Tuesday 5 June - A character building bike ride

Rawlins - Lander

126 miles (a new record)
9 hours and 12 minutes in the saddle
34.7 mph max speed
13.6 mph average speed

Yes, we were mad to do 126 miles in a day. We are hurting in every muscle in our body, but the posterior is particularly sore. We left Rawlins at 6.45am, which is far too early according to Stephen since he has paid good money for the hotel room, and therefore needs to make full use of the facilities....oh it's great being married to an accountant!

We had calm winds as we left Rawlins to climb up towards the Great Divide Basin. The Great Divide Basin was the bottom of the sea 300 million years ago. The views across the basin were like looking across a moon landscape. It is a vast open, empty desert surrounded by mountains. The sand is orange and the hills are also orange. The road crosses the basin as straight as an arrow for about 20 miles. We had tail wind and for the first 60 miles of our ride we were averaging around 16 mph. As we reached the end of the basin we stopped at Grandma's Cafe. It was spooky. We were probably the first people who had stopped there for weeks. The smoke from cooking fat was so thick in the air it was like walking through pea soup fog. We didn't waste any time at Grandma's smoke house since the owners appeared to come from a very limited gene pool.

Jeffrey City was our lunch stop and also potential overnight stop. Jeffrey City is a ghost town. It was originally founded on a uranium strike in the 80s, but has since been deserted. There are about 15 people still living in the town and most of the buildings are boarded up. It is a strange place. We stopped for lunch under the picnic shelter that Rotary had built. It was probably a nice place to have a picnic in the 80s, but now it is populated by a million mosquitoes and some tumble weed that has found its final resting place. We took one look at the Top Hat Motel and decided that we'd be able to ride to Lander. We didn't leave Jeffrey City before we had bought the last 4 bottles of water in the only shop that was not boarded up.

The last 60 miles to Lander were incredibly tough because we were tired and also because we had head wind. A storm started brewing as we reached Sweetwater Junction about 40 miles from Lander. Just as we were picking up speed a cyclist travelling in the opposite direction stopped and waved to us. Grudgingly we pulled over and crossed to the other side of the road. We exchanged the usual tidbits of information about riding conditions, how far we had come etc. As we were talking lightning was flashing and thunder rumbling around us. We looked anxiously towards the skies and said good-bye to our fellow Trans-Am'er. Fortunately we had the benefit of a five mile descent to help us race away from the storms. The last 40 miles of our ride we spent as much time looking at black storm clouds as looking at the road. Thankfully we reached Lander without any further weather incidents.

We are very glad to be in a comfortable motel and are looking forward to a well deserved rest day in Lander.