Day 25 Del Norte to Storm King (June 16, 2007)
Kim and Mike’s hospitality and Casita in Del Norte were very welcoming but after our second night both Willy and I were itching to get rolling. We both felt about 80% and the mileage wasn’t that big for the day so we figured we could muscle through it since it seemed we were on the recovery. After a delicious serving of French Toast cooked by Kim’s brother in the Peace of Art Cafe and we were off.

The first few miles were on pavement but then the road turned “primitive” according to the cues on the map. This translated to very sandy and rocky. It sapped our energy quickly. But it didn’t put a damper on our adventurous spirit. A few miles off route was a rock formation known as La Ventana, a natural arch formation. It looked like there was another road we could on the map we could take to rejoin the main route so we hoped it might only be a mile diversion. La Ventana was not that spectacular. We almost missed it when we were standing right under it. And even worse the road we had hoped to take turned out to be a gnarly horse trail. We were forced to retrace our pedal strokes making for a four mile diversion on a day when we were already not at our best. And as we rode on I wasn’t feeling any better.

We encountered Kim and Mike on the road to our campground. They’d taken a day off from the store to explore the backcountry on their motocross bikes. We again said goodbye and Kim loaded us up with some more healthy snacks.

We had one final climb into the Storm King camp and it seemed to take forever. Willy had to wait for me several times as by now I was feeling 50% at best. When we got to camp Willy took care of all the camp duties while I rested. It was a great campsite but the only issue was someone had stolen the handle to water pump! A minor nuisance because it meant the water had to be treated. After a dinner of cold fried chicken we called it an early night.

Day 26 Storm King to Upper Dome Reservoir (June 17, 2007)
Last night was probably my best sleep in the tent so far on the trip. Again, being able to rest and sleep in a bit while Willy took care of everything made a huge difference. Willy feels fully recovered and I’m nearly there. We got a reasonably early start and figured we’d have the road to ourselves as it was Sunday, and Father’s Day.

About three miles into the day’s ride we learned otherwise. The road was covered with cows. There was a steep drop on one side of the road down to a creek and the slope up on the other side was equally steep. Encountering cows isn’t an uncommon occurrence and doesn’t really phase us any more. These cows didn’t seem any different than the other herds we’d met other than they were far more vocal.

We pushed on through yelling and making honking noises. A few of the cows passed us but most of them started to turn around and run back up the slope. The cows behind them kept coming down the road. Suddenly we saw why, at the top of the hill a bunch of ranchers rounded the corner on horses and motorcycles along with cowherding dogs and a truck and horse trailer. They were equally as surprised to see Willy and I and it explained why their noisy cows who had been fine on the cattle drive so far were suddenly going bezerk. Caught between us, down the road, and the ranchers, up the road, the cows took off in the only other possible directions — down the hill to the creek and up the hill to who knows what.

By this point we were off our bikes and pushing them on the side of the road. One of the ranchers was flailing her arms like we should get out of the way. With all the mechanicals and setbacks due to sickness the last thing we wanted was a delay in the trip because the bikes got trampled by cows. We patiently flattened ourselves and the bikes up against the hillside of the road and tried to fool the cows into thinking we weren’t there. The cows weren’t buying it. Finally one of the ranchers rode down on his horse and did an excellent job of restraining his temper as he asked us to just climb up on the slope. Hoping he knew best, we left our bikes and BOBs and climbed up the hill. These still shots of Willy making his way through the herd give you a good idea of how close we get to the cows. However, this video (small and large) shows the full extent of noise and chaos involved in herding cows. The cows have already settled down at this point because we’ve climbed up the hillside.

Apparently it was us and not the bikes which scared the cows. No sooner had we climbed out of the way than the cows resumed an orderly but noisy procession down the road. At least those cows which were still on the road. By this point most of the ranchers had ridden off into the woods to corral the wayward cows which had run away.

The ranchers passed without saying much and when we thought every cow, dog, rancher and truck had passed by we resumed the climb up the road. We weren’t sure what we should have done differently than get up on the hillside sooner. When you haul a BOB up steep gravel roads you certainly think twice about turning around and going down. We saw one last rancher coming down the hill and out of the woods with a lone cow. As he passed I said “Good Morning”. He was still caught up in the whole incident and his response wasn’t necessarily directed at me. Rather it was more a commentary on everything which had just transpired, but needless to say it wasn’t fit to be put in print here.

We had two big climbs we had to work at today. Our original goal was to stop at Luder’s Creek at the top of the second climb. We pulled in only to find the handle to the pump had been taken from this campsite too! Luckily there was a natural spring not far away so we filled up with water for the night and decided to push on a little further because it was still early and you always look forward to the downhill after a hard climb.

Unfortunately there was no enjoying this downhill. As we descended through a canyon we encountered a stiff headwind no matter which way we turned. It took serious pedaling effort to maintain 5mph down a hill on which we easily would have hit 20-25mph without a headwind. Had our friend Tom been riding with us I know he would’ve been shouting “Call Security! We’ve been robbed!”. It certainly felt that way. After such a long climb we felt entitled to at least a little bit of a rest and a coast down the hill.

We finally stopped at the Upper Dome Reservoir. It wasn’t much of a site. There were a few campers and RVs but it had been a long day and we were ready to stop. Willy and I ended up talking to the guys in two different campers and did the usual explaining of what we were up to. The guy I talked to had a martini and I was hoping if he took enough interest he might offer to make one for each of us. No such luck.

