Finish Line Friday! August 26th We Made It

We did it!  Calgary Alberta to Silver City New Mexico.  5,600km and 26 crossings of the Continental Divide.

Tomorrow is our day to load the bikes.  We meet the team at 4pm in El Paso, load up, dinner, then we're off to airport for 5:30am.  We'll add pics later.  We did 800km of backroads and gravel today.  12 hours of riding, pretty awesome we started out this morning in the Pagosa Hot Springs - in lieu of having breakfast.  A great start to a big day.

MnM

Divide Ride, August 25, 2011

We had a relaxing morning in Crested Butte which probably has the prettiest looking mountains we've ever seen.  Riding along the local roads you'd swear you're looking at a painting behind the buildings.  The colours and textures look more like a painting in the dining room rather than real mountains.  Greens, reds, and earth tones contrast in impressive ways.

We booked our flight home this morning.  The milk run from El Paso - Phoenix - Minneapolis - Toronto will land us about 7pm Sunday night of the 28th.

We ran through heavy winds and some rain today with the twisty roads making it very exciting because as we swung easterly we headed towards dark clouds and obvious rain which you can see clearly pouring down a mountain side.  As the road swung south, west, north, west, south, east and south again it was a lot of fun thinking "hey it's sunny", "ut oh, that doesn't look good" and so on.  With every twist in the road came a change in the immediate outlook.  Kinda like life I suppose.

We drove into Pagossa Springs at the south end of Colorado thinking we'd just blow through and keep on making time into New Mexico, however, one look at the "springs" on the river and we pulled a U turn and within 20 minutes we were floating around in one of the 27 little hot springs pools that cascade into one another then empty into the San Juan river.  Spectacular.  As we watched the sunset we eyed a table up on a patio across the river at a fantastic little Mexican restaurant.  Turned out to be great and reminded us of Ajijic Mexico.

As far as the riding goes - we're officially done with the gravel and now we gotta book it to El Paso  - 500 miles to go tomorrow - but worth the rest time we've had.  

MnM

August 24th Update

Ok, we just had a hot tub, we're in the the best steakhouse around (but they dont know about the Braised Bull) and we just finished a great bottle of Zinfandel California wine (yes we both really approved of it).  Ok, how did we get here.  Well we had a heck of a day.  Hard to believe in fact that it was just one day long.  We were up at 6am and had a quick somewhat nutritional breakfast then popped out onto I-70 for 2 interchanges, then carved our way up to 12,000 feet on a wild "pass road".  Not surprisingly we had to pause for a gaggle of deer to clear the way.  Once we reached the top, Michele HAD to pull over as her brakes were cooked!!!!  What? Uphill, shouldn't stopped for the stupid deer, shoulda just ran 'em over like any good hearted American (that's American pronounced with a cigar in yur mouth and a big belly flapp'n around Town - u know wat I meen?).  Anyway, we had Michele's rear end apart pretty quick and doddle'd 'er up real nice so she's got brakes again.  Hey, German engineering is Crap!  Enough said.  I'm a damn Canadian Engineer and I'm professionally aloud to express my Professional Opinion - and 'ur gett'n it.

From there we had breaky in Brekenridge and it was fanstastiic.  Then it rained, then we ran into the World Bike Racing which was cool.  Then we decided to take a "short cut" over the "Weston Peaks Pass Road" which took us from 8,000 feet to 12,000+ feet which was awesome.  Did I mention this was on Knarly gravely roads that turned into basically a freak'n river bed then after that it got really knarly.  Wow was it fun.  Michele especially loved it on her perfectly engineered German machine.  Meanwhile, I just plodded along on my crappy Jap-crap (running flawlessly Kawasaki).

Oh, did we mentioned that we ran through "South Park" Colorado?  It was awesome.  Very impressive historic mining town.  They even ad a big picture of "Kenny".

On TV in the bar right now is the bike race that ran through Crested Butte today.  Oh, ya, wild scene down here.  Oh, and did I mention we're staying at the former Club  Med of Crested Butte.  Very nice.

