Central Colorado

Steamboat Springs was shrouded in thick fog when I limped outside at 5:58 a.m. The thought of sitting on my bike and turning pedals still made me cringe, so I walked my bike over to the bagel shop two blocks away. I had scouted out its hours the night before, so I was bewildered to find it was still closed. Closer inspection of the sign revealed it opened at 6 on weekdays, but not until 6:3o on Saturdays. It was Saturday. I stared longingly inside the dark window, contemplating just waiting a half hour for warm carbohydrates and coffee. But the little voice of guilt inside my head told me that if I didn't leave Steamboat right then, I was never going to.

The first miles out of the sleepy city left me in tears. I was gnawing on a Snickers bar - an unsatisfying sugar breakfast to supplement my dangerously undercaffinated blood - and my left knee hurt, it just hurt. Warm droplets streamed down my face but it didn't matter because the fog covered my whole body in dew. At least the commuters wouldn't be able to tell I was crying. But I had resolved to at least try to make it out of Steamboat. I couldn't help but draw parallels to Geoff, my now-ex-boyfriend, who really struggled as he was leaving Steamboat Springs last year in the Great Divide Race. He went back to Steamboat that day, tried to leave again the next day, and then quit the next town over, in Kremmling. I did not want to quit in Kremmling. But I wondered if I would even make it there.

The first climb of the day, Lynx Pass, was gradual with a good road, but I had to soft-pedal or walk up the first couple of miles. Every time I tried to push hard, sharp streaks of pain would push back. But as I gained elevation, my stiff knee began to loosen. It felt like the bad blood, the fluid, or whatever was causing it to swell was beginning to flush away. And as I began the descent, the joint was still sore but not unworkably stiff. The chains had been removed.

With my body happy, and my bike finally happy, I felt a new rush of excitement as I descended to the highway crossing and set out for the next rolling climb. A half mile down the dirt road, I come upon Dave Nice, who was waiting for me with a camera and a can of Pepsi. He had been traveling the Great Divide south to north from New Mexico, and I thought he was still on the route. He told me he ended his ride several days before, but he was convalescing at his parents' house, who just happened to live a few miles away, right on the route. He said he had been meeting nearly everyone as they passed through. He offered to ride with me and we forded a deep creek. Dave actually knew about a nice shallow sandbar across it, but didn't tell me about it because that would constitute outside navigational help, which is against the race rules. So after I flailed around with my bike over my shoulder in the thigh-deep water, he crossed ankle deep, laughing the whole time. We slogged through multiple patches of unrideable mud and finally ended up at his parents' house, a little oasis of kindness, where his grandma gave me Spanish rice and brownies. I rubbed ointment on my knee and pronounced myself healed.

Shortly after leaving Dave's house, I dropped down an incredibly steep, scenic road to a remote crossing of the Colorado River. I lingered at the bridge for a few minutes, watching rafts float by and thinking that if I had a raft, I could just float all the way to Mexico. The thought made me laugh at loud. That would be way too easy. I began the next steep climb with surprisingly fresh knees, strengthened by my new perspective on pain.

I gained a couple thousand feet out of the valley and then dropped right back down to the river at the Kremmling cutoff. I had been listening to my iPod since I left Radium, random shuffle, and "Wake Up" by Arcade Fire was playing when I crossed the highway. That intersection is the point where racers must decide whether to continue straight, to Kremmling, or turn right and follow the Colorado River to points unknown. Without even hesitating, I hung a hard right just as Arcade Fire was belting out the lyrics, "We’re just a million little gods causing rainstorms, turning every good thing to rust. I guess we’ll just have to adjust." My adrenaline surged and my muscles swelled. Even if it was just by yards, I had surpassed the point where Geoff ended his race last year. And we've stayed on good terms since the breakup, but I couldn't help myself. With the exception of the final pedal strokes into the border, it was the most satisfying moment of my entire trip.


I pushed late into Silverthorne and left relatively late the next morning. I was caught off guard by the sheer human traffic of the area - solid I-70 mountain town territory - and tried to temper my culture shock among throngs of Sunday walkers, hikers and recreational cyclists on their way to quaint little coffee shops and book stores. The route all the way to Breckenridge follows mostly bike paths, and also appears to intersect a heavily used road-touring route. A German couple on bicycles bulging with four loaded panniers and a BOB trailer flagged me down and grilled me in broken English about the road into Silverthorne. I couldn't understand their barrage of questions and mumbled "bike path" before slipping away.

