Day 13: Rawlins

The final destination for today’s ride was not quite clear, either camping anywhere in the Basin or making the whole push to Rawlins. This was depending on how I gonna feel after I made it to the worlds town of Atlantic City and of course the weather in the Basin.

Breakfast at the motel was at 5 am! Of course, we attracted notice in our bike outfit in the breakfast room. And of course we had to explain what we are doing. An Amish family with their kids, especially the kids, were special interested in our story. After breakfast and during check out they followed us, kept the doors open and said goodbye as we left the motel.

On the Highway we rolled until Bolder without stopping at the small grocery store. The second time I stopped was just half an hour later to get off my leg warmers, my wind vest and putting a layer sunscreen on the nude parts of my body. The second layer was OFF. It was not possible to stop just for some seconds without collecting several bits.

Temperatures and the dry looking landscape were fitting together, but not the snow covered mountains in the background. The paved road turned into gravel and a strong tailwind slowly came up. One more time I was hooked of this pale and bare landscape that more and more got the character of a desert. In contrast the road got more and more the character of a roller coaster. But many smaller climbs could be accomplished with enough drive from the downhill before and the tailwind gave some support. It was an amazing ride with a lot of fun! I took photos and made some extra videos with my GoPro. The fun ended as I hit the Highway. A moderate climb with moderate traffic brought me to a turn onto a dusty gravel road. This winding road ended up in South Park City (Population 7 or less). The one and only mercantile store moved to Atlantic City just a few miles on the route. South Park City looked like an open air museum. The small jerkwater town was a former gold mining boom town and can not reveal its roots. The old gold mine with its facilities and mining headgear is just visible after a steep climb out of the town.

Just a few miles to Atlantic City (not to mix up with the big Atlantic City at the east coast) the door to the Basin. For those who don’t know what the Basin is, the Basin is a semi desert without any service, 140 miles of nothing between Atlantic City and Rawlins. What you need for this section is a lot of water, no thunderstorms, no headwind and a weather that is not too hot. Today the conditions were simply perfect. As far as the eye could see there were no typical clouds for thunderstorms. In Europe we would say just Sweden clouds. There was a very strong tailwind and the temperature was at the end of the eighties (approximately 29°C). Perfect!

Finding the one and only restaurant in town was not really a challenge. I just had to watch out for dirty fully loaded bikes in front of a building. As I stepped into the restaurant two tables were occupied with other riders. Thomas had finished his lunch already and was just about to heading on. I gave myself more than one hour before I planned to go on. Several Cokes and a meal should arm me for the long push maybe until Rawlins. I stocked up all my water to the top level, overall almost two gallons. As I left the restaurant I met Ed Turkaly at the mercantile store. He was obviously waiting for Fred Arden who was still making siesta in the restaurant. Fred didn’t want go on before 6 pm. Ed was not so happy about that.

The first climb out of the town was very steep but my legs felt surprisingly good. The first 10 miles into the Basin were almost downhill and done in 30 minutes. The strong tailwind pushed me over the dusty and partly very gusty gravel roads. There were a lot of wash boarded and rough sections but most of it in the downhills. Yes, now I was really in the middle of nowhere. The only sign of life I saw in terms of some mining companies who had their drilling facilities among the roads and I saw some pronghorns.

I ate the miles. A feeling that I had missed the days before. Every time in my life when a day turned out to be a perfect day I became highly skeptical. This day was too perfect.

60 miles in just 4 hours wasn’t so bad. It was 8 pm and time for dinner. I climbed up a small hill with a fantastic view to all sides. I sat down and ate my last sandwich. The light of the setting sun colorized the landscape. As I finished my evening snack I just wanted take a video from the scenery. I looked at my handle bar where my camera supposed to be, but I looked on a blank spot. I don’t know how long I starred at the handle bar and how long I needed until I realized the camera was really gone. The only thing I saw was the broken holder still fixed on my handle bar. I guessed the holder broke at one of the wash boarded sections. I got some kind of panic. Tears filled my eyes. I was not able to clear my thoughts in this moment. The camera just 3 months old with $400 flushed down the drain and 110 videos on the card – gone. I shouted my frustration into the Basin. Fortunately nobody could hear and see me. 10 Minutes later I was able to sort out my mind. Backtracking and searching for the camera was not possible, because it was about one hour before getting dark and I would run out of water and the camera could be anywhere between mile 30 and 60, so any search attempt would be all in vain anyway.   

I was completely done. The only thing I wanted was getting as fast as possible to Rawlins and quit this fucking race. One reason why I didn’t – came, covered with a cloud of dust, down the way I came up 45 minutes ago. It was Ed. Obviously he didn’t wait for Fred and tackled the Basin alone.

He woke me up out of my stranded thoughts and we agreed riding together as far as one of us would fall off his bike. But for me it was clear: My destination wouldn’t be any informal camp, but Rawlins. I guess Ed was happy finding someone sharing a night ride with him and I was happy not being alone with all my gruelling thoughts and having someone I was able to talk to from time to time, and two flashlights are better than one.

We met a woman who was setting up her camp in the dusk. She was touring the Great Divide northbound. Touring instead of racing, not a bad idea at all!  

The light was fading away very quick and in the meantime I had revised my decision to quitting the race into making a Call In for all those riders who would riding through the Basin in the next days. If there was a tiny change to get back my camera I had to grab it.

After some hours of riding in the dark we stopped for a short break. I switched off my flash light and saw this amazing starry sky. No light pollution as in the big cities. I had some trouble to find the simplest constellations.

We made a good pace and when we arrived at the informal campground we checked if some one else was having a camp. But we saw nobody. Near midnight a big moon was rising at the horizon, but it was not full anymore so there wasn’t enough light for us to switch off our flashlights.

Finally we got to a paved road. What a relief after all this shaking. I didn't have a clue how many miles we were apart from the Highway. We saw the lights of the trucks in the distance but we rode and rode and didn’t come closer. After the race I checked the map and the road was a 25 miles push to the highway. That was the reason why we apparently didn’t come closer.                           

For some miles we got a sweet smell into our nose. In the light beam we just saw the pavement right in front so we were not able to identify this strange smell. Suddenly I scared off. At the pale light of my flashlight I saw a dead bull lying right next to me on the road. Wow! Now we knew what caused the wired smell.

When we finally hit the highway we spent some time on a little break. We both felt dizzy when we got off our bikes. A funny situation occurred when we tried to calculate how many miles we had to ride until Rawlins. We tried to subtract 122 from 136 by means of our fingers, apparently not so easy after 20 hours and over 200 miles on a bike.

Of course we had to climb up until we crested the highway at the continental divide crossing No. 13. The downhill to Rawlins was similar to approaching the highway before. We saw the lights of the city but couldn’t get closer. It was 3:30 am when we finally entered the city line.  Ed, who also started in Pinedale, was 24 hour and I 22 hour on the bike. Both we equalled our personal record: 225mi (360Km) in one single push. Unbelievable! Totally insane!

In Rawlings we parted our company. I needed 5 attempts until I got a room in one of the motels. There were a lot of workers in town so the motels were all complete.

I tried to make the Call In, but neither my Smartphone nor the phone in the motel was able to make the call. My Smartphone with an at&t phone card had no service at all and the phone in the motel couldn’t handle the number from MTB-Cast. Finally I wrote a post to the bikepacking forum and asked for putting the post into a call.

After a shower and some cold breweries from the vending machine I switched off the light at 4:30 am. What a day/night!