Day 17: Steamboat Springs, Colorado

I spent lots of time sending happy thoughts to Jennie today. It is her birthday and due to the vagaries of international time zones at some point in our afternoon of the 6th Jennie would have woken up to cuddles from her 2 boys in New Zealand on the 7th. Happy birthday Jen. Like good wine you just get better with age.
Today was meant to be a short rest day for us. To be fair it was but we still had some good challenging riding here in the Rockies. We left Rawlins in what is very much still sage type desert country. The desert rises up to form the northern part of the Colorado Rockies and as it does so the trees appear, particularly the Aspens for which this part if the world is famous. We took the obligatory photo in the locally famous Aspen Alley before travelling further South East into greener and greener country.
We got to do some real fun technical riding on some rocky ATV trails that certainly got us sweating. Of course no photos of that but a real little highlight for us.
We met a group of more mature ( than me!) riders also tackling the GDR in stages. The gentleman who agreed to have his photo taken with Dave is 74yrs old! That is damn impressive. We did a name fail but I think he is called Trevor.
We spent a couple of hours this afternoon plotting how to spend the remainder if our trip. In the lovely position if having too much choice we finally settled on a loose itinerary. The intention is to ride a number of the high passes in the central and lower Colorado Rockies. These tend to be very scenic and good technical riding as well. I'm sure I shall keep you informed as we go along but the consequence of all that is that tomorrow will be our last day on the Great Divide Ride. It has proven to be an excellent way of getting here from Canada but the time has come to part company.

Day 16: Rawlins, Wyoming

That was some day. I truly have respect for the cyclists who do the Great Divide ride. We met a few today. A Norwegian American couple who have been on the trail for a month with thier little dog. The dog still looked very perky but they looked like you might expect of people who had been living in the bush for a month, with a further 2 months to go. Nice couple though.
Later in the day we met 2 men deep in the desert. Neither wanted to stop to talk and in fact neither would even take their earphones out! Having followed their wavering tracks through 70 miles of gravel, sand, corrugations through the bleakest terrain imaginable I felt for them. How would you feel having spent an entire day riding your bicycle in this incredibly remote and hot country when 2 ponces rock up and start asking questions like "are you riding the great divide trail"?
What do you think we're doing out here? I guess it was easier to leave those earphones in after that opener!
Let me describe our day and then look at the photos and times the bleakness by a thousand and then place your soft little feet in the peddling shoes of these GDR riders. Madness but kind of cool in an extreme endurance kind if way.
We rode 320 miles today, that's over 500km. During that time we stopped at one town of serious non - descriptness after 70 miles and a further settlement called Atlantic City ( presumably named with humour) a further 70 miles later.
The latter was so small we could only get fuel from jerry cans. Certainly no Macdonalds.
The bits between were seriously remote. From our perspective we had a great day. The first section was over the 9000 foot Union pass. Still early morning air, trees , grass and just a great ride. We also saw our first herd of many pronghorn antelope seen during the day.
The greener photos are from there Most enjoyable mildly technical descent down the other side and eventually into the town of Pinedake. Presumably so named for the serious absence of anything remotely looking like a pine or a dale there.
From there we rode into mile after mile of sage brush on very fast wide dirt roads. The heat was building and despite rain falling above us it was evaporating before it hit the ground.
Next stop was Atlantic City and then into the 140 mile crossing of the Great Divide Basin. This area is fantastically remote. As Dave said you would not want your engine to stop out there, help would be a long time coming.
The basin is so named as any precipitation that falls here does not drain east or west but settles in this huge basin, presumably forming lakes and eventually evaporating. Don't feel too bad for these directionless rain drops. There aren't many of them as far as I could tell. It was in the middle of this that we met the 2 grumpy cyclists. How they must have envied our engines.
Much as we enjoyed the day we were glad to see civilisation again. The riding today was awesome in terrain for which the KTM 990 was bred. The bikes just galloped along at the kind of speeds that would most definitely earn demerit points in New Zealand, but all the time feeling so stable and settled.
Spare a thought for those cyclists. When you read this they will still be somewhere in the wilderness.