I fought may way through wildlife-viewing crowds in Frisco only to meet the backside of a large group of walkers. As I wove through the first several dozen, I noticed many of them were wearing pink and carrying signs in support of survivors. It was a breast cancer walk. "You guys rock," I shouted as I slipped by one group. "Way to go," I said to another. I was wearing a pink breast cancer jersey myself and felt like I fit right in. But then a mile went by. Then two. And the path-blocking crowds didn't abate, they got thicker. My "you rocks" turned into guiltily terse "on your lefts," which was a pointless thing to say because nobody ever actually moved. I bounced off curbs and over grassy patches as slowly as I could handle the bike, but usually I had to stop and jog around the walkers. I felt so frustrated but I couldn't let myself be grumpy about it because it was a breast cancer walk, and these people were doing good, and I was just a non-local riding a dumb bike and I didn't deserve to be there.

The breast cancer walk ended up stretching all the way to Breckenridge, more than eight miles clogged with people. It felt so strange to be locked in a population center, which, I guess if you're going to cross an entire country, you're probably eventually going to have to go through at least one. But it was such a different feeling from the quiet solitude of the rest of the route.

The crowds continued up Boreas Pass, but they were mountain bikers, most of whom were faster than me, so at least they weren't slowing me down. The climb was the perfect combination of long and gradual; I motored along the cliffside views of Breckenridge and alpine meadows, my mood lightening with the air. It was my first time in the race over 11,000 feet - 11,400 feet to be exact - and that felt huge, coming from a cycling background that usually sticks close to sea level.

The descent off Boreas was gravelly and rough and I stayed right behind two guys on souped-up full-suspension bikes. The strong climb and swift descent were fueling almost unprecedented energy levels. I was approaching that fleeting but ideal state of being that I like to call "untouchable."

Right on schedule, thunderstorms moved in during the afternoon. I did not care. I smiled, put on my rain jacket and pants, and pedaled along the open high country as hail pelted down.

Climbs couldn't slow me. Descents couldn't faze me. I stopped in Hartsel for "rocket fuel" (ice cream sandwich and Pepsi) that I didn't even need, almost out of habit. As I was cramming the calories through a sled-dog-like excitement to just go, go, go, a couple of cyclists approached me. They said they were with a vehicle-supported group that was touring cross country to raise money for affordable housing. As we talked about our respective trips, one told me, "I can understand the mileage you're doing, but what I can't understand is not taking any rest days. How can you survive on no rest?"

I just shrugged, because I didn't know how to answer that question. But the thing I had learned since leaving Rawlins is that rest demands more rest, and movement demands more movement, and balancing the two is how we mere mortals can conquer the Divide.

Since I left Silverthorne somewhat late in the morning, I had just assumed that I wouldn't reach Salida, 115 miles away, until well after dark. But by the final climb, my body was firing so efficiently that I motored up with time to spare. I crested 10,000 feet elevation, and proceeded to lose 3,000 feet on the most jaw-dropping descent of the entire trip. The narrow road wrapped around sandstone outcroppings and cut through red-sand slopes. Without even warning, Colorado had dropped me in the Southwest, but it was a Southwest I had never before experienced - with 14,000-foot monsters surrounding hills peppered with juniper and pinion. And above all that, streams of sunlight filtered through the rain, casting heavenly beams over the foothills. As for me, I was in near-freefall, letting sheer gravity pull me toward the glistening valley below. I was so glad I had pedaled fast enough to experience it at that moment, in that light.

I rolled into Salida, grabbed a super-cheap motel room (I love the Southwest), did my most efficient stock-up ever at the 7-11, and settled into a comfy booth at a Mexican restaurant, where the waiter brought me at least 2,500 calories worth of fajitas, chips, beans, rice and root beer. I perused my maps as I wolfed it down, marveling at how great I felt, how revved up I was to keep moving, how perfectly the whole day - despite minor people traffic setbacks - had come together. I had biked 115 miles and three passes and I didn't even feel tired. I was a Divide racer at last.

P.S. The Juneau Empire did a story on my Tour Divide ride (I didn't write it). You can read it here.

Northern Colorado

The first real heat of the trip soaked into my skin as I rolled out of Rawlins at 12:30 p.m. The late hour felt like a huge setback, and I was grumpy about the fact that Steamboat Springs - 130 miles away - was now at an impossible distance to reach in a day. I was going to have to spend a night out with my bandaged freewheel and jerry-rigged brakes before I could hit up a "real" bike shop for the extensive repairs I needed. The last climbs out of Wyoming were huge and the hours moved too quickly. I resolved to ride late into the night to put myself as close to Steamboat as possible, but my heart wasn't in it. The 18-hour stop in Rawlins had initiated some kind of shutdown.