PS.  Hi Carl and Rikki from the US National Cycling Team!!!!!    Wow.  Thanks for the steak recommendations!!!!!!!!  and thanks for the drive!!!!!

Mike and Michele

Were having a great time

Ok we have been camping and without service so this is just a quick update:

1 We are having a great time
2 The brakes are fixed on the BMW
3 We are meeting a lot of interesting people
4 We are managing to eat fairly healthy even in the USA
5 We have more pictures that we know what to do with...bought a hard drive to back them up
6 We going to be in Durango, Colorado tonight
7 The roads are great - we have been off the trails and only on roads for a while

Divide Ride, August 21, 2011

August 21, 2011

Tonight we sit on our Best Western (Rawlings Wyoming) room porch with our bikes backed up to the door.  The sun is just setting, the beer is great, and our dinner should be here any minute.  We just showered and cleaned up and had a “bruise count”  (Michele = 8, Mike = 8 – ya we’re tied for quantity but Mike takes the win tonight with surface area!).

Highlights of today?  Lots.  Wyoming is one of the most impressive places we’ve seen yet as we are getting a first hand perspective of the vastness of the desert plains.  We basically road a full day today, hours and hours, without seeing pavement.  We road gravel roads and 2 track trails that are primarily used by the ranchers to herd up their cows.  The oil-gas industry uses some of these roads as well for access to areas like the “Buffalo Basin” oil wells – an impressive site with no humans anywhere near the working well heads.

Imagine driving or riding down a gravel road through grass scrublands for…. Oh say for 2 hours.  Then imagine running into some ranchers just sitting by their truck having a sandwich.  You stop, just because you do, people are rare in these here parts.  They yell out “looks like the long way down”.  Now you know they’re bikers since they just referred to a bike flick.  They invite you over for a water and whatever else you need.   A couple minutes later a real live cowboy shows up on a CRF 450 motocross bike.  You chat up a storm about anything and everything sitting in the middle of a road in the middle of a desert in the middle of Wyoming in the middle of North America.  After 20 minutes they broach the reality topic of just how far you have to go… you’re still 70 miles from pavement.  The cowboy offers to show you a short cut and you’re off, riding through uncharted territory to you but this is his backyard.

Well what a ride we had today, and a very special thanks to our ex US Navy dentist and rancher extraordinaire Wesley David who like any gentlemen rancher gave Michele his CRF 450 to ride through the knarly and rugged off road stuff as he toured us through some of the most amazing country we’ve ever experienced.  Remember, this is not a view from a car window from a paved road, this is living and breathing the true remoteness of ranching in Wyoming.

With 7” of precipitation per year this is true desert, and with the pressures of government agencies forcing the ranchers to move their cattle if the grass is less than 7” tall it must be a challenge to round up a thousand cattle and truck them to another area.   Kinda fun sound’n though eh!

Another adventure, another day, and a bunch more pictures and stories.

Over and out for tonight.

Michele and Mike

Divide Ride, Video Blog Entry, Aug 20th

Divide Ride Blog Entry for August 20th
We're too tired to write anything - the video will explain most of it.
We'll catch up soon.
Michele and Mike

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nYaGUPqB4M

Oh Give me a Home Where th .....

Friday  - 450km

Wow a great breakfast at the Elk Lake Lodge with all of our new friends…..after goodbyes we were back on the road.  More of that great backroad gravel we enjoyed so much yesterday. 

We ran into a guy on a KTM at the side of the road and did a few miles with him…the road was really dusty and felt like it was made of ball bearings…so it was tough going. We did see a cow and calf moose today, and they ran along the road with us for a while.

We had lunch in Jackson Hole…tooooooo many yuppies…..get us back to the wilderness!

Road some great paved roads a well today but there is more traffic and construction…Mike found a great back road around some construction and we ended up at a Turpin Meadow Campground and got a room in a cabin…we arrived just in time for a cookout…chicken, ribs and potatoes and pasta salad…finish it off with ice cream cake…yikes stuffed!

Mike got some great pictures of the sunset…..wow it’s beautiful.