Week 5 log

6/18 Day 29
Fort Collins ~> Greeley
Leave 8:38am 57°F sunny mostly
40 miles (1512.65 total)
4h on bike
Arrive 1:00pm 75°F sunny
Pain at start: 0/10
Trails only, wide shoulders
No/little traffic
Yellow shirt, REI cotton socks

6/19 Day 30
Rest day in Longmont

6/20 Day 31
Rest day in Longmont

6/21 Day 32
Greeley ~> Brush
Leave 8:25am
72 miles (1584.65 total)
5h 30m on bike
Arrive 2:53pm 82°F sunny
Blue shirt, REI socks
Pain at start: 0/10
Hungry/hot
Medium/small shoulder
Light traffic
No hills

6/22 Day 33
Brush ~> Wray
Leave 7:38 63°F cloudy
70.54 miles (1655.19 total)
5h 49m on bike
Arrive 2:53 82°F cloudy
Medium traffic
Medium shoulder
Pain at start: 0/10
No hills
No sunglasses
Gold shirt, REI socks

6/23 Day 34
Wray CO ~> Atwood KS
Leave 7:28am MST 68°F sunny
81.40 miles (17336.59 total)
6h 51m on bike
Arrive 3:35pm CST 84°F sunny
Pain at start: 1/10 (saddle sore)
Yellow shirt, REI socks
No/small shoulder
Light traffic
Some Hills
Laundry
Entered Nebraska, Kansas, and central time zone

6/24 Day 35
Atwood ~> Norton
Leave (~7:05) temp TBD sunrise
63.85 miles (1800.44 total)
6h 38m
Blue shirt, REI socks
Hot!
Pain at start: 2/10 (saddle sore)
Medium shoulders (3')
Light traffic
Lots of hills
Headwinds all day

Self-portraiture

It wasn't just lush, diverse vistas today; I was also there (in the 99° heat). Here are some shots of me: in repose, in action, and on the shortest route to Indianapolis. I'll get off 36 well before then, but I thought it was a cool sign. There's also a building in the background of that picture, which was a welcome distraction from hill after hill after hill.

Pics from June 24

And it's official, I'm in Kansas. The fourth picture is a little bit different because I wanted to capture the sandstorm. Check out the amazing diversity of the natural landscape.

Our sweet accommodations

It's like a two bedroom
Apartment but with three beds and a washing machine and lots of other goodies. Also, here are pictures of me outside and inside a teepee.

Good signs

Yesterday's tornado watch was not a good sign. Here are some good signs.

Kansas

So I'm in Kansas. There are more hills than I thought. There are less sunflowers than I thought. It's pretty monotonous.

Unleashing the awesome power of the gator!

I finally feel like I deserve to drink Gatorade. But I'm still cutting it with water. Also here is a picture of last night's dinner.

There's the fair

Come to it. Also I'm saying in the childhood home of the 1996 PGA US Open champion. Also I literally saw a hundred thousand cows today. It smelled like poop and death and hamburgers all day. I think I might be slowly losing it. Also, it feels like I'm going in circles. And it doesn't help that they number the roads a, b, c, through z and then aa, bb, cc, zz and then BACK to a, b, c and aa, bb, cc over and over and over. I'm still not in Nebraska! But I stopped a mile or two away. And I'm only 4 or 5 miles from the Kansas border. So I will hit both first thing tomorrow morning. Woohoo!

A huge pile of corn

And the hilliest road of the day. And two punny signs in a town a passed by called Brush. And my awesome hair. There's not much else to report. I might push for Kansas tomorrow. Yay!

Pics from June 18

It was a short ride today: Fort Collins to Greeley. Short but sweet. Lots of interesting trails!

Flat #9

Thunderball!

The ghosts of Hunter

So I took all of the post-biking closeups (pictures of exhaustion) so far and smushed them together.

Week 4 Log

6/11 day 22
Day off in SLC
Laundry

6/12 day 23
I-84/I-15 ~> Evanston
Leave 8:21am 63°F cloudy
Arrive 4:49pm 79°F cloudy
80.7 mi 6h 45m on bike
Wide shoulders
Medium traffic
Some hills/wind
Pain at start: 0/10
Yellow shirt, REI socks

6/13 day 24
Evanston ~> Rock Springs
Leave 7:16am 64°F light rain
Arrive 3:30pm 85°F wind + sun
101.28 mi 6h 59m on bike
Tailwind and crosswind (from south)
Light traffic
Very windy (50+ mph gusts)
Wide shoulders
3 big hills
Blue shirt, REI socks
Pain at start: 0/10
Flat tire #5

6/14 day 25
Rock Springs ~> Rawlins
Leave 7:14am 46°F sunny
Arrive 4:40pm 77°F sunny
108.36 mi 7h 17m on bike
Light tailwind
Wide shoulders (15 miles of entire interstate to myself)
Flat tire #6
Gold shirt, REI socks
Pain at start: 1/10 (right calf)

6/15 day 26
Rawlins ~> Laramie
Leave 6:55a 40°F sunny
Arrive 8:45pm 64°F sunset
103.22 mi 9h 07m on bike
Pain at start: 1/10
Exhausting day
Flat tires #7 and #8
Back tire catastrophic failure (replaced entire tire)
Wide shoulders
Light traffic
No wind (headwind and bugs in PM)
Lots of hills
Yellow shirt, REI socks, white jacket, yellow gloves

6/16 day 27
Laramie ~> FT Collins
Leave 7:50am (temp TBD)
Arrive 1:23pm 74°F windy/rainy
56.63 mi 4h 30m on bike
Pain at start: 0/10
Light day
Medium shoulders
Light traffic
Blue shirt, REI cotton socks

6/17 day 28
Day off in Longmont

Faces of week 4

Here they are.

Nerdy things

Here are some possibly interesting graphs of the trip so far. The first is the overall elevation profile. The second is the number of miles biked each day. The third is the time on the road, separated into total time pedaling and total time on the trail. The last is the grade of the road so far, which is the slope divided by two (a 30% rise is a 15% grade). The good news is that the elevation is all downhill from here, and the distance seems to be increasing every week. Hopefully I can keep up that trend when I head out again!