Divide racing is a fascinating example of humans turning themselves into machines by separating themselves from their own humanity. We ignore biological pleadings and powerful emotions for the simple, almost inhumane act of forward motion. Turning pedals becomes a mindless act and our bodies shift into automatic mode. I could out my head down and power up climbs without even making a decision to do so, all day long, but at the end of the night, faced with the chores of eating dinner, choosing my calories for the next day, washing my clothes and brushing my teeth, I'd be completely bewildered by the complexity of it all. Shifting back into "normal person" mode was becoming harder every day. But after 18 hours in Rawlins, with three big meals, 10 hours of sleep and several hours of intellectual collaboration with other humans, I had already started to adjust back to life on the other side. And, leaving Rawlins, I didn't want to be a Divide racer any more. I wanted to be a normal human.

The instant consequence of this desire was a powerful loneliness. I crossed the border into Slater, Colorado, and began climbing up the impossibly loose gravel of a ranch road right at sunset. My back wheel spun out every time I stood up from the saddle. The steeper pitches forced me to walk, and as I walked, the silence was maddening. I could see clouds building in the dusky sky, and sprinkles of rain were starting to fall. "Man, screw getting close to Steamboat," I thought. "I'm just going to camp."But all of the trees surrounding me were peppered with "No trespassing" signs. A sign at a cattle guard warned that private property continued for at least six miles. I looked out across the canyon, almost desperate just to see a porch light, just some evidence of humanity in the distance, but all I could see were the silhouettes of tree tops and the dim glow of my headlamp fading into a black expanse.

I churned up the hill for several more miles when I finally did see the warm glow of artificial light. I rounded a bend and saw a several log buildings; it looked like a lodge. Lights were on inside the largest building, intensely warm and inviting against the rainy, lonely night. I stopped pedaling and lingered for a few minutes, debating whether I wanted to bother whoever was inside for shelter I didn't really need. It was 10:30 at night. I shook my head and started up the road. I had pedaled about 50 yards when I head a voice say, "Jill?"

I turned my bike around and approached a woman standing at the door. "You hungry?" she asked.

"Excuse me?" I said.

"Are you hungry?" she repeated, but before I had a chance to answer, said, "Of course you're hungry. What kind of question is that? Come in!"

Wide-eyed and confused, I parked my bike and stumbled in the door as the woman beckoned me toward the kitchen. She placed a huge bowl of fruit in front of me - grapes, cherries, watermelon and mango. "I just cut that for you," she said of the mango. "It's a little soft, but they're better that way."

"How do you know who I am?" I finally asked.

The woman looked at me with a smirk as though she were both surprised at my ignorance and happy about her surprise. "Tour Divide!" she said. "I've been watching you all day. I thought you were never going to leave Rawlins."

"Neither did I," I said.

"I almost missed you, too," she said. "I just updated the site and saw your dot right on top of here, and I looked out the window and saw your headlight."

"Wow," I said. "I'm glad you did."

The woman told me her name was Kirsten. She ran the Brush Mountain Lodge and she was a huge fan of the race. She had helped out other racers in front of me, providing them with fresh fruit, meals and a bed if they needed it. She whipped up a quesedilla and chips to go with the fruit, a big glass of water and hot tea. We sat down to check out the Tour Divide standings.

"Did you know Michael Jackson died?" she asked.

I smiled. "No. No I did not."

She shook her head. "That must be so cool, really being out there like that."

She set me up in a room and asked me what time I wanted breakfast. "Um, maybe 7 a.m.?" I said.

"That sounds great to me. Those other guys all wanted breakfast at 4," she said.

I laughed. "Welcome to mid-pack! It only gets better from here."

Kirsten, just as promised, greeted me at 7 a.m. with a huge veggie omelet, toast, and coffee to my heart's desire. I was never in the mood to make morning stops, so that was actually the only hot breakfast I ate in my entire trip. It was amazing. I set out in light rain for the first pass of the day and my first foray over 10,000 feet, the Watershed Divide.

The fog thickened and the rain grew heavier as I climbed. I crested the pass in a near gray-out and started down the steep descent, where rivers of mud flowed between basketball-sized boulders. It was a hard descent to pick a good line, made even harder by the wheel-sucking mud that would have stopped my bike altogether if I wasn't plummeting down a 15-percent grade. The mud scared me more than gravity and I took it fast, pressing my butt deep into my seatpost bag, bouncing my tires of rocks and generally hanging on faith to get me down. I applied the brakes hard on a regular basis, until, at a pivotal moment as I was bouncing over a particularly gnarly rock garden, I pulled the brake levers all the way down and absolutely nothing happened.

