Day 49 - June 21 - Saratoga, WY Layover Day 1 - Two Old Guys Take On A Continent

June 21, 2023

Day 49 - June 21 - Saratoga, WY Layover Day 1

Breakdown!!

Ed’s Story

The day started like any other day. Had a great night's sleep at the Episcopal Church WarmShower hostel in Saratoga. Quietly made breakfast in the kitchen as two of the cyclists staying here were sleeping on the floor in the living room.

Loaded up our bikes and made our farewell to the five cyclists. Hit the road for a relatively easy 44 mile ride to Rawlins, Wyoming.

Do you know what they say about Wyoming? They have nice cliff faces.

As we started our first climb of the day, I shifted to the large cassette in the back and my chain went between cassette and the spokes. Total stoppage.

I attempted to fix the chain with the bike leaning on the kickstand, but ended up taking the bags off and turning the bike upside down. I had to loosen the wheel to get the chain back under the gears.

I tried a test ride. It didn’t work. Nothing shifted. I checked on the rear derailleur cable was totally slack and the derailleur appeared to be bent.

I straightened the derailleur as good as I could, and after numerous attempts, was able to tighten the cable enough to be able to ride. The shifting was awful. Depending on what gear I was in the derailleur arm contacted the housing. More adjustments were needed.

I finally got it to a point where I could ride, but did not feel comfortable using it for a long distance. A quick search on Amazon told me I could get a new derailleur and have it delivered the next day.

We turned back and returned to the church hostel in Saratoga. It turned out after checking with Amazon and other vendors that the next day delivery was for where I lived in Fremont, Ohio.

Earliest delivery of a new derailleur was 3 to 8 days. I thought, woah, that is way too long. I talk to my wife and she had a brilliant idea. She asked about bike shops, in towns close to Saratoga. although I didn’t pay much heed in the beginning, I realized she had a great idea.

The closest town to Saratoga with bike shops is Laramie, Wyoming. They have three bike shops in that town. I called all three of them. The third one I talked to, All Terrain Sports, had the exact derailleur I needed.

After several calls to them, the Laramie FedEx shipping office, and Mary, our host, here in Saratoga, I ordered a derailleur, and Nick at the shop FedEx’ed it overnight to Saratoga. It will go to Mary‘s home address. She should get it tomorrow afternoon, and hopefully I will have the bike in the position to install it when I get it.

We went to the Saratoga sandwich shop for lunch. I had a bag of chips and a veggie sandwich with water. It was very good. The ice cream store next door to the sandwich shop does not have any vegan ice cream, but does have sorbet which is dairy free.

Here’s a picture of the bike on the stand waiting for the new derailleur to show up tomorrow. It’s a good thing I’ve had some bicycle maintenance experience having I’ve worked at a bike shop for several years.

I’m not sure how visible the bend in the derailleur is from this picture. It is very noticeable just looking at it.

The rear wheel is ready for installation of the new derailleur when I get it tomorrow.

With luck, we will hit the road day after tomorrow. We will have to re-look at our schedule. We were going to have an overnight rest day in Lander, Wyoming in three days. But we are counting this time in Saratoga as our rest period. We will need to reevaluate our future rest days.

The rest of the day consisted of napping, watching a movie on Netflix, calling my wife. I did most of that while John went to the hot springs.

When John got back we decided to go to the brewery. He wanted to ride and I did not want to walk. So I found some transportation. It should work again tomorrow for both the brewery and hot springs. Everything else in town is within walking distance.

You do what you’ve got to do. And I thought I forgot how to ride a diamond frame bike.

We will be staying in Saratoga again tomorrow. Hopefully I can get my part at the end of the day and install it.

Tomorrow I hope to verify my derailleur hanger is straight and if not to adjust it. I found some methods on YouTube on how to check it without the proper tool. Of course I have to take the bike apart I was riding today.

Either way, happy biking!

John’s Story

It was 45 degrees this morning in Saratoga. It was nice not having to dress for it to get up and fix breakfast. Having a fully equipped kitchen here also made breakfast prep much easier.

We’re starting to see more of these small ephemeral lakes with salty looking shorelines.

