Kiki Bikes Across America

Archive for July, 2009

I woke up really early this morning after staying two nights at the Lazy Lizard Hostel in Moab for $9/night (not bad at all). Chase went out with a couple girls from the hostel and was having a good time and didn’t come back till 2:45 or so. Needless to say, he wasn’t ready to get up at 4:45 when my alarm went off (we had planned to get an early start as we’d heard it would be 100+ degrees today). I got up and asked Chase if he was coming. He said no and so I headed out on my own at 5:30 in the morning. I had to get to Monticello to pick up mail (a water pump that a friend got and mailed to me). I figured it couldn’t be a bad investment for getting across the desert in the heat – with hopes that we’d find water somewhere if there weren’t any service stops.

Lots o' water

I rode all morning and the first 15 or so miles were slightly sluggish and I hit a patch of construction on a hill, so had to bike on the shoulder as far over as possible with oncoming traffic in my lane – not very fun, but luckily I only had to deal with two rotations of oncoming traffic. After the first 15 miles it seemed like things picked up a bit. As I was riding down a hill, a car was parked below on the side of the road – as I rode by, a man was standing outside his car and started clapping and turns out he was from Washington DC (by looking at the license plates), so that was kind of neat. I’ve had a few encounters where people start applauding and really giving you thumbs up for riding across the country with all the heavy gear. It happened the other day when I was riding up the mountain to La Sal – a big semi truck was coming down the mountain as I was going up and both the driver and passenger started applauding as I pedaled up. They must have thought I was crazy since they shook their heads too with a funny smile on their faces.

I reached Monticello about 5 hours and 15 minutes later (pedal time) after climbing one fairly large hill (about 2 miles long) and maybe 6-7 % grade. Once at the top of the hill, it was all relatively flat or downhill into Monticello. I got there just a couple minutes before noon and went and picked up my mail and then met up with a couchsurfer that I’d been in touch with. Nicky and I went to grab lunch at the Peace Tree which had excellent paninis and macaroni salad!

After lunch, I went to the library to update the site a little and check email – then I got really sleepy (I’d only slept 4 hours prior to waking up). After the library, I packed up my computer and went out underneath a tree to take a cat nap for about 20 minutes or so. Then I walked down to the post office to mail a couple things and then just hung out at the Peace Tree waiting for Chase to show up. He finally appeared to town at 7pm, just as I was sending him a message that I was going to continue on to Blanding and would see him there. He arrived and wanted to eat so I stayed and we went to a pizza place and he got pizza and then we finally left there abotu 8:30pm after running into two other touring cyclists coming from San Francisco and were heading to Brooklyn.

We rode for about an hour and 45 minutes until we reached Blanding – we got there about 10:15pm, just 15 minutes before Subway closed. We got a sandwich and split it and then refilled water bottles – each of us has well over a gallon of water a piece in water bottles. Once refilled we went in search of a park or place to camp in town – explored the city park, but it was a bit out in the open, so we opted not to sleep there. Then rode to another park, but couldn’t really make out what was going on there – lots of low shrubs/bushes to the ground and red dirt, so that didn’t appeal too much either. Plus some cacti too – not too great for our tires. (Chase had a flat in the morning when he went out to his bike ready to leave Moab – apparently a thorn got caught in his tire).

Finally, we settled on camping behind a school under an overhang – we just rolled out our mats and sleeping bags on the cement and called it a night. It was actually quite pleasant and no one bothered us.

Our camping spot behind a school in Blanding

GPS Stats:
76.20 miles
07:20 moving time
10.4 avg speed
38.6 max speed

Computer Stats:
78.20 miles
07:19:49 moving time
10.6 avg speed
39.5 max speed
2,584.88 total pedaled miles to date

Monday, July 20th – Canyonlands, Moab, Utah

This morning we met up with Colleen and went to visit Canyonlands together (by car) – it was amazing. Really awesome views of the canyons and all – the only downside was the awful heat. It was blazing hot and the sun was out the entire day. We did some small hikes into see a few arches or viewpoints and they were amazing – really stunning views and incredible scenery. Photos will be posted soon. We even had to take a nap in the hot car because we were all so exhausted from the heat/sun and couldn’t get the energy up to go to the last viewpoint before taking a nap. So we napped for a short bit and then got up 10 minutes of energy for the last viewpoint. It was pretty cool – similar, yet different from the Grand Canyon.