In a split second I pulled one more time and then panicked, leaning hard to the left and bashing my left knee against a sharp rock as I skidded through a geyser of mud to a painful stop. My shoulder burned and my knee was screaming, so forcefully I was sure I could hear it, and I had to spend several minutes lying head down in the mud until I could hear something besides audible pain. When I finally stood up, the rain had resumed echoing loudly in my helmet and my knee had calmed down a bit. I tried bending it and realized it felt stiff but not broken. My rainpants had torn and I could see blood seeping through my leg warmers, but I didn't quite yet dare pull them up to inspect the damage.

I checked my brake pads. The brand new front pads that I had just barely installed the day before had worn to medal. The brake rotor and even hub were coated in a sticky black goo that I can only assume used to be the pads. They had completely disintegrated. The rear pads were worn to almost nothing, but there was a little life left in those. I adjusted the dials to their maximum setting and was able to get the back brakes to catch again, but the situation was precarious at best. I had at least six more miles of that nasty rocky descent followed by a dozen or so more miles of graded gravel descent before I finally hit pavement. I thought about walking. But the rain fell harder, the mud became stickier, my knee throbbed painfully, and I just wanted to be somewhere else. I decided to ride, said a little prayer, and held on.

By the time I reached the paved sanctuary of Clark, Colorado, I could add mild hypothermia to my list of ailments. I had been riding the back brake and inching down the route for nearly two hours, exerting almost no heat as driving rain soaked me to the bone. I stopped outside the Clark store and held a garden hose over my body like a showerhead, trying to wash away a thick, full-body layer of mud just so I could walk in the door. Inside, I ordered a big burrito and a bottomless cup of coffee, and huddled in the corner until I felt warm and brave enough to pull up my leg warmers. My knee cap was covered in road rash and fairly swollen, but not yet black and blue. It seemed like a goose egg of some sort - not horrible - but it still ached and seemed to stiffen even further as my body warmed. I could barely walk into the bathroom. "I'm totally toast," I thought. "I'll be lucky to make it to Steamboat."

Steamboat was only 20 miles away, mostly paved and mostly downhill. I couldn't face it. I just couldn't face it. It's hard to really describe how shattered I felt as I sat in the Clark store. I wasn't yet contemplating the logistics of quitting, but I couldn't fathom how I was going to ride into Steamboat. Finally, a woman came up to me with a towel and asked me if I wouldn't mind mopping up the puddles beneath me. I was terribly embarrassed, and - amusing to me now - couldn't face spending any more time in that store. Where courage fails, humiliation triumphs. I was finally back on the road, soft-pedaling into Steamboat.

By the time I reached town, it was 4 p.m. I hadn't realized how late it had gotten. I rushed to Orange Peel bike shop and asked them if they could help me. The mechanic asked if he could pencil me in for the following Wednesday. "Um," I said, my voice breaking, "I'm just passing through."

"Oh," he said. "Are you with the Tour Divide?" I nodded forlornly. He beckoned another mechanic over and they immediately lifted my bike onto a stand. Within minutes they were pulling off my bags as I filled out a form of the myriad of things I wanted done, in order of importance, knowing they only had until 6 p.m. to work on my bike: new brake caliper, rotor and pads, new freewheel, new cassette and chain, new chain rings, new cables and housing, and a new bike computer (my old one broke in the crash). I limped over to a natural foods store to stock up and assess whether I could continue on. I had only covered about 50 miles that day, but my bike was held up until at least 6 and my knee was throbbing. I finally decided it would be best just to call the day a loss and hope things improved in the morning.

I'm back and it's summer in Juneau

I'd be lying if I said my ferry ride into Juneau wasn't filled with a dull sense of dread. There's just a lot I'm going to miss about my all bike, all the time lifestyle, and there were a lot of unknowns waiting for me in Juneau. I know I shouldn't treat my real life like a credit card payment, but that's how it seemed as the familiar profile of the Chilkat Mountains faded over the northern horizon. I had my fun and now it's time to pay up. I really am looking forward to working at the newspaper again and excited to see my friends here, but it's hard to give up a life of adventure, even when you know it's not sustainable.

I spent as much time in Whitehorse as I could justify on Wednesday. Sierra and I swam sans wetsuits in a Yukon lake until my blood was nearly the same temperature as the water, and then I shivered away the rest of the rainy day eating falafel, bumming around the bike shop and watching the Tour de France. I drove the final leg to Skagway in the evening, planning to sleep in my car at the ferry terminal and catch the boat early in the morning.

As I neared White Pass, I noticed a faint double track climbing away from the highway. The swim and subsequent rewarming had left me feeling wiped out and the clouds were still dripping rain; still, I couldn't help but unload my bike from the roof and set out to see where it went. The road faded to loose singletrack and continued to deteroriate until it was little more than spongy tundra and sinkholes. Eventually I was just slogging through the muskeg on foot, splattering mud all over my jeans and swatting at mosquitoes, but it was so difficult for me to turn around. I knew the minute I returned, my adventure would officially be over. There would be no more new trails to explore, no more miles left to traverse. I was going home.

