The Infamous Forest Road 144

June 16, 2016

Cycling the Great Divide, Day Sixteen: A Primitive Campsite off Forest Road 70 to a Meadow at 9,800 Feet

There was no chance of rain (again), so as usual we didn’t put the fly on the tent last night, and when I woke up at 3 AM I could see that the bright moon had moved from the left side of the tent to the right side. Check it out: I’m getting in touch with nature now!

We woke up, got everything packed up, had breakfast, and after I backtracked a half mile down the road to enjoy the rare luxury of a pit toilet, were on our way. The road was empty this morning, except for a large cow which I almost collided with while going around a curve.

During one early stop, I damaged my “click-stand”, the retractable kickstand that I’m using on this trip, but Joy was able to repair it with the roll of self-sealing tape that she’s carrying. She’s really loves that stuff. A lot.

It was a great ride this morning, with much cooler temperatures and shade from the trees next to the road. Joy, who had been growing weary of the desert, was excited to see ferns. Ferns! We also saw a quail and her babies walking by the side of the road, although they didn’t appear to relish our company, and quickly walked away.

During one of our snack stops I wondered aloud where all the Divide cyclists were, since we hadn’t seen anyone for days. Just then a young dude on a lightly loaded bike showed up. I could tell he was in a hurry, but we engaged him in conversation long enough to determine that his name was “Coyote”, and that while he wasn’t racing the Tour Divide, he was riding it much faster than we were.

Still, he earned my deep admiration when he told use he rode from Grants to Cuba in one day. Now that’s amazing. He also told us that, having run out of water on the last paved miles into Cuba, he drank out of used water bottles he found on the side of the road. Now that’s disgusting.

I somehow briefly got ahead of the very fast Coyote, but then he passed me, flying up a hill. Later Joy told me that when he passed her earlier, she wished him a good trip, and he responded simply, “Rock and Roll.” I wonder what he thought of her “2 FAST 4 U” license plate, and Pringles can. I’d like to think he felt a twinge of envy.

Rock on, Coyote.

Repairing a roadside memorial. We’ve seen very few of these on the trip, since we’ve mostly been on very lightly-traveled dirt roads.

It continued to be a nice day of riding, with mild (instead of scorching) temperatures and lots of shade. I was briefly concerned that we were way behind schedule at one point, when I misread the time on my cell phone, but then was delighted to learn that it was actually 11:00 AM, not 2:00 PM!

After descending to 8,700 feet we had our second lunch of the day and rode onto Forest Road 315, which Joy declared her favorite road of the trip so far. We stopped for a while to take photos of butterflies. The photos Joy took with her Canon PowerShot ended up being better than the ones I took with my heavy, clunky Canon DSLR. Oh, well.

Looking at butterflies, on Joy’s favorite road so far.

Next we turned onto the infamous Forest Road 144. We knew it was coming. This road (and the one after it) contains insanely rocky sections that are unrideable by mortals. If I hadn’t known this was coming, I would have been very, very pissed. Fortunately I’d had months to prepare myself by looking at pictures and reading descriptions on the internet of how terrible it is.

Sometimes while ascending this steep section, I would ride, and Joy would walk. Sometimes I would walk and Joy would ride. Sometimes I wandered off the “road” completely. I didn’t keep track of my average speed during all this, but I would estimate that it was maybe 1.0 mph.

During this time, I composed and performed a song, a fragment of the lyrics of which I will attempt to reconstruct now:

I’m riding my bicycle

My wife’s walking hers

Soon I will pass her…Perhaps not so soon

I’ll ride off the road now

And now get back on

That rock is enormous

I will hop off my bike.

For a while, this road was so bad that we just laughed at the craziness of it, but eventually Joy summed up our feelings like this: “The novelty of this section has worn off.”

I tried riding off the road for a while. Turns out there are rocks over there too.

Finally, the road became nice gravel, and we reached 10,000 feet for the first time. I briefly felt nauseated for some reason, but Joy reassured me: “I won’t leave you on Forest Road 144.”

We thought we were finished with the rocks but they reappeared, and this time we were descending, which might have been even worse. Often my bike felt like it might break apart into many pieces. We turned onto Forest Road 27, but my high hopes for it were quickly dashed. It was possibly even worse. Oddly, our moods remained upbeat despite the horrible surface of the road. Everyone says that this is the hardest riding of the Divide, and I estimated that we were halfway through it. I’ve been trying to moderate my use of profanity on this tour, substituting “Oh my goodness!” for various combinations of the F-word.

I said “Oh my goodness!” a lot during this section.

Finally, after 40 miles and 4100 feet of climbing, we made camp in a pretty meadow off Forest Road 27, at almost 10,000 feet. We’d hoped to get farther down the mountain where it wouldn’t be so cold, but we were running out of daylight.

We observed some curious elk as they observed us, then we went to bed at dusk as it grew increasingly chilly.

We got above 10,000 feet for the first time on the tour.

These elk were hanging around before we went to bed. They came back in the middle of the night, and I told them to go home.

Today's ride: 40 miles (64 km)
Total: 564 miles (908 km)

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