Me jumping around in Canyonlands

We got back to the hostel around 5:30 and then Chase and I went downtown to Moab and stopped in a couple bike shops in hopes of finding a double bike bottle cage to fit behind my seat, but at last, there were none to be found. Instead, I just invested in a couple bungee cords to strap more water bottles onto my bike. We’ll need anywhere from 1-2 gallons of water per person to get through the desert and Utah where there are no services for 75-80 miles. It’s going to be brutal, but we’ll be carrying tons of water… 1 gallon = 8.3 pounds! That’s the major downside there.

Me and Chase in Canyonlands

But we had dinner at an italian place in Moab and it was good – I got their special of penne pasta with red meat sauce and garlic bread..yummy and filling. Tempted to get ice cream afterwards, but we passed on that since we’re getting rather fat these days…all that ice cream and lack of biking, huh? Guess we better get back to pedaling here soon!

Tomorrow we’re aiming for Blanding, Utah – I have to pick up a water pump in the mail in Monticello and if we’re too exhausted to go any further, we’ll probably just crash there at a couchsurfer’s house possibly. We’ll see, but I really hope we make it to Blanding since we have 74 miles of no services from Blanding onward…and we need to do that on a fresh day with lots of water stocked up!

So that’s it for now – we’re staying in the Lazy Lizard Hostel – room of 8 beds and really friendly people. And best of all, it’s only $9/night – how amazing is that for a hostel in the US? Hot showers too, a kitchen one can use, a common room, and free wi-fi (pronounced of course wee-fee, according to an older man we met in Ohio City, CO last week)… and he also says “yay-hoo” instead of ‘yahoo’ – interesting guy he was. So whenever we are looking for wi-fi or internet we joke about how he mispronounced everything and said kgs instead of Kilobytes or Gigabytes… silly ole man

Sunday, July 19th – 4 miles east of Utah to Moab, Utah

Well we didn’t wake up at 5:30am like we’d hoped – the alarm went off and I immediately turned it off. I was exhausted, but thankfully Lauren knew we wanted to leave early and she woke up early anyway, so she came and woke us up about 6:30am in the camper van that we slept in. So that was definitely nice and then she offered to make us a breakfast burrito, so we had egg, cheese, spinach, and tomato in the burrito – amazing! We departed about 7:30am and climbed for a good number of miles – about 14 or so before we were finally able to try and enjoy some downhill, only to be mixed with some really heavy headwinds. The winds were terrible – I was going downhill at one point, but crawling at 5mph pedaling. Finally about 12 miles later and we were at the bottom of the downhill portion and at La Sal Junction where Utah Hwy 46 intersects with Hwy 191 that goes to Monticello and Moab. I tried getting info from Google on when Arches National Park closes, but was unsuccessful (google failed me). It was now about 11:30 or so and I was wondering if we’d make it to Arches in time since the wind was so horrible. I figured the park would close at 5pm or something and we still had 30 or so odd miles to go. Chase and I debated what to do and then I just decided to ask the next person driving out of La Sal and turning right towards Moab if he was going to Moab and if we could get a ride. Sure enough, we lucked out – Wayne was heading to Moab to do some errands and had space to give us and our bikes a ride.

We threw our stuff in the back of his truck and hopped in and rode about 25 miles to Moab and then before we knew it we were at the grocery store picking up lunch items to take into the park and then off to Arches. We were able to convince Wayne to even join us for the park visit, so we just hung out all afternoon with Wayne while visiting all the arches and everything. It was great – the park really wouldn’t have been nearly as enjoyable if we had to bike it – the roads were narrow without any shoulders and it was hilly…and HOT. It was 102 degrees and the sun just blazing down on us, so we were very grateful that Wayne also wanted to see the park and had the time. He hadn’t been before so it worked out well that we all visited the park together. We had a nice lunch up underneath one of the arches in Windows and I climbed up another arch across the way – but it was super hot, I climbed barefoot. Amazing view from above though, but I didn’t climb with my camera – I was just trying to be super careful that I didn’t slip or fall and that no matter how I got up, I had a way down without risking any chance of falling. It was amazing though.