The ferry arrived in Juneau at 2 p.m., and I was back to work by 5. My co-workers all gathered around my desk to welcome me home. They made a banner to commemorate my trip - all 86 days I was away since I clocked out on April 22. I'm not entirely clear on the math they used to come up with 6,121 miles - I think that was roughly the mileage I covered to make it back to them since I left Banff on June 12. But it was a fun surprise. Everyone signed it, of course. I got a big laugh out of "Welcome back to the daily miracle!" and "Welcome home I missed you ... Pugsley." Our legislative reporter, Pat, even referenced my blog, writing, "Welcome back to the 'vague void,' as you call it." (For the record, Pat, the 'vague void' was a reference to all of the unknowns I'm facing right now. My job is one of the few tangible things I have.)

I'm super glad I still have a job. I wasn't going to believe it until I was actually back at the office and greeted with open arms. Not only was I greeted with open arms, my coworkers sprung for a 36-pack of Diet Pepsi, peanut butter cups, goldfish, and gummy worms. I was feeling the love. Thanks, guys.

And I'm just about ready to be done being lazy. But pretty much everything I do feels lazy these days. Even when I was worn out from the long drive, exhausted by hours of mountain biking and staying up late to visit friends, I would fall asleep feeling guilty for putting in such a lazy day. My body is tired but my mind is used to 12 hours a day of riding compounded by the constant work it took just keeping the engine running. I'm starting to wonder if my life will ever seem anything but lazy again. But I did enjoy a four-hour hike with my co-worker, Abby, to Gastineau Peak. It was technically an interview since she is working on a sports story about the Tour Divide. The wildflowers were out in full-color force and I'm amazed how far along summer is. The fireweed is in bloom, the mountain snow has nearly faded, and cruise ships are clogging the harbor. It's a different world than the one I left in April.

I unfortunately brought the rain back with me. While I was gone, all my friends here could talk about was how amazing Juneau's summer has been, how sunny the skies were, how many times the temperatures reached the 80s, and how little it's rained. Now it's mid-July and the rainy season is just a few short weeks away, unless it decides to hit early. I can't believe I missed one of Juneau's most spectacular summers on record to experience one of the wettest summers on record in the Rockies, but that's the price we pay for adventure. I wouldn't give it back, even if it rains every day in Juneau from now until November.

It's hard but good to be home, just the way I like it.

Wyoming

Writer's note: This one is really long because I had lots of time to kill on the ferry ride from Skagway to Juneau this morning:

John and I were both in a good mood as we started grinding up the Ashton-Flagg Ranch Road. I was happy to have company for one more day and John seemed excited to be drawing closer to real civilization. I had been promoting Idaho Falls as a good bailout city, but he was set on Jackson. We crossed into the Tetons just as our daily dose of afternoon storm clouds began to settle and darken. John said something about Flagg Ranch and turned on the turbo. Within a minute he was out of sight. John tended to be more of a fair-weather riding partner - which is great. Not a criticism about him at all. If I had the raw strength to sprint away from the rain, I would have used it. John had power. I had good rain gear.

Jeremy Noble passed me on the last climb into Flagg, turning slow circles on a big gear. I made a mental note to try and keep up with Jeremy on the hills in the future, which would allow us to ride more together rather than just leap-frog each other. I wasn’t sure if Jeremy even wanted me shadowing him, but I figured we were getting to a time and mileage of the race where any human contact was at a premium. I wasn’t quite ready to face the entire rest of the race alone.

John and Jeremy both escaped the storm, for the most part. I descended in a cold downpour amid the splatter of slick mud and crescendoing thunder. For its encore, the storm belched out a blast of pea-sized hail, which pounded my back and stung my scalp through the vents in my helmet. I sloshed into the Flagg Ranch lodge to find John and Jeremy warm and comfy by the fire. I went to the gift shop and bought a snack combination that I was beginning the think of as “rocket fuel:” a chocolate chip cookie/ice cream sandwich and a large coffee. John made a reservation at a lodge near our cut-off junction and we took off down Highway 89.

Riding down the highway struck me in the same way eastern Idaho did - familiar places, startlingly difference perspective. John and I ended up at a semi-posh horse riding ranch just before Togwotee Pass. Freshly showered and reclined in bed, I sipped hot herbal tea with my nightly brownie and remarked how surprised I was that the Tour Divide felt so much more like a vacation than an epic race. I was staying within my goals, and there were certainly challenges, but I had expected near-constant struggle and strain. “Don’t worry,” John said. “The suffering will come.”