Day 15: Dubois, Wyoming

Who has ever heard of Dubois? I owe the town an apology as I thought it was a grim little place, having chosen a motel on the edge of town. However once we went into town for supper we realised it really is a charming little place. See the photos below, compliments of Dave as I had left my camera back at the motel. What is more surprising is that this is not a tourist but a service town for the surrounding ranching community so the carefully preserved facades are because the local community cares, not just tourist kitsch. Anyway, that is what I choose to believe.
Dave and I have perhaps been overdoing the salads and ran out of steam today so the excellent steak did our perceptions no harm either. I'm trying to lose weight in the hope that when I return home my wife shall find me attractive enough to boot Fabio out, hence the salad and coffee diet. Anyway, I digress..
Today started off in fog after some quite heavy overnight rain. Rather disconcertingly my dashboard failed to show any sign of life although the bike ran normally. I used the GPS as a speedo after we established that it was not something as simple as a fuse.
I didn't realise how much you look at a speedo or tachometer and of course without mileage I have no idea how much fuel is left in the bike. I think some connection got wet although the technical guru poo poos this. Whatever the case when things dried out mid morning the electrics came back and so I have chosen to tackle the problem with a healthy dose of denial. So long as the engine works...
I was a little down this morning but as is so often the case the mood lifted progressively through a day of awesome adventure riding. This was more a day about the ride than the views although we did traverse the top of the Tetons so we had a bit of a scenic fix as well.
The morning was spent on a disused rail track (rails and sleepers removed, leaving an elevated track). This was great, starting as a whooped out track due to ATV use that reminded me of some of the small bike trail rides we do. The trail settled into a sandy double track with a few bridges and tunnels for novelty.
After that we we rode a fantastic road for 40 miles or so that started as flowing gravel and eventually climbed and narrowed and became progressively more rocky, rutted and potholed to turn into a great flowing track. Not super technical but lots of fun. Good times.
We are now in desert country to the East of the divide. Tomorrow is planned to be a big day of desert riding so we intend to get an early start. Yeah right say the Macs.

Day 14: West Yellowstone, Montana

Yellowstone is the oldest of the US national parks and is unique compared to the other parks we have travelled through in that there is an abundance of large wildlife in the park.
It is a very geothermally active area not unfamiliar to us Kiwis who also live where the earths crust is thin. The park itself contains a giant caldera and scattered around are a variety of fumaroles, geysers and other bubbling things. Most famous must be Old Faithful known for erupting every 90 minutes or so.
The landscape is hilly but there are large plains interspersed by meandering rivers. The bits not occupied by the above are covered by lodge pole pines, which must be about 80 percent of the land.
Dave and I rode anticlockwise around a 130mile loop taking in most of the scenes but mostly just ticking along and trying to absorb the sights and sounds of mother nature.
You might recall a picture earlier in this blog of Dave boarding the Vancouver Island ferry, his bike already on board but him not as he had to go get a coffee. The doors were held open for him as his highness strolled along.
Today he went one better. Old Faithful is so named as it erupts every 90 minutes plus minus 10 minutes. So at exactly 90 minutes after the last eruption Dave decides he needs a coffee and buggers off to reappear proudly with 2 cups as the last vestiges of steam are drifting away. No way was I going to wait another 90 minutes.
Today's photos are a smattering of images from around the park. For my hunting mates, check the head on that stag. It was maybe 3 metres away from me but kept burying his head in a bush!
We met several really nice people today including Bob Erickson who is a keen motorcyclist who has ridden the great divide trail just a month ago. Lots of useful information and generally good chat. We walked down 300 steps in biking gear and back up to look at a waterfall. Meeting him at the bottom was a bonus. Given that we are at 8000feet the air is quite thin so I think it was a good effort. Especially Dave who carried his tools weighing about 40 kg down, presumably in case one of us broke a boot buckle.
My lovely wife requested more photos so more photos you get.

