June 20/21 update: Moosen! And racers
Greetings from the “Rat King,” as my wife has taken to calling me. I’m still a little unclear as to whether it’s a compliment, and think I prefer “Lemonade,” personally. But what do I know.
I started feeling a little better the morning of the 20th, so I took my sweet time and checked out of the hotel in Kremmling. The front desk staff literally knocked on my door at 10:45 to give me a 15 minute warning—true Rogala style.
Either the meds my amazing father-in-law called in for me (so nice to have a doc in your pocket) started to kick in, or a day and a half of laying in bed and eating saltines + sipping Gatorade did it… but I finally felt ready to pedal again.
Sarah beat me to the punch in her blog post, but to recap: she talked to some friends in the ultra endurance world about nutrition (thanks, Wes!) and my friend Kelty even called in a favor and got me on the phone with a dietician at the Olympic training center in CO Springs… because, you know, (in the words of Andrew Stern) I’m an “ELITE” athlete. The folks in Springs were STOKED to hear from the likes of Bryan “Lemonade” Rogala and in total awe of my slow pedaling abilities. Contracts have been signed!
Jokes aside, the guy I talked to was beyond helpful and so nice to take time out of his day to talk to me about my tummy troubles. Turns out riding your bike all day, every day can do weird things to your digestive system.
I headed over to the grocery store to grab a few things, and then waited out a thunderstorm before leaving Kremmling around 1.
A few miles in, I ran into Sonja, a nice Swiss lady I’d met a few days back who was trying to book a campsite before we lost cell service. She couldn’t get her international SIM card to work, so I booked one for her, and just as we started to ride I noticed two critters running down the hillside next to the road.
It took me a second to figure out what I was seeing, but then I realized it was two moose—a cow and yearling—running down the sage covered hill and across the road. In the middle of the day. So strange, but very cool!
I kept riding and eventually bumped into Mark and Kelly, some other great folks from Michigan I’d met in Platoro with Eric. Mark’s doing this ride for his 50th birthday, and to raise money for TK charity (check out their story here), while Kelly follows along in the truck. As we were chatting, another storm rolled in and they very kindly made room for me in the truck, where the three of us waited out the worst of the storm.
Those three had ridden further than me that day, so they stopped in Radium and I continued on for a little longer. It rained on and off the rest of my ride, unfortunately.
On the flip side, all the rain and moisture must have gotten the swamp donkeys excited, because later in the evening I came around a corner and rode within 60 yards of a bull moose. I said “hello,” as one does, and we stared at each other for a minute while I snapped a few photos (obviously my Sitka rain gear was working, and he couldn’t tell there was a human on the bicycle in front of him).
I made camp in the pouring rain, but managed to keep all the essentials dry and had a good nights sleep. Today I rode the rest of the way into Steamboat, which was a pretty magical, majority downhill ride through some of the prettiest country (and nicest homes/ranches) yet.
On the way into town, I pulled over to say hi to another rider, who turned out to be the Tour Divide race leader Justinas Leveika. The racers started from Banff on Friday last week (yeah, 6/14… 😳), and the leaders (and me) are just passing the halfway mark. Justinas was super nice. We chatted for a minute while he paused for a snack, and when I said I was “just touring” he shook his head and said “that’s the way to do it” and went on to say how impressed he was I was riding a rigid bike. What a guy. I then went all fan boy and asked for a photo, and he graciously obliged before speeding off. I have a lot of respect for the racers doing this route in less than half the time it’ll take me, but it’s also cool to know they seem to have just as much respect for those of us “just touring.”
The plan for tomorrow is another short day to make it to the famous Brush Mountain Lodge.