September 14, 2024
Day 27
This morning was cold but certainly not the coldest morning as it was dry and not moist air. We had bagels with peanut butter and jam and coffee. We got rolling right on time and set out for the hiking trail up to the main road. That worked out really well. We met a few cows on the way and maybe pushed our bikes 25 feet. While we were climbing I listened to Lael Wilcox final podcast about setting the new female world record for riding around the world. What an incredible feat. She rode 29,000 km in 108 days, 12 hours, not only that she climbed insane distances along the way. Do the math. It boggles my mind!
We made it to the gravel road climb quickly and it was another fantastic climb with a reasonable grade and great scenery along the way of aspens, meadows, and a creeks. We were at the top before 10 AM and started another huge descent into a little hamlet called Sergeant. We had to put on more clothes for the 700 m descent as it was in the shade and we were moving fast. I was so happy on the downhill. I was greeting other campers as we flew past their cowboy camp setups. We also saw a hawk feeding on a fresh roadkill.
As we approached Sergeant I was checking the time and getting excited about the prospect of a second breakfast. We were in luck as there was a diner attached to a very small gas station store. While eating we posted to our journals and fired out a few texts to family. We lingered for a bit and I wandered over to the store to see what’s they had for a full 1.5 days resupply. Ouch! This was the most sparse store yet. We ended up with 2 loaves of white bread, ramen, snacks, and more peanut butter. There was no canned food so I couldn’t make many creative meal ideas. Oh well, this is training for New Mexico where we only go through small places with convenience stores.
We started our afternoon riding earlier than normal about 11:30. We had a short 10 km on a highway that had a good shoulder and minimal traffic and then we were on gravel for the afternoon. The majority of the scenery was back to farms and sage with nice hills in the background. The climbing for the majority of the afternoon was modest and we hit 80 km by 2:15 and stopped for another break.
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We still had 40 km and significant climbing to do when we started again at 3 pm. Fortunately, today the wind cooperated and we made good time for the final climb into the camp that is situated at 3000 m. We are a bit nervous about camping this high due to cold overnight temperatures but we settled on the plan.
We rolled into camp at 5:45 pm and found it was full of bikepackers. There are 8 others here and we were just saying we hadn’t seen anyone for so long. We met a mother and son (17) from New York State and a South African couple.
There’s a huge range of how people attack this trail. We are on day 27 and they are on day 47. Personally, I prefer how we are doing it because we travel further with less stuff which makes our riding easier. I’d love to cut even more weight but there are things we won’t cut (water) and emergency supplies. They told us how many meals and how much water they carry and it was double. But, the trade-off is they have likely sampled a lot more of the cities than us.
This trip has really opened my mind to what’s possible by bike. I am already thinking about other trips I’ll do and hopefully I can wrangle others to join me.
Highlights:
-sunrise over the lake
-morning climb and descent
-breakfast in Sergeant
-great weather again in the low to mid 20’s
-good distance and elevation gain today
-bagels with PBJ
Distance - 119 km / 1481 m
Today's ride: 119 km (74 miles)
Total: 3,089 km (1,918 miles)
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