The next morning, John bid me goodbye and I started up Togwotee beneath a bluebird morning. I felt fresh and strong and even pushed my usual pace up the pavement, taking big gulps of cooled oxygen as I drew closer to alpine elevation. Sweeping snowfields wrapped around cathedral-like mountains. Creeks roared in the still air. The cut-off to Brooks Lake greeted me with a deep snow drift that I knew could be covering the road for as many as five miles of unmaintained dirt.

The kicker to Brooks Lake is that you can stay on the paved highway and bypass the whole thing. Not only that, the highway is downhill the entire way. I knew this - everyone knows this. In fact, this stretch is probably the most common place for cheating in the race. And, of course, I had no intention of cheating in the race. But even if I hadn’t been racing, even if I had just been touring, I probably still would have taken the snowy road. That’s how excited I was to be up there - the amazingly nice morning, the spectacular surroundings.

The snow was fairly packed and probably would have even been rideable if I had hit it up early in the morning, but it was noon and turning mushy. I started walking. I expected this and was even excited about it - snow hiking was a fun diversion from the constant pedaling, and I knew everyone had to deal with it so I didn’t care about the fact that I was going slow. But as I started to lose elevation, the snow fields started to disappear. And what they left behind was mud. The worst kind of mud. The mud that grabs and pulls entire shoes off feet, sticks to every corner of the bike, and forces a hapless smallish cyclist with low clearance on her 29-inch wheels to literally hoist her 50-pound bike as she struggles to free her feet from the sticky goo. And within feet, just like that, I went from on top of the world to mired in frustration and mounting depression.

The problem with mud like that is that you just don’t know how long it will last. It could be 20 yards, or it could be several miles. I was still looking at the possibility of several miles. The road was not even passable on foot, and it was cut into a steep mountainside that made it nearly impossible to go around. I undid the straps on my frame bag and lifted the bike, gear and all, on my shoulder in order to step down the steep slope and try to pick my way along the rocks. Calling a situation like that sketchy is an understatement. It was so hard to balance with the bike that I slipped a couple of times, rolling my ankle once but luckily doing no further damage. I could have easily tipped over and fallen 6 feet or so. But such was the impossibility of the mud.

After a long stretch of time with little ground covered, I would reach another snow drift, which would lift my heart out of the depths and give me hope that the struggle was over. But the snow would end, the mud would begin, and I would continue the slog. After three hours in which I covered less than three miles, I finally made it to the Brooks Lake Lodge, where I was relieved to discover a plowed gravel road that was mostly dry. I coasted back to the pavement, greatly humbled.

My mood improved again as I pedaled beside the Wind River Mountains. The day was beautiful, despite a strengthening headwind. I began the climb up Union Pass on a wide gravel road, munching on Sour Patch Kids and cheese crackers. Although I was somewhat low on food, I opted not to stop at the little store at the highway junction because I was under the impression there was a lodge at the top (this was a case of misunderstanding something John had told me and not bothering to double-check my maps.) But I started up thinking I was going to find the crowds and commerce of the Tetons. I crested the 9,210-foot pass to a starkly different world. The high alpine plain was streaked with snow and devoid of any human structures. Unhindered by trees or mountainsides, the headwind that I had been fighting all day hit fever pitch. Riding into it, I could hardly make my legs move. Any time the road curved, the crosswind was strong enough to nearly knock me off my bike. It was discouraging, but my capacity for frustration had been so drained by Brooks Lake that I accepted it without complaint, put my head down, and plowed forward. And I began to accept that there was no lodge up there. There was no food. There was nothing but the rolling alpine meadows, the wind, and the fact that I had no choice but to pedal.

The route began to descend into hillsides heavily populated by cows, and finally the Green River Valley. Like the Snake River the day before, the crossing of a major river made me feel proud. Part of that feeling is a tangible sign of progress; another is a fact that these rivers define the regions they travel through. “So you’re the Green River,” I said out loud to the rushing water. “You don’t look so big up here.”

The road to Pinedale was lined with wide-open sagebrush fields. Dark descended long before I made it to town, but I was pretty much running near empty with only a couple of Power Bars in my emergency food rations, so I had to put in the miles. I didn’t mind at that point. I was happy to see such different terrain. It was the first time I could really recognize just how far I had come. I stopped at what looked like the nicest hotel in town pretty much solely because it was next door to a gas station - likely the only food source that was open after 11 p.m. For anyone considering entering this race in the future, this is my biggest piece of advice: Get a good credit card. Pretend that you have a million dollars. Pretend money has no value. Buy yourself exactly what you think you need. Take care of yourself first and worry about your financial situation later. This race is hard enough without trying to do it on a tight budget.