Willy on the other hand met Gene, a retired biologist for the State of Colorado and an avid cyclist. By the time I decided to cut bait and go see what Willy’s conversation had yielded Gene had suggested we pitch our tent next to his camper AND given Willy two Miller High Lifes. There was no turning down the Champagne of Beers after a long day. After a few minutes we let Gene resume fixing dinner for his wife and we headed off to setup the tent.

Tonight’s dinner menu consisted of “spicy hot dogs” Willy had found at the supermarket in Del Norte. Neither of us was in a rush to cook them especially with a beer in our hands and the smell of Gene’s Dutch oven nearby cooking chicken. So we sat in our camp chairs relaxing just a little bit longer.

Then the biggest surprise of the day walked around the corner. Gene had two plates loaded up with chicken and salad. He was also carrying two more beers and he was heading our way. Gene had extra ingredients so he’d cooked everything up to share with us. The meal was fantastic and a good way to end an eventful day. As we crawled into the tent we thought we might even watch the final episode of LOST which we’d gotten off of iTunes while we were in Del Norte. I fired up the laptop only to be greeted with “Finder/?” symbol — a Mac’s way of telling you there has been a hard drive failure. Add computers to our list of everything that is broken.

Day 27 Upper Dome Reservoir to Marshall Creek Pass (June 18, 2007)
We got a leisurely start the next morning after talking with Gene about bikes. We packed up and were about ready to roll out when Willy noticed his back tire was flat. As we were replacing the tube he also noticed one of his spokes was broken. The spoke was on the driveside so even though we had replacement spokes we didn’t have the tools to fix it. We cut the spoke out, changed the tube and were off.

Less than 10 miles into the day’s ride Willy’s tire went flat again. We were really looking forward to getting to Salida tomorrow because it was the first town with a bike shop since Silver City, New Mexico — more than 750 miles. We both planned to have our bikes completely tuned up so we could hopefully put all these mechanicals behind us.

We pushed on to the small town of Sargents for lunch. We had a tailwind so it made the 15 miles on a busy highway go quickly. At the cafe in Sargents there were flash road bikes lined up everywhere and we had to park around the corner. The whole cafe was clad in spandex when we walked in. It turns out a big week long road tour of cyclists from Indiana and Oregon had stopped here to eat lunch too. We exchanged all kinds of stories and were off again.

The afternoon ended with a big climb up Marshall Pass. The road was an old railroad bed (prior to that it had been a toll road for horse drawn wagons) which had since been converted to a forest road. Since trains generally can’t climb at more than a 4% grade it meant a long but consistent climb for us. We found the right gear and just pedaled.

About four miles from the summit we decided to call it a day in one of my favorite campsites so far. For dinner we prepared the spicy hot dogs we had planned to eat the evening before. They were terrible. I wasn’t even able to finish one. Willy powered through one and half but it definitely left our stomachs empty.

As we sat around the campfire trying to think of all the meals we’ve had in our lives which were worse than the spicy hot dogs (and there weren’t many) Willy’s luck wasn’t getting any better. An ember jumped out of the fire and burned right through his shorts and his inflatable chair/sleeping mattress. He broke out the patch kit and fixed yet another hole for the day. We quickly headed to bed hoping tomorrow would start off better.

Day 28 Marshall Creek Pass to Salida (June 19, 2007)
When retrieving water the night before Willy had told me to be prepared with the camera because there was a massive washout down the road. I hadn’t imagined anything quite as spectacular as we encountered. One of the culverts under the road had become clogged with branches and a stretch of road 100ft across had exploded and washed away downstream.

There was no option of riding around this obstacle. We removed the BOBs and proceeded as if we’d encountered a hike-a-bike section of a course in an adventure race. It only proved to be a 20 minute delay but it was an awesome show of the power of Mother Nature.

An hour later we were at the summit of Marshall Pass, and another Continental Divide Crossing.

Again, because the road had once been used by trains the descent was a nice ride through the forest without sudden drops or sharp curves. It really was an enjoyable ride all the way to the highway where we had to pedal the last few miles into the town of Salida.

We hadn’t even had a chance to get off the bikes in Salida when I knew we’d be spending some time here. This place wasn’t anything like Pie Town or Grants. There were people out and about. The downtown was thriving. The people of the town had built a riverside park along the Arkansas River and a white water kayak course in it. I knew I would have traded all of our rest days so far just to spend one rest day here.

The first stop was Absolute Bikes. It was time to get the bikes tuned up and get all these mechanicals behind us. When the head mechanic, Scot, heard we were doing the GDMBR he made sure we were taken care of. He knew we were on a timetable and he knew how much we depend on our bikes so he had his work schedule cleared so he could tune them up himself. Now that’s service!

While the bikes were getting tuned up we got cleaned up. I found a place in Steamboat Springs who could fix the laptop by the time we got there in a week if I shipped it ahead. We bought supplies for the next few days. All of our clothes were freshly laundered. Amica’s, the local brewpub and pizzeria took care of those hunger pangs from the lousy dinner the night before. It seemed all of our in-town errands were done in a flash and like we had really found our groove.

When Scot called to tell us the bikes were ready we stopped by to grab them and told him to meet us for a beer when Absolute Bikes closed that evening. We agreed to meet at a great looking little restaurant Willy and I had seen earlier in the day. It turns out the owners were originally from Chicago. They had pictures of Chicago throughout the place and even the bar would have fit in an old corner neighborhood bar back home. We ate dinner and had a round of microbrews with Scot. It felt like we could have been at The Map Room back home. Everything was comfortable and felt right.

At the end of the night we were a bit sad because we had taken care of everything we needed to in town and we felt pretty good. It only made sense to press on in the morning if we didn’t need a rest day. We splurged on a hotel that evening but as we drifted off to sleep we made a mental note to return to Salida again sometime soon.