an astounding number of teeth, and the ones that remained were jutting horizontally from her gums, she smiled broadly and told us to be safe for the remainder of our ride.

Showers and a quick swim at the city pool.  Camp pitched at the city park.  Walden has treated us well so far.  We had deep-fried Rocky Mountain Oysters (look ‘em up!) at the Moose Creek Cafe for dinner, and I’m very hopeful that I’ll finally meet my first moose because taxidermied heads of the giants populate so many walls around here.  But not tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow morning we’ll sleep in.  First rest day since July 4^th.

July 29th/Day 57 – Rawlins to Riverside, 65 miles

Who knew, but the Amish make mean cheese, ham and jalapeno pastries. We woke up in Rawlins, had our customary oats but then fell to loitering and socialising. Among other things, we compared riding with our panniers to riding with the trailer (usually called a bob) of one of our fellow campers, Jane. She took Caleb’s bike for spin, and Caleb took hers, and both agreed that our pannier setup was better. That was a relief; had we found out this far into the trip that we should have been towing a bob all along, it might have been a little frustrating. The scabs and bruises Jane displayed after her bob caused her to crash was added reassurance that we had the right idea. But after all that, we needed a second breakfast so we each scoffed a pastry from the Amish market and bought six cinnamon rolls for morning tea. Within about an hour, we’d eaten them too.

There wasn’t much to report. In the town of Sinclair, we saw the oil refinery for all the Sinclair gas stations, and not long after that we saw the tire of a semi-trailer explode about 100 metres in front of us – glad we weren’t riding alongside it at that point. We saw lots of pronghorn deer out in the fields, but mainly we just rode with winds blowing across us, through a high, dry grassy landscape that went on and on and on and on and on and on… It began to get to Zoe and to me. Our destinations seemed to back away from us at the speed we approached. Long, straight roads seemed never to end. We needed relief and we found a degree of it in the town of Saratoga. As we looked for a market that sold Gatorade, we rode past a bbq shack, selling rotisserie chicken, ribs, pulled pork etc. We put down a few (excellent) ribs and bought a chicken for dinner, but I also had my first opportunity to talk with a real pit master about how to do proper American barbecue.  Apparently, all I need is a 50 gallon drum, sawed in half and reattached on hinges, then a long slow heat and a good spice rub or sauce. I spent the rest of the day dreaming (not for the first time) of mastering the art of barbecue, and if I ever make it for any of you in the future, you can remember this day as the point at which it all began.

Finally we pulled into camp at Riverside and we sat down by the fire to some beer, chicken, corn and a bean salad we knocked up. It was a great campsite, and it had cable tv, so I could follow the farce of the debt ceiling negotiations. Though I could watch that absurdist horror show for days, we’ll ride on tomorrow.

July 28th/Day 56 – Jeffrey City to Rawlins, 73 miles (Zoe)

Waking in the weird and wonderful Jeffrey City, we planned to get an early start, in the hopes that we could sit pretty still in the afternoon. We rode until 7:30 yesterday to make it here, after taking the wrong road yesterday. I feel like that long, dry ride set the tone for our travels through the plateaus and tundra today: bad. Caleb is a bit less affected by it, but James and I were both pretty shattered after two long days. Our hurried schedule, now that James has a job waiting for him and we need to move to Schenectady, has meant that we have no true rest days in our schedule – a bad move.  An “easy day” for us is riding 40 miles, which is still a heck of a lot of effort in any other context. Anyways, our efforts to get on the road quickly were stymied by breakfast. We ordered pancakes at the Split Rock Bar (literally the only place in town), which took about an hour to prepare. The prep time was proportional to their size – as big across as the pancakes from Bear Creek a while back, but far, far deeper, maybe an inch and a half? Despite a warning from the owner, Caleb ordered the short stack, and was shamed by defeat. A valiant effort, though.

 

Feeling a bit beaten down after a couple of days of big riding, the arid, empty landscape we rode through seemed only oppressive and threatening. I’m not sure if it was our mood, or a real difference, but today was also a day of road-kill. The road really stank. Antelope after antelope lay eviscerated on the shoulder. But even when we couldn’t see any carcasses, we could still smell them, leading Caleb to guess that it was the flora – but the stink of decomposition is pretty distinctive… We’re still confused.

 

We reached Rawlins after a long, dry slog, later than we’d hoped. Caleb had to talk me step by step through grocery shopping, as I couldn’t process what I should be buying for bolognaise. We were in a little supermarket which is run by some sort of Amish or Pennsylvania Dutch group – all women in long dresses and caps. All the meat for sale was wrapped in butcher’s paper, and had obviously come from some local farm. Chocolate bars cost 39 cents – pretty cool.

 

After a run of wacky, fantastic small towns, Rawlins is a bit average. We stayed in an RV park with three other cyclists: Jane, a cool chick who’d had a pretty spectacular crash a couple of weeks ago when her trailer fishtailed, and who generously shared her medicine cabinet with me. And Aiken and Iona, English siblings, she on her first tour with a veteran older brother. They’d done Denver to Rawlins in 4 massive days (with a 5000 ft climb), and she was looking pretty shattered. It was a good night though, sitting and chatting with cool people, everyone sharing whatever candy, cookies, beer they could lay their hands on. I’ve issued an ultimatum that my ass had very definitely better  be resting in my A-lite (awesome portable sofa) by 4pm tomorrow.