So we spent about 4+ hours in the park and got lots of photos and then Wayne drove us back to Moab and we unloaded the bikes and each ate two snickers ice cream bars before splitting ways.

Afterwards, Chase and I went to the laudromat to do laundry and I started transferring photos to the computer. Once done we rode up to the Lazy Lizard Hostel in Moab and got a bunk in a dorm for $9/night, so not bad. It’s air-conditioned too which helps and cheaper than camping, believe it or not. We unpacked, showere, and then rode our bikes back down into Moab’s restaurant area and grabbed a bite to eat at Hogi Yogi where we had spicy hot chicken on rice, a drink, and ice cream. Back to the hostel afterwards to catch up on photo album stuff and then crashed around 1am.

GPS Stats: (Arches and biking portion)
105.3 miles
66.0 max speed
20.2 avg speed
05:13 moving time

Computer Stats:
25.7 miles
33.3 max speed
9.0 avg speed
02:51 moving time

Saturday, July 18th – Telluride, CO to 4 miles east of the Utah border

Well after last night, Chase had a bit of a slow start this morning. I got up at 7 and woke Chase a short bit later; we had some raspberry coffee cake and hot chocolate for breakfast, then I went into Telluride to snap a few photos since I hadn’t earlier. Chase finished up packing. Justin, a Mountain Films guy saw me taking pictures and offered to take one of me, and then we wound up talking about the route to La Sal Junction, Utah. He suggested we do that instead of go the long way down to Dolores and Monticello and back up to Moab. He helped with telling me about few big climbs and where we could restock on water and food since there was a gap between Naturita and Moab with nothing available to get water or food really. Just one little place on Hwy 191 where one can stop for touristy stuff at Hole in the Rock.

So finally we rolled out of Telluride about 10:30 and went downhill for 31 miles or so (slight downhill grade) and then climbed Norwood Hill which was 2 miles, but not horrible. We rolled into Norwood and stopped at the grocery store to get some lunch. I wound up with an odd concoction just because I felt like it – I bought pita bread, shredded cheddar cheese, ravioli, and some powerade. I heated the ravioli with my stove (just left it in the can) and then once it was hot I put the ravioli in the pita bread and cheese on top. It turned out to be pretty tasty

Back on the road again we had another 20 miles to Naturita which was fairly easy – mostly downhill grade and some pretty easy pedaling with a few small hills. We got into Naturita about 3:30 or so and refueled with water – we each bought a gallon and another bottle of water to carry with us. We filled up all the bottles in preparation for the next 60 miles or so without any services or places to find water. I also bought more Heet for fueling the stove, some yummy soft chewy candy for fueling me and some muffins that we got for the morning.

And more downhill for a bit – about 65 miles into the ride a car passed us (it was rare at this point – such little traffic on Hwy 90. Chase recognized the car that passed us and it turns out they recognized us as well – they camped across the way from us in Telluride and were from Texas and just doing a road trip of sorts. They were off to Moab, or so they thought (later found out Moab was too hot for them and they continued on to Salt Lake City). We had another 15 miles until the climb up out of Paradox. The climb was about 2 miles long and about 1,000 feet or a bit more of elevation gain – it took around 45 minutes to climb and luckily the sun was setting at this point so we were in the shadows and it was a little cooler. We got to the “top” and weren’t at the elevation that I thought we should be at, 7,500 feet, so when we started to go down in elevation I didn’t like that, because I knew we’d have to climb it all over again. We had a good bit of downhill – dropped down to around 6,000 feet and then we passed by a house with sprinklers on and a fire going – I suggested we stop to see about refilling water bottles and the next thing we knew we were sitting around the fire eating steak, roasted peppers, and pickled asparagus. Lauren, who was staying at the house offered to let us stay the night and join her for dinner, so we couldn’t pass up the offer.

