Written by Dave

Day 27 – June 24 – 102 Miles, 3,360 feet climbing (Grant Village to Cody)

Today I’ll start with the finish, just because it was so spectacular. We were due to stop at 67 miles at the Rex Hale Forest Service campground. When we arrived there the wind was blowing a gale down the canyon, the direction we came from. Gusts had to be more than 40 MPH. As we huddled slightly out of the wind, behind the information boards, Chris struck up a conversation with the camp host. She said that her campground kind of funnelled the canyon winds and was good at shredding tents and/or putting them in the river. It was only 1PM and we couldn’t imagine spending the afternoon trying to relax while holding onto tent guylines. We made a group decision that riding on would be better. We had no idea if we could make it all the way to Cody.

At 1:30, after watering up and having a snack we struck out into the wind. The start didn’t go well with Nancy being blown to a standstill just getting back to the highway. It was more fun once we hit the highway and turned right with the wind down the canyon. The gusts and occasional side wind blasts made riding a little edgy and it took all of us a while to get used to just embracing it and rolling with the wind. We covered 38 miles in 1 hour and 25 minutes. There were a couple uphills but mostly it was 1 to 2% downhill. At times we were riding 35 MPH with only the sound of our tires on the road. There was minimal traffic and a nice wide, smooth shoulder. If you could sell tickets for riding a loaded touring bike, you’d make a mint of today’s ride. We toyed with reaching Cody today this morning but really didn’t think we had 100 miles in our legs. Who knew the winds gods would help that much.

Ok, ok, I’m getting ahead of myself, back to the start of the day… As evidenced by this blog, we did not get eaten by a bear in Yellowstone last night. And no, we did not discharge our bear spray. Nancy was worried and made me promise to stay awake when she visited the ladies. Naturally, I was on it like a hawk, mostly. Anyway we survived.

Start was delayed again by Chris but only a few minutes and he says he is working on his packing (hmm,  after 4 weeks you’d think he had this down).  Right out of camp we had a couple “elk-jams” where people stopped in their cars for photos. They weren’t too bad as by staying in the park we didn’t have to deal with the hordes of visitors coming in for the day. The second delay of the day was Yellowstone Lake. We rode along side it for a good 30 miles and the views were magical. Boats are allowed on the lake but we saw very few today and the lake was like glass. Perhaps launching is too expensive but we did see a few boats being towed yesterday.

We took a short break for Curtis to fix a flat tire on his rear. He was very quick with the change – maybe not having 4 males helping made it go better, just saying. Our next stop was taken at Fishing Bridge general store where we had breakfast sandwiches and freshened our water supplies.  After the store we had about 10 miles to ride to reach the major climb of the day. Just as we were starting the climb, we met another young couple out on their touring bikes – Joey and Claire – riding Vancouver to Toronto. We had thought we’d see them at camp tonight but that was before wind-mageddon.

The climb itself was not too bad. I stopped for bear photos but honestly the bear was so far away that all I got was entertainment by the folks with the mega spotting scopes. I tried getting a photo of the mama bear with her two cubs but I had to zoom my phone to the max and couldn’t find them in the shaking viewfinder. About the same time, the bear-spotting people let out a collective sigh as the bear went under a log and stayed out of view.

My delay gave Chris a chance to catch up with me and I rode with him to the top. We topped out at about 8,627 feet but then had to ride down a bit and up a bit to reach 8,530 foot Sylvan Pass, where the roads people decided to put the sign. At the top we congratulated each other and started a ripper 7 mile, 7-8% downhill, with a tailwind. It was a bit white knuckle with some brake pad material being spent.

It was about 17 miles to Rex Hale from the top of the pass. You know the rest of the story what happened there. It should be worth noting however, that the Shoshone River Canyon was a stunning ride. If I hadn’t being flying 35 MPH I would have taken more photos for sure. One stop that I did make was the photo of Bob’s Big Boy – out in the middle of a field, in the middle of nowhere. Bob is owned by a local artist who purchased Bob from a failed restaurant in California and installed him in the field for a conversation piece – the things you do for entertainment in Wyoming I guess.

Anyway, we’re here, we’re safe and we’re smiling. Tomorrow is a short day now and yes, the winds are forecast to swing around to be at our back again. We may not have to pedal at all, woohoo again.