Day 13: West Yellowstone, Montana

Today felt strange. It was really just a transit to bring us close to Yellowstone. The first hour was nice riding through what I imagine is classic Montana ranch land nestled in the hills East of Lincoln. We even saw horseback cowboys herding sheep of all things. I now regret not taking a photo but it was only 5 minutes into the day and my mind was not right. The image was quite beautiful with dust rising into the morning sky.
Speaking of cowboys. The picture below is of Kelton who is travelling with his family, all farmers and rodeo riders. Grandad Graeme is a Kiwi living in Queensland. They are everywhere but I wouldn't have expected to meet one on Lincoln, Montana. Graeme is visiting his daughter living here in Montana.
As the day wore on the heat built up and the strangest haze crept into the air. Very foreboding. Not long after lunch we felt the first drops of rain and gusts of wind. The rest of the afternoon spent in rain gear, hence no photos as my camera was buried too deep and my mind was still not in the right place.
Turns out the strange haze is the smoke from the Yosemite Rim fire. Now over 200 000 acres on fire. We are a very long way from there so the scale of that is a little frightening.
Tomorrow we intend to spend a full day in Yellowstone and probably return to the same base. After that we pick up the Great Divide route around the souther corner of Yellowstone and across the top end of the Grand Tetons National Park and South East towards the Colorado Rockies.
I'm looking forward to a day of pottering. Today's extended stretches at 80 miles an hour plus went quickly from exhilarating to draining. Too fast to connect with anything.

Day 12: Lincoln, Montana

Today started with one of those mildly awkward moments (nothing to do with rolling over and staring into Daves eyes after another night sharing a bed I might add).
Before I left I bought some great photo chromatic sunglasses. You know the type that get darker when exposed to light and vice versa. Anyway they are good but tend to compress my temples in my helmet resulting in a slightly bug eyed look by the end if the day. No problem, I decide to buy some cheap and cheerfuls when we fuelled up this morning. Can't go wrong with 4 dollar check me check you's. You know the ones with the reflective lenses.
Anyway, happily in charge of them at the shop counter I decide to casually rip off the label. Most unexpectedly a whole series of terrible events happen. I give it a quick yank which serves no purpose other than to lift my thumbnail in the most horrendously painful fashion. I look down thinking WTF happened to notice a pool of blood at my feet and even more annoyingly, one of the lenses of my new shades has popped out. I debate briefly with myself whether A: I should swoon and B: I should ask for my money back. The lady at the counter, who until then had been quite pleasant, gives me a withering look of disdain. Pathetic little man she says or something along those lines. I decide to do the only reasonable thing under the circumstances and scrabble around in the rapidly growing pool of blood for the other lens and beat a hasty exit mumbling apologies about the floor.
Of course there are no paper towels outside at the pumps and there is no way I'm going back inside so I use my stylish bandana to staunch the flow of blood and smear as much blood over the lenses as I possibly can.
I wanted to tell Dave that I had broken a finger nail and would need a day off the bike but could just see how well that would go down! I think if a Grizzly ripped my leg off Dave would just tell to harden up and get on with it.
So, very tenderly I inserted my now only ferociously throbbing thumb into my glove and set off. The damn thing still hurts now.
The riding today was so so I guess. We rode forestry roads for most of the day. At times, especially early in the day it was nice but as the day wore on the temperature picked up to 36degrees Celsius with no wind. The dust just hangs there and so it just becomes a mission. Most of the day we rode staggered tandem, a bike length apart to avoid the dust. Otherwise we would have had to ride several miles apart.
We did a nice flowing road towards the end if the road where it was too dangerous to do the above. Dave let me go in front so one of us had a good time and one was grumpy as all hell. In fact he is out there cleaning his decidedly dusty bike as I type. Met some lovely people today. Montana folk seem very easy to talk to.
We have moved from mountains into big sky country. Not many pictures today but at least I don't have a headache from my sunglasses.
I'm off to watch Dave clean his bike.