It was really nice getting a yummy meal, having great conversation, and not having to pitch a tent and being able to shower. Awesome time there and great time talking to Lauren – come to find out she used to live near Braddock Road and Guinea Road in Fairfax and also graduated from James Madison University, so we had a lot to talk about and compare things to how they were when she was there and when I was there. We finally hit the sack around midnight in hopes of getting up at 5:30 and rolling out at 6am.

GPS Stats:
2,586 miles
06:42 moving time
42.4 max speed
386 avg speed

Computer Stats:
87.01 miles
06:41:22 moving time
13.0 avg speed
44.0 max speed

Friday, July 17th – just a rest day because we can

Felt it was necessary to take a rest day since Telluride’s a pretty cool town and we didn’t get to see much yesterday. We’ve just been hanging out and checked out the farmer’s market this morning with Kyle (fellow cyclist) and ran into another cyclist (Nate) who’s riding from NYC to San Francisco. So we’re just relaxing and catching up on stuff – web junk, and all..

A cute kitten that was up for adoption at the Farmer's Market in Telluride, CO

Nate, Me, and Chase

I just posted more photos and a few more videos as well today. A new album is up for photos and just added 4 or so more videos.

That’s it – hoping to catch Colleen and Dean today since they texted last night asking if I was in/near Telluride….surprise surprise, I am here. So hoping to catch them this evening whenever they arrive!

Dean and Colleen on the gondola to Mountain Village

The group up at Mountain Village

Met up with Dean and Colleen tonight – as well as their friends Shaw and Mark. We rode the gondola up to Mountain Village where everyone had appetizers and drinks and then we went back down and ate pizza at the Brown Dog place (that has an amazing YX Sandwich!)

Dean, Random drunk guy, Me, and Colleen

Thursday, July 16th – Pa Co Chu Puk Campground to Telluride, CO

Today was grueling – we got a really late start. Decided after last night and staying up so late and the fact that it was Chase’s birthday, that we should just take it easy and I wouldn’t wake him up but instead just let him sleep till he woke up. He slept till 8:30 or so and we finally got going.

Last night we wound up just going over to another campsite and hanging out with some kids home from college/just going off to college in the Fall. We had smores with them, ate chips and cherries and drank coca cola… they fed us pretty well considering we didn’t really have a real dinner (just a bagel a piece). So we hung out till 12:30 or so in the morning and then finally called it a night and went to bed.

Downhill for 13 miles now

The ride today was pretty grueling and tiresome – 36 miles of uphill and 13 miles of downhill. The uphill from Ridgway to the Dallas Divide was about 11 miles and pretty much uphill the entire way varying steepness…just long. Once at the top it was smooth sailing all the way to Placerville but first we had to get through a bit of construction that took maybe 20 minutes or so. We stopped in Placerville and grabbed a bite to eat – we intended it to be a short stop, but again, was about an hour or so. We just grabbed some macaroni salad and carrot cake and split a bag of cheetos. Yummy and light enough to continue biking without stomach aches or anything.

Chase with his first birthday beer

We finished the ride to Telluride in 2 hours or so (it was 16 miles) and that was pretty grueling uphill… but we were very happy to arrive to Telluride. So happy that Chase had to stop immediately to get his birthday beer and celebrate, so we stopped at a bar/restaurant. Then on to find a place to camp – we went to the city park which we had been told was free to camp, but as it turned out it was $20 a site and we were feeling cheap sinc Telluride is so expensive. It’s a ritsy town for tourists to spend lots of money in. Entrees here are around $30 to start, a beer is $5, fries are $4-5, and sodas are around $2-3 depending on where you eat. So we were feeling cheap and unsure about wanting to spend $20 for a campsite… so rode up the road a bit to see if we could spot anything on the side of the road to camp. I thought the cemetary would be awesome, but Chase wasn’t digging the idea so much. We went back into town and were standing on a street corner discussing what we wanted to do when a guy (Brent) came up to us and said he recognized exactly what we were talking about (where to camp). He said he was down at the campground and just in a car with a trailer for a motorcycle, so I jumped in and asked if we could camp with him since he wasn’t pitching a tent. What a great idea – next thing we knew we were camping with him as well as Kyle, another touring cyclist who showed up just minutes later.