The Continental Divide Hoax

I thought for sure when we rolled over Cameron Pass a couple of days ago that we had crossed the Continental Divide. I’m sure I wrote about in those terms at some point in this journal. Well, WRONG! The drainage on the Fort Collins side of the pass empties into the South Platte River. The drainage on the Walden side of the pass empties into the North Platte River. Both of those rivers empty into the Missouri River. We’re still on the Gulf of Mexico side of the continent!

Shortly after we leave north out of Rawlins in a few days, we will finally cross the Continental Divide for the first time; BUT we still won’t be able to float downstream to the Pacific Ocean. We will enter the Great Divide Basin, technically an endorheic basin, meaning that none of the water that falls as rain drains into any ocean, either directly or indirectly. All the water that falls there evaporates or soaks into the ground. The most widely known of this type of basin holds the Great Salt Lake in Utah. After a distance we will cross the Continental Divide again, but only to end up on the Gulf of Mexico side again. We won’t cross over to the Pacific side of the Continental Divide until just before we get to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks in northwestern Wyoming. Then we’ll cross back and forth a couple more times before we roll inevitably to the Pacific.

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

We rolled out on a beautiful cloudless morning. Ed stopped once or twice in the first couple miles, as usual, to adjust this or that. We were half way up the first real climb of the day when Ed stopped and started futzing with his chain and derailleur. I mostly watched, helped him turn the bike upside down and balance it while he worked, listened to him cuss, and was eaten alive by droves of vampire mosquitos. The only way to keep them at bay was to walk up and down the shoulder of the road so they had a harder time finding me.

Ed likes to make fun of my natural habitat of fixing flat tires. Welcome to my ecosystem! If it looks like we’re pointed uphill, we are!

As the sun beat down our intrepid travelers toiled on the roadside, buffeted by the swash of the passing traffic.

Ed finally gave up on getting his bike into gear (pardon the pun), and we headed back towards Saratoga. We turned around a bit more than 5 miles out of town. This would have been a much bigger problem had Ed’s malfunction occurred while we were riding on the shoulder of I-8o between Walcott Junction and Sinclair a couple hours later. As it was we just reinstalled ourselves at the St. Barnabas Agape House, told the story to the other bikers still there, unloaded the bikes and went out for coffee.

I did manage to find a new flower on our short sojourn today.

Saratoga is an ideal place to have to spend a couple extra days. Comfortable accommodations with fully equipped kitchen, shower, laundry facilities, and even a small bike shop with boxes and boxes of parts harvested from other bikes. A brewery down the road. Free access to hot springs. Restaurants, cafes, bars. An ideal place indeed.

So what to do with a couple of unexpected days off the bike? Buy the local weekly newspaper to read about the city council discussion concerning buying nets for a pickleball court. Work the crossword puzzle. Write and mail some postcards. Read some more of Hawaii.

This afternoon I rode up the hill on the south side of town to the grocery store to buy the ingredients for a mushroom-tomato pasta dish that we can cook this evening or tomorrow. Why not take advantage of the kitchen while we have it?

Steve bought beer which he shared at lunch today. After we started drinking it I recalled that the registration sheet we filled out said the church campus was a drug and alcohol free zone. We disposed of the cans off campus. Sorry! 😬

At the hot springs today I met a man who started the Transamerica route on May 18, and in Saratoga already! Then I found out he is riding unloaded, because his wife is sagging for him. Well, we all could go that fast if our wives did that for us!

There were more people at the hot springs today than yesterday. Some people were wading into the river to try to find hot water seeps coming up through the riverbed. Not me!

We decided not to cook our pasta tonight. I had a great Reuben sandwich at lunch at 2:00 PM which was still weighing me down. We just snacked and called it a day. Steve and Louis and Nikolai are leaving in the morning and planning to ride all the way to Jeffrey City (a two-day stretch on our itinerary), so we probably won’t see them again. It was great having some fellow travelers to spend time with for a couple days. We said our goodbyes this evening since they will likely be on the road tomorrow before we get up.

Today's ride: 11 miles (18 km)
Total: 1,686 miles (2,713 km)

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