The next morning, rested and well fed, I set out toward the high desert of central Wyoming. My body felt great but my bike was a different story. The mud and miles had taken their toll and it was making weird clanking noises. The brake pads were nearly worn out. Even after adjusting them several times, they still barely caught the rotor unless I throttled them. The cables were gummed up and the shifters weren’t working properly. I couldn’t shift into my small ring unless I stopped and physically moved the chain with my hands.

The rough gravel road climbed and dropped steeply over the drainages of the Wind River Range. Because I didn’t have a low gear and was feeling good, I mashed up the steep grades before flying down the next hill. By the time I reached South Pass City, my knees were on fire. I stopped for a while at a rest stop near a highway crossing, and by the time I tried to ride again, my knees were stiff to the point of sharp pain. The climb into Atlantic City was the steepest of the day, and I had to walk up most of it. A couple in an SUV passed as I was hiking. They honked and waved.

Atlantic City is another example of a place where I misunderstood John’s recommendation about it and failed to double-check its services on my map (this would be the last time I would be so nonchalant about preparedness. I ended up finishing the race with more than two days worth of food.) My heart dropped to my knees when I saw the sign that said “Atlantic City, population 57.” I had no idea the town would be so small. It was after 6 p.m. I had been expecting to load up with everything I needed to cross the Great Divide Basin, over 140 miles of no services, before I continued on that night. I’d be lucky to find a cattle tank in this town. I rode by a touristy-looking mercantile with a sign on the door that said, simply, “Closed Tuesdays.” It was Tuesday. But I could see signs of life in a building next door. And when I walked inside, I realized it was a bar.

The bar turned out to have a full menu of dinners and a little shelf with provisions. They weren’t good provisions. In fact, everything on that shelf was food that I would never eat in real life, and would probably even spurn on a hungry trail unless I was desperate. But I was desperate. I loaded up with single-serving packets of Spam, expired Oreos and heavily processed pastries that I would later learn had deteriorated beyond the point of stale to near dust. But I was grateful for them. I ordered two Pepsis, fried chicken strips and soup, and sat down, happy.

My knees were still throbbing and I debated how far I’d be able to ride that night without significant rest. While I was stewing about my knees and my backpack full of Spam, a couple eating dinner next to the window waved me over. “Were you the biker we saw out of South Pass City?” she asked.

“You mean the one walking my bike?” I said. “Yeah, that was me.” She asked me to join them. She said her name was Maryjane, and she and her husband, Terry, were retired and lived in an old gold mill that had been converted to a house. She asked me if I wanted to spend the night at her house. I smiled. I had been hoping to ride further into the Great Divide Basin, but how could I refuse? As I said earlier, money is worth little on the Great Divide, and even miles can only amount to so much. Kindness is worth everything.

The comfy hide-a-bed amid the stone walls of the old mill turned out to be one of my big blessings of the trip. I woke up at 4 a.m. and made myself a huge breakfast and liters of coffee to fuel up for the long, thirsty, Spam-subsidized ride across the Basin. I massaged my knees for a bit but noticed the were feeling significantly better after a long sleep. I wrote a sincerely grateful note to Terry and Maryjane and walked out to find my bike covered in frost. The first hints of sun pierced the salmon-colored sky just as I was passing what my map promised would be the last tree until Rawlins, and I smiled, because I decided that day was going to be a good day.

The ride through Great Divide Basin was significant for me because it paralleled both the Pony Express and Oregon Trails. My family has lived in Utah for generations, and I have great-great-etc. grandparents who crossed the plains with the Mormon pioneers. My great-great-etc. grandfather crossed the Rockies with an early company and helped settle the town of Hyrum, Utah. They went through the Great Divide Basin at a time when there was truly nothing out there, and they had little more to go on than faith. I like to think that the adventurous pioneer spirit of my ancestors lives on in me, and I was excited to see the desolate regions they had traversed, to see the desert landscape that had not changed much since the 1850s, and see it in a manner that was not so different than theirs.

The day before, I had asked Maryjane about Willie’s Handcart, a historical site that the route goes right by. She told me that Willie’s Handcart Company had been bogged down further east because the wheels on their wagons were breaking and they didn’t have the tools to repair them. By the time they got their wagon issues sorted out, they lost several oxen and ended up reaching the Great Divide Basin perilously close to winter. The were slammed with an early storm near the crossing of the Sweetwater River, and many people in the company perished. Historical tragedy was fixed in my mind just before my own freewheel started to slip.

