Day 23: Kremmling, Co to Shadow Mountain Resort, CO

Actual Kms: 60 kms (oh yeah!)

Overkill Kms: 3 kms to go for Breakfast in Kremmling and meandering.

Road Stuff: Dead deer, leg of a deer, people fly fishing along the Colorado River.

Money Spent: $10 breakfast-sausage/cheese omelet, Moosecake (huge pancake), toast and coffee, $4 Breve latte in Grandby, $3 latte at lodge. I have got to stop drinking coffee like Matt Z.
Wipeouts: 0

Interesting Person Pick: Bert Sloftstra, a pastor from Abbotsford, B.C. We are sitting here in the lodge, on leather coaches and he said "You guys should see my room" (some people have purchased $100 rooms for the night) and I blurted out "Shut up about your room" to which I quickly replied, "Sorry, I can't believe I just said shut up to a pastor, I must be tired or cranky about sleeping on the rough ground tonight". He said "I'm on sabbatical Sarah. I'm just a regular person now, you can say shut up to me anytime". The pastors on this trip are hilarious.

Quote of the Day: (That's right, a new category). Matt Zanting on the couch..."I should go do something..." Very intentionless.

Favourite Part of the Day: Eating breakfast late, stopping in Grandby to watch the Tour de France and still getting here by 1. Ahh yeah.

Worst Part of the Day: There was a little bit of a tough climb 5 kms from camp, which made my new jersey sweaty. Which means I'll have to clean it tonight. That's pretty much the worst part. Things can't be that bad when they have a pool, free roller skating, beach volleyball, comfy lodges with coaches, a restaurant, laundry and a great view. Yah for YMCA camps! Especially ones that have Christian signs and chapels everywhere.

Today I convinced Matt Z and Matt R to go out for breakfast, mostly because we wanted eggs. So we found a little place in Kremmling called the Moose Cafe. They had Moosecakes instead of Pancakes which were huge. Here's a picture.



Also, Colorado has a lot of taxidermy places. The stuffed animals are everywhere. This buck must have been huge.


The canyon that we biked through today was so gorgeous that we had to slow our pace to 20 kms/hour.

When we got to this little town, it was like "Wow! We are at the first town already!" I think it was about 25 kms in. We decided to keep going, and by passed both SAG wagons today.

We decided to stop in Grandby and since the Tour de France was on, Matt, Matt and I got a coffee and watched the rest of the race. We realized how pathetically slow we are compared to those bikers and I wondered if there was a women's Tour de France. It kind of makes you want to become really fast. So much so, that when we left the cafe, we were zooming through town...and it left us breathless and wondering if we were climbing because doing 30 km/h was difficult. It's good that we can laugh at ourselves.

When we got to the YMCA camp, some people were complaining because the camping ground was rather rough and there wasn't a lot of room for us. But the view is great, the bonus' awesome and the pool and sauna refreshing. Personally, I'm loving this stop. It even has a taste from home-look Emily-a Cafe Diem in Colorado! So I ordered a coffee and started blogging.

Tomorrow is another big climb through the Rockies and a long day (150?). But I feel well rested and excited about where we are staying. There is even a post office box and a pay phone here! Score!

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.

Day 21: Dinosaur, CO to Craig, CO

Actual Kms: 150 kms

Overkill Kms: 4 kms off the road to a park, meandering, to Taco Bell

Road Stuff: Lots of dead deer and a live fox right in front of me into Craig.

Money Spent: $20 for a Maybell Colorado t-shirt, gatorade, and ice cream, $4 Taco Bell, $20 for music downloads.

Wipeouts: 0.

Interesting Person Pick: All of the seven Sweep Team C-Reuben, Matt Z, Matt R, Jason, Melinda, Greshem and yours truly. We were an awesome sweep team, patient, steady and we had a good time on a long day.

Favourite Part of the Day: Having a beer in the park and listening to Death Cab for Cutie and the Once soundtrack that I downloaded of the internet.

Worst Part of the Day: The last 10 kms of the trip had a wicked headwind, we were late for dinner (got in around 7 pm) and we were going very slow with the last few people.

Today I was on sweep, so we loaded the gear truck and it started to get hot. So hot that the kitchen offered us ice cream at 9:30 in the morning. It was kind of a nice morning though because I got to hand sanitize everyones hands in the breakfast line and tell them "Did you know that Colorado is the biggest biker state? They're going to love us here!"


When we finally left, we took our time for photo opprotunities with the unique street signs. All of the signs had dinosaur names (hence the town of Dinosaur). We also found the only coffee place open and spent about an hour there with Bill, the Harley driver on tour. He brings people water in a bind and encourages them when we they are climbing hills. Generally, he's our tough guy on tour.

Melinda in the corner, Matt Z, Jason and Harley Bill.

We finally left around 10:30 and had a headwind, so we set up a good pace line and tackled about 60 kms of the long and winding road. I listened to my new music on my Ipod.

Then we took a rest and clocked another 30 kms. We met up with Gail and stopped at a park about 45 kms outside of Craig. It was in Maybell, Colorado-the smallest town ever. There was one general store which had cute t-shirts so I caved and bought a really cute tie-dye shirt. It was so nice that Betsy, our nurse and SAG (support and gear) wagon driver went out and bought the same one. Here's a picture of Betsy looking jealous. Also, Jason bought the team a beer and we enjoyed our "waiting for others to finish slowly" time. I called Tim at the payphone since it was already 3:30 our time and 5:30 his time. Cowboy Jim in the background was watching. :

We took off and biked about 25 kms and then caught another cyclist. We had to go slowly into camp, it took about 2 hours to do the last 20 kms...so very slowly. This was difficult for the team because we were biking at a 30 km/hour pace and slowing it to 10-15 kms was hard. When we finally got into Craig, Matt and I took off to find a Taco Bell and we saw a cyclist 2 kms from the camp. Matt was like "You have got to be kidding me! MAN!" I laughed loudly. The cyclist had had two flats, so I gave him my inner tube and we took off to the Bell. When we got to camp, we ate, showered and basically went to bed after Peleton. Also, during my small group, we decided to do small groups twice a week (Mondays and Fridays) because we are so tired at the end of the day, which I think is a good decision. Sorry for posting so late, it was a very long day.