Kyle, another touring cyclist - he's from Berkley, California

So a fun and successful evening of free camping was had  - we hung around and talked for a short bit and then Chase and I went off in search of dinner. We wound up at this one place (very few were still open at 9:30pm)… and I got an YX sandwich on pizza bread (steak, onions, green and red peppers = amazing). It wasn’t as pricey as the other places, but still $13 for a sandwich and fries + tip. Either way, it was well deserved after a long day of uphill biking.

Chase and Brent at the campground in Telluride

Back to the campsite to crash…

GPS Stats:
51.5 miles
05:41 moving time
9.1 avg speed
35.8 max speed

Computer Stats:
52.89 miles
05:37:04 moving time
9.4 avg speed
36.5 max speed

Wednesay, July 15th – Lake Fork Campground to Pa Co Chu Puk Campground (8 miles outside of Ridgway)

We got a relatively late start again – no real surprise though. We got up at 6:15 or so and packed up, but then ran into some cyclists just before getting out of the park, so we stopped to chat. They were doing a Colorado tour for a couple weeks.

We started the slow climb up Route 50 and stopped to get good water, since we were told by a fisherman at the campground that the water would make us sick – I don’t think it would have, but who knows. I already had drank an entire 24 oz. of it that morning – I felt a little funny, but not sick. So we got fresh water just a couple miles up the road. The ride was very slow going – the first 20 miles were all uphill for the most part, but got a nice downhill just before Cimmaron. Just before arriving to Cimmaron we stopped at a general store to refill on water, but were convinced to try the pie – so we did. I had coconut cream pie with ice cream and Chase had blackberry pie with ice cream. It was delicious:) An hour later we were back on the bikes (after I had refilled my water there – which was a bad idea). the water was pretty gross – from the pipes. Really yellow and smelled bad, so I didn’t drink it. Luckily there was a place just down the road where I bought a gallon of water for $2.00 and it was tasty! No worries about bad water there…

Coconut Cream Pie! Yummy!

Another long climb after Cimmaron and we finally finished that a while later and then it was all downhill to Montrose. We stopped at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison to see if we could hitch-hike in, but the two people we asked didn’t seem interested, so we just continued on to Montrose. We got there about 1:30 and had lunch (Subway for me, Pizza for Chase). Then ran some errands – but first had to stop at the Russell Stover Outlet since we’d seen a billboard about free samples. Needless to say our 5 minute quick run in turned into more like an hour that we were there. It was amazing – lots of chocolate, cheap prices, and even Blue Bell ice cream that Chase knows from back home.

The Russell Stover Outlet in Montrose, CO

Finally on to Walmart where we stocked up on goodies and dinner stuff for the next few days and then we went behind Walmart to repack all our bags to fit the food in. And at 5:30pm we finally got back on the road to continue towards Telluride, knowing at this point there was no chance we’d make it. We made it to a campground about 8 miles outside of Ridgway and called it a day.

Campsite at Pa Co Chu Puk Campground

GPS Stats:
59.9 miles
05:28 moving time
10.9 avg speed
39.6 max speed

Computer Stats:
61.45 miles
05:25:16 moving time
11.3 avg speed
41.0 max speed

On a side note, while in Montrose, I was stopped by a couple kids…

Kids: Isn’t your bike heavy?
Me: Yes, it’s about 100-105 lbs right now.
Kids: Wow (big eyed), why are you carrying all of that?
Me: I’m riding across country.
Kids: Why would you want to come to Montrose? (with the voice implying that Montrose shouldn’t be on my route – aka, nothing there worth seeing/doing)
Me: Because it’s along my route.
Kids: What state did you start in?
Me: Yorktown, Virginia.
Kids: Wow (big eyed again). And where are you going?
Me: San Francisco, California.
Kids: Wow. You’re kind of crazy. Have a good trip.

