First off, my apologies for not staying current with the blog. One of the things I'm dealing with on this tour, something I'm not at all happy about, is the pace of things. On our long days, and there have been a bunch, I seem to be in non-stop motion until my head hits the pillow. After spending all day riding, I must shlub my luggage to the room, unpack, take a shower, get dressed, eat dinner, go to rap, wash clothes, charge my electrical thingees, etc. There is very little pure down time. So finding the time to do the blog can be an issue unless we get in early, which sure didn't happen on day 16. Surprisingly, decent, free internet connections have been the rule- so I can't hide behind that rock.
Our ride today had everything you might want and a few things you'd just as soon avoid. We had breathtaking scenery, pretty decent roads, sags where they were supposed to be and good folks to ride with. However, we also had headwinds, a twenty mile climb, dirt roads to ride on, pickup truck shuttles and a very long day.
The route today took us from touristy Jackson Hole, WY north along Hwy 89N/26E/191N which skirted along beside the Snake River and the Grand Tetons. The views along the route, which also flowed past a large Elk winter range
(saw no Elk- probably up in the high country now, but we did get close to some buffalo), were just so beautiful that you could spend all day being a goofy tourist. We stop and drank it in numerous times, but crossing the Continental Divide was on our list of things to do today, so we kept the pressure on the cranks. Our group today was The Miller Train, Gary and me and we kept a decent pace going through the first 30-35 miles in spite of a bitchy headwind that none of us were enjoying.At mile 32 we turned right, put the Grand Tetons behind us and started to grind out the next 25 miles as we drew closer to Togwotee Pass and the Continental Divide. For those us us who slept through Earth Science class, I'll remind you that this is the ridge line at which water either trickles toward the left coast or the right coast. In fact, it actually works- the rivers we'd passed prior to this were flowing towards us and afterwards, they flowed away from us riders.
We'd bben warned ahead of time that there was significant roadwork underway and that there was a good chance we'd have to either ride dirt roads (not great on a road bike) or get sagged, or both. Turned out to be both.
The climb up to the Divide was not as steep as yesterday's epic climb, but it was much longer and still 6-8%. I felt maybe at 80% when I left the hotel, and by the time I started this 17 mile climb, my legs were really marginal. Its been days since I've had a solid eight hours sleep, we've riiden now for 15 of the last 16 days (over 1,000 miles) and the climb was very, very tough for me. The group dropped me quickly, then split apart and I climbed, solo and in pain, for what seemed like hours. By now, the day was warming and I was focusing on turning the pedals over and staying upright. At mile 49, we all stopped at a store and got word that the rode was impassable (Hey-they just announced school's closed cause of snow!!!!) and that we'd have to ride just a bit more, then get shuttled over the top. A "bit more" turned out to be about 7 miles (yes Virginia, uphill) and my eyeballs were bulging by the time I got to the stopping point- just two miles from the summit. We
waited our turn to load the bikes into the back of the road crew's pilot truck and they took us up to the Togwotee Pass at 9,658'. I had the legs to finish the climb, but did not have the heart to put up a fight- plus there was no choice- the road was closed to us- they'd been dynamiting the night before and as we drove through the remaining two miles, you could see the mess, yea the boulders, that they were trying to get cleaned up. Good call.The views from the summit were great, but nothing compared to Teton Pass. But everyone was in high spirits as we'd put two of the biggest climbs on our tour in the history books. The next challenge was a few more miles down the road and we were told that we'd again have to be
shuttled through- the road was closed to cyclists. Although the heavy lifting was done for the day, we still hadn't eaten lunch and still had 30 miles to finish before we were done. The
waiting game began as we waiting our turn to get sagged by the ABB vans. We finally got 9 bikes and rider aboard, took a 6-8 mile ride down part of the mountain and unloaded at about 3:30PM. Ate a quick lunch at the cafe we'd been dumped at and then started the remaining 20-25 miles. Derek and I did a repeat of yesterday, as I found some energy from somewhere, and we broke from the group and started hammering. We pulled into the hotel at about 5:00PM (that's 11 hours on the road, 90 some miles and about 3,500 feet climbed).
I showered, unpacked, ate, went to sag, cleaned my bike, cleaned my water bottles, changed the rear tire, cleaned and lubed my chain and by 10:00PM I was finished for the day. And I mean finished. Only 80 miles tomorrow. Piece of cake.
Dubois (pronounced doo-boys, rhymes with "new toys") is a quaint western town, not really oriented towards tourist, at least not like Jackson- which you can have, along with whomever ruined that place. Granted I spent all of 10 hours there, but it gave me the creeps with the in-a-freaking-hurry type AAA personality I felt. Why anyone who wants a western experience would go there is beyond me.