I was about 30 miles beyond Atlantic City, coasting near the bottom of a long hill when the hub first refused to engage. I spun the pedals wildly as the bike slowed to a near stop. I hopped off, lifted the rear wheel off the ground and turned the crank by hand, frantically willing the wheel to start turning again while imagining my 30-mile walk back to Atlantic City. When it finally engaged, I dropped the wheel and jumped back on the bike quickly. I pumped hard up the next hill and tried to coast again, only to have my freewheel slip on me again. I spun the pedals as quickly as I could, finally creating enough friction to get the freewheel the catch, but I was quickly beginning to realize that coasting or stopping was going to be risky from there on out.

I pedaled hard and mulled my options. I thought about the possibility of zip-tying the cassette to the spokes and riding the bike as a fixed gear, but I still had at least 110 miles to ride to Rawlins, and I seriously doubted a repair like that would last the distance without tearing apart the wheel. I thought about turning around right there, because 30 miles of uncertainty was better than 110, but it also meant going backward to a town that had no services to help me. If I continued forward, I had exactly two bailout points where there was a 14 to 20-mile spur to the nearest town off route. I finally decided my best option was to continue forward as long as I could, and only stop near these bailout points. From there, I could try the zip tie thing, or I could simply walk out.

This turned out to be more difficult than I thought. I could eat my Spam and disgusting pastries from the bike, but I needed to stop to change over my maps or switch my water. I had to rely on my GPS for directions and ration my fluid. Then there was the issue of emptying my own bladder. On top of all that, I was 12 days into the trip and hadn’t noticed how dependent my legs had become on short breaks. After about 20 miles they ached with the thick fire of lactic acid. I tried standing to relieve them, but mostly they just wanted to stop. And I couldn’t even rest on the downhills - if anything, my legs had to work harder to keep me from coasting (huge props to Deanna on her fixed gear, by the way. I never thought descending could be harder than climbing.) Before my first stop, my water was empty, my bladder was so full I was seeing yellow, my legs were on fire and I had no idea whether GPS was really taking me in the right direction. But seeing that intersection on the horizon made me ecstatically happy. And after a 10-minute break, I spun my loose freewheel until it caught again, which made me even happier.

I repeated the process to the Jeffery City cutoff, where I had to make the final decision whether to bail or continue toward Rawlins. It was at least 60 more miles to town, and I would be fully committed to making it there knowing I would see little to no traffic for several dozen miles. I pressed forward, repeating my mantra of no coast, no stop, and letting the stress of becoming stranded and the burn in my muscles take my mind off my now only slightly achy knees. The sagebrush-dotted landscape rolled out behind me, baked in afternoon sun and starkly beautiful in its desolation, and I unfortunately thought little about appreciating it. I just wanted to get to Rawlins - Mecca to me, funny as it is now to think of that grim little Interstate town in that way. I just pedaled and pedaled as if my life depended on it, which, in my mind, it did.

From there, the trip to Rawlins went by really fast. I made it to town just after 5 p.m. - 140 miles in 12 hours, one of my fastest average speeds of the entire trip. I was able to squeeze into the bike shop before they closed. The owner said she didn’t think she had the parts to help me - disc brake pads, a freewheel, a new hub, or even a new 29” wheel of any sort. She said her mechanic would be in the shop at 10 a.m. the next day and he could possibly help me. I hemmed and hawed and called around for advice. I didn’t want another day of freewheel-induced stress, and I certainly didn’t want to become stranded, but I also didn’t want to burn up as many as 18 perfectly good hours sitting around Rawlins for a solution that may not even be a solution. But I finally decided to wait. I knew I would never forgive myself if I really did become stranded on the Colorado border and quit the race because I was too impatient to wait for a bike mechanic. I told myself the rest would do me some good and lots of fresh grocery store food would help my system flush out the Spam and dust pastries.

The next morning, 10 a.m. came and went. The bike shop owner let me in the back of the shop, where I deep-cleaned my drive train and cables and went to work on the front brake. The caliper had been sticking and I had pretty much stopped using my brake because one side of the pads had worn to metal. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get the new brake pads - my only spare set - inside. Finally, near 11 a.m., the bike mechanic showed up. He turned out to be an 18-year-old kid with sleep still crusted to his eyes. He fiddled around with my brake caliper and admitted he rarely dealt with disc brakes. We worked on it together until he finally just announced he was going to break a piece off one of the arms. I clenched my teeth as he snapped a piece of metal clean off and jammed the brake pads in. After that, they seemed to catch. It seemed sketchy, but I hadn’t had front brakes before, either, so anything would be an improvement.

Next he went to work on the freewheel - sure enough, no parts. He said he could take apart the hub, clean and grease it up in about 25 minutes. I went to Subway, stuffed a chicken sandwich through my stress and prayed. By noon I had a mostly complete if still unreliable bike, bags stuffed to the brim with food and a burning desire to get out of Rawlins.