Tuesday, July 14th - Ohio City – Lake Fork Campground (outside of Sapinero)

Today we got up about 7:30am (somehow the GPS alarm didn’t go off on time at 6:50am), but we got up and going and left the cabin after chatting with the other guys doing a small tour in Colorado. They (Gary, Adam, and John) were doing a trial-run with their mountain bike tires (massive tires) and all their Ortlieb gear. They’re basically staying as far away from civilization as possible, it seems. Doing all off-road stuff as much as possible and climbing passes by way of rocky jeep trails and such. So we chatted with them a bit and then they set off and then we set off about 9:30 this morning.

Adam's monster of a bike next to mine.

We arrived to Gunnison about 1 hour and 20 minutes later (21 miles later) and stopped for a quick ice cream (McDonald’s) and then went in search of warm-weather clothing for Chase. We went to a thrift store, a fishing/outdoors store, and Walmart. With a little luck, Chase is now decked out in camoflage (hunting gear) from the outdoors store. We also stopped at the bike shop to check our chains and they both appear to be in “Good” standing. Chase has ridden 2,400 miles on his chain and still hasn’t needed to replace it. I’ve riden maybe 800 miles almost on my chain since Springfield, Missouri. About 4 hours later and we finally got on the road again just before 3pm after having lunch at Mario’s Pizza. We both got the lunch special of a mini stuff pizza, salad/soup, and a drink.

Bighorn Sheep alongside the Blue Mesa Reservoir

We had 30 miles to go from Gunnison before we reached Sapinero. We unfortunately had a headwind the majority of the way out of Gunnison but the views were amazing. We rode along the Blue Mesa Reservoir/Lake and saw a few bighorn sheep that were grazing on the side of the road. One went up the side of the mountain which was probably at a 80 degree angle – amazing how they can walk up such steep inclines. A couple other sheep jumped across the road and then every other out of state license plate vehicle stopped to take photos, as well as about 4 motorcyclists. We kept on riding and stopped at a restroom on the side of the room and a couple traveling from NC to Wyoming stopped to chat with us for a bit. We debated as to how far we wanted to ride today and ultimately decided to stop for water at Lake Fork Campground, which is where we decided to stay for the night – it’s a nice little campground and we set up tents and then cleaned up and cooked dinner. Chase had his spaghetti and I had butter and herb pasta. Now if only we’d had something for dessert!

The sunset at Lake Fork Campground

Monday, July 13th – Ohio City, CO

Today we’re just resting and hanging out in Ohio City, CO… it’s like vacation. We don’t have to wake up until we wake up naturally – we can eat a real breakfast, and don’t have any set plans. Today’s the last day of this style of vacation. Chase promises we can start riding tomorrow, haha:) I’m completely okay with doing whatever since I’ve got a little more flexibility than he does, but we’ll still make it to San Francisco in time for him to get back to school and for me to come back to work.

I don’t miss work though (no offense). I am sort of dreading the idea of returning to work – it’ll probably be difficult since I haven’t spent 8 hours a day staring at a computer in quite some time. And I’m not used to the idea of having to sit at a desk, but I suppose all of that will come back to me come September when I’m back home.

Meanwhile, we’re trying to figure out our route across Utah and Nevada to California. Our tentative idea is something along these lines: click for map. We’d like to hitch-hike (even though it’s illegal) in Utah to avoid spending so many days biking to go off route… to hitch a ride to some of the national parks like Canyonlands and The Arches. Plus I have incentive for anyone taking us – free entrance into the parks with my National Parks Pass. So that’s our hope anyway, but we’ll have to be careful and strategic with our hitch-hiking… so we don’t get arrested! We’re also hoping to see Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado near Durango and Zion National Park in Utah and ride through Yosemite National Park in California. We’ll see – it’s a long ways we still have to go… approximately 1,500 or 1,700 if we detour to Las Vegas. Either way, we’ll see some nice parks