Jeremy's Bike Blog

One thing about sleeping somewhere you’re not totally supposed to be sleeping is there’s no temptation to loaf around come sunrise.  At 6:45 am I was lying down, mustering the will to get up and pack up when a jogger passed headed towards Carbondale.  He didn’t notice me but it motivated me to get going.  I was packing up when he was on his return trip and I startled him a bit, but he returned a smile anyways, I think.

In the bigger scheme, one major aspect of drifting around by bicycle is there are infinite possibilities, and this entails a constant stream of decisions that need to be made.

Some cases in point:  About 30 minutes down the rail trail to Carbondale I spotted a camping symbol and followed it, kinda regretting not having continued on a little further the night before.  Being Sunday morning, there were a smattering of car campers, and they looked like they might have been fun to chat and maybe hang out with had I camped there.  But then again, it would have been pretty dark by the time I rolled in, and the spots were $20 each.

It was a simply spectacular morning, sun and cloud-wise.  I checked out the largest timber span bridge in CO.  Then I passed a bike shop on a minor wrong turn where I’d lost the rail trail, and used the opportunity to stop in, pick up a spare tube, something I’d been meaning to grab since before I set out.  I re-found the trail and shortly thereafter it dropped me into town where I immediately rolled by an outdoor yoga class.  After mustering up a little courage and checking the time (9:14) and figuring it was probably 14 minutes into an hour started, I doubled back, hopped off my bike, grabbed my z-rest foam pad off the back and slipped through some ribbon barriers and into the back of the class.  I wasn’t sure if I was intruding or not until the instructor offered for me to use a provided mat rather than the z-rest.  I declined, but appreciated the offer’s implication that I was welcome. It was an excellent session, and the consistency between her instruction and that of those at Grinning Yogi, my studio in Seattle, was impressive.  That said, there were lots of little moments that made the 45 minutes pretty special, including shivasina where typically you close your eyes, but instead I zoned out on the breathtakingly, silent sob inducingly beautiful swirl of the clouds.  After the session asked the instructor what I owed for the class and she said that it was free for an upcoming the film festival.  As tempted as I was to pursue this line of possibility, I had figured earier on that I should be getting on from Carbondale by 11am in order to stay on track for Moab.  At the same time, had I not taken so many small detours on my ride into Carbondale, I would have rolled by before the class had even started.

It was now 10am, and I needed some fuel.  I cruised town a bit and opted for the coffee shop with a massive bike rack out front, with bikes of all shapes and sizes into which my bike fit just perfectly.  Friendly, light chat with folks sitting at outdoor table as I walked in. As I was on line in the busy cafe, the perfect table freed up.  I ended up staying there nursing a quad-shot 16 oz almond milk latte and a bagel breakfast sandwich, charging 3 of my things at once, finishing yesterday’s entry, and making ample use of their wifi for a little over an hour.

From there, I hit the food coop next door and grabbed some blood red oranges, dried bananas and some advice from the guy at the counter that looked like, and indeed was, the sort of person that keeps tabs on what’s happening with the weather in the surrounding mountains.  A pretty big rain was due in around 3pm, but it should blow over.  Mission for the day, get over McClure pass!

Old town Carbondale was the sweetest little thing.  I cycled out through some newer, less quaint, development and while it was only drizzling, it was drizzling sideways in gusts that were so strong, one hit me head on and actually stopped me so fast I had to put a foot down to keep from tipping over.  No matter, a morning of great yoga, coffee, eggs, and interaction had me cycling out of town on top of the world singing along (terribly, but trees and forests…) to a choice of music so cheesy I dare not share it here.

As the road-side trail stopped, the drizzle turned into more substantial rain and the rain gear came out.  As it grew in intensity, predictably my mood grew less ecstatic.  I was keeping on top of the wet situation, not getting too cold, but when a green sports utility wagon gave me all of half a lane as I crawled up, weaving from slowness, in a downpour, I did my first arm fling (as mentioned in Day 1 post) since I was humbled by being rescued by Bill and his chickens (as mentioned in Day 3 post).  For the first time ever (is it because I said in Day 1 that they never do), the driver pulled over.  Good, this is the advantage of the aggressive, but PG rated sweeping arm gesture over flipping the bird.  I’ll get to explain to him, kindly but firmly, that he should really give me, and bicyclists in general, a wider berth, and that’s why I made the gesture.  So, to do this cordially, we exchanged friendly hellos.  Then he promptly asked if I would like a place to stay for the evening.  He explained that he was the church pastor for Redstone, the town about a mile up the road.  I thanked him for his generosity but explained that I’d spent the morning “goofing off” in Carbondale, and that I should get further than another mile from where we were “to keep up appearances”.  I literally used both those expressions, and I honestly have no idea why.  I was still tempted to explain that he should have given me more room, but I opted not to.  I’m still not sure if his offer was motivated by a sense of penance or if he was oblivious to the intention of my gesture.  Adding to the mystery was the fact that his wagon had a bike rack on the rook.

Still, the rain increased.  One car coming from the opposite direction passed another car coming from the opposite direction at high speed, taking the entirety of my lane and avoided clipping me or side swiping the other car by what seemed like inches.  I wasn’t actually looking up until the last moment, but responded instinctively by shouting “FUCK!” as loudly and violently as I could.  There’s no way the offending driver even noticed, but it was instant and necessary catharsis.  About 2 minutes later a pickup trailing a big motor boat with not 1 but 2 American flags honked as he passed aggressively close.  To him, I flipped the bird, another futile gesture, marking the instant that my “everything and everyone is awesome” bubble of the last few days burst.

Head down, I get into Redstone, where there’s no motorboat trailers, but there is an Inn.  I walk in with my dripping rain shell, find the bar help myself to a pitcher of ice water that I use to fill my bottle.  A guy sitting at the bar tells me how much earlier the rain is than predicted, and that McClure pass is going to suck, but in a way that I like and strangely appreciate.  By the time the bartender notices me and comes over, I say “Thanks for the water I took without asking!”, which is met with a smiling “No problem!”.

Mood is improved and as I step out onto the porch with awning, the rain lets up ever so slightly.  Rolling out of town, there’s a neat row of Coal Coking ovens which was from what Redstone sprang.

Rainy, but pretty scenery:

And then comes the pass.  For the first half of the climb, the rain had let up and became a crisp drizzle. 

When I had maybe a half mile left to the top, I heard thunder, and then hail.  I got out my phone to take a video, and nearly missed capturing a lightning bolt that was who-knows-how-far away, but was nearly eye level, spanned a huge field-of-vision angle, and accompanied by an immediate and deafening thunderclap.  I put the phone away and sat down against a concrete jersey wall, honestly more exhilarated than frightened by nature’s unimaginable yet utterly indifferent strength.   My core was warm, and I was statistically very safe sitting there, and in high spirits when a car pulled over to ask if I wanted any help.  I thanked them for stopping but declined saying that I was just going to wait it out, when as if on cue, the hail began to let up and another faint flash was followed by in distinctly more time by a distinctly more muted thunderclap.

I was running a little low on water, so stopped and filtered some more.

Then, definite breaks in the clouds, and the first blue sky since Carbondale.

A quarter mile further up, there was this broken down schoolbus full of sorta hippy, maybe cult-y, judging by the sorta freaky “when the rev comes, we’ll all be dancing” written on the side of the bus.

But, obviously can’t not stop and say “what’s up?”.  The bus had been there about 36 hours, and they were hitching rides to and from Paonia, about 35 miles further on (not spending the night there).  I’ve been in similar situations with a busses and vehicles taken to and from Burning Man, so I respectfully skirted the more stressful aspects of their predicament.  “Worse places to be broken down.” “How about that hail?”  They asked how I was, considering I was the one that had just weathered it without shelter, to which I quipped, “Oh I’m doing great! I mean, I can’t feel my fingers, but now that the sun is coming back out, won’t be long now.”  The young woman pictured below (I do try to be pretty low key and respectful about photographing strangers) then made it her mission to find a pair of gloves.  I assured her I was just making a joke, but when I took off my gloves, the cheap blue/black dye stain of my hands made them look like they belonged on a dead person, and only sealed the deal, they were going to find and give me some gloves.  They dug up a cheap, old, tattered, puffy and absolutely perfect pair, and they immediately made my hands blissfully toasty.

I didn’t make any offer to help them, and I also avoiding delving into their mission or trajectory, but I felt a warmth from and connection to them all the same as I wished them luck and hugged goodbye two of them that had spearheaded the glove acquisition sub-mission.

As I reached the pass, the setting sun was in full force and the world was sparkly and perfect as glided down the other side of the ridge happily indifferent to finding any particular place to bed down, and stopping several times to try (somewhat futilely, I know) to capture the splendor of the moment. 

I was leaning back in my saddle, arms spread eagle, stretching and blissing out on the perfection of the sail down hill when I spotted headlights in my rear-view.  A row of vehicles, led by none other than the bus!  Hoots, hollers, beaming smiles, and arms flailing in both directions as they glided past me on their merry way.  Less than 5 minutes later, I spotted a beautiful and completely empty campground for a reasonable $10 a night.  Had I not taken my sweet time getting down from the pass during a magical sunset, I would have pulled off into the campsite and the bus and I would have been ships in the night.

Bike touring really amounts to surfing a wave of endless possibilities, balancing on the board with choices that are best made reflexively and intuitively.

I took the liberty of using a well appointed, “obstruction free” site.

The pavement was a welcome surface on which to resume the meticulous process of un-drenching myself, and while clouds loomed  a bit after the sun set (as determine by obstruction of otherwise crystaline sky).  This was my first night without a blaring full moon, but preferring the light of my candle lantern, I still have yet to use my headlamp for night time illumination.  The night was dry and I was relatively toasty through the night.

Route for the day: