Day 22: Craig, CO to Kremmling, CO

Actual Kms: 159 kms

Overkill Kms: 4 kms...weaving and our stop in lovely Steamboat Springs.

Road Stuff: LOTS of dead animals, including a dead hawk on the side of the road. We saw some deer and a lot of yucky road smear up the pass.

Money Spent: $95 ouch! I spent $25 on a regularly $100 jersey, $42 on a regularly $85 pair of biking shorts (shammy), $20 to fix my creak in the crank of bike, gatorade, $4 danish/latte and $3 for a card for someone from home! Not telling who. :) $6 beer. Man I'm spending a lot.

Wipeouts: 0, but a close one following Johnny going about 60 km/h down the otherside of the pass...there was a bad patch of road.

Interesting Person Pick: JOHNNY. No last name needed. He's a correctional officer from MI who is about 50, has a great mustache and has lost a lot of weight to come on this tour. He likes to shout out "Let's do something beautiful!" at any occasion. He's also just a happy-go-lucky guy who connects with anyone-old or young.

Favourite Part of the Day: Going down the hill....it was the first time I felt comfortable enough not to break and I hit about 74 km/hour. I also used my arrow bars a lot and the road was very windy, so it was quite the ride. When you realize that you may be going faster than a rollercoaster and the only thing that is keeping you up is a few inches of rubber on the road, it's pretty exhilirating.

Worst Part of the Day: Yah, to be honest, probably the climb. It wasn't the easiest climb, about 10 kms straight up at a 7% grade. We climbed it from about 1 pm-2:30 or so, so it was pretty hot.

Today I was very tired from the long ride yesterday. It wasn't so much that we were actually biking for a long time, but just being out on the road and not having a lot of time for ourselves, so I slept into about 6:45, very slowly put away my tent and ate breakfast slowly. So slowly that I think the sweep team was like "When is she going to leave? Doesn't she usually leave early?" Jess Fox said to me "Thanks for just sitting here calmly and enjoying your breakfest instead of scrambling to get on the road." It's true, we all scramble and watching people getting ready to ride was like watching ants.

So I rode by myself for the first 30 kms, in a pretty strong headwind. I had my ipod, but decided to just enjoy the ride. Which basically means I thought a lot about Tim. :) Then I saw that Johnny was ahead, so I caught up to him and we stopped at a very cute coffee shop in Hayden because a few others were stopped there. I had a danish and coffee and we chatted about the day. Basically at the point I became a lazy biker. Starting late, stopping at 30 clicks in...it was proving to be a slow day.

Johnny getting change for the coffee. Here's a cute stove I saw Mom. They put the coffee on it and I thought that was a good idea.

Here's John with a tire around his body. One of his tires was looking bad but he didn't want to buy this one from the SAG wagon because he had one in the gear truck. Efficently, he put it around him just in case and ended up making it to Kremmling and using the one in the gear truck. Dutch to the core.

Here is a picture of Corinne. It's a little angled but it gives you an idea of some of our road views. Rumble strips are frequent and very bumpy if you accidently stear onto them. I caught up with a guy named Kevin Pasma who needed new tires and was going to stop in Steamboat Springs, about 70 kms in, so I joined him because I figured I would get the creak in my crank fixed. We found a WICKED bike shop called Orange Peel Bike Shop. It had a lot of cool stuff, including my lovely purchases and they only charged me $20 for the work. The mechanic told me he was glad (because it was a "little dangerous") that I came in before our big climb on Rabbit Ears (a climb of 3000 feet). Here is the stange looking shop.

Here is Stephanie Webb with her new jersey...also, holding an orange just for kicks.

This is a sticker I found up near the bike shop's light switch. I wanted one but couldn't find one. Also, Trevor, I'm looking for a bumper sticker that says "Bikes on Board" for you.

Me outside of the bike shop, with the cool art thing made out of bike frames...and holding the orange peel from the orange I just ate. I'm starting to love oranges Arlene. :) Also, notice the new and blue bike shorts.

Then we finally started the climb. My favourite part of the climb was that Bill would come by on his motorcycle and yell "four more kilometres...keep going!" I love that he told us kilometres instead of miles. :) Also, Reuben, my Sweep Team leader decided to climb the mountain, go down it and climb it again so he could mark out in chalk how many more kilometres we had, and encouraging signs. He's a biker for Portland State...what do you expect?

Here is the Great Continental Divide sign, where water either runs west or east. Johnny and I decided that since we made it here, we must be in the middle of America. :)

Ahh...the downhill. It was the best downhill ever. It was at least 30 kms fast downhill and then rest of the 25 km ride was rolling, pedal hard down, almost get to the top. That's my favourite kind of biking.

Johnny's behind, which I drafted a lot today.

Glad to be in Kremmling, where we quickly found the town Saloon and enjoyed Fat Tire beer (my new favourite) and Newcastle Brown (my new second favourite). Mmm.

Then we headed to camp and I quickly set up my tent before a light rain. We ate, and I went to bed at 8:30. Apparently I was tired. But tomorrow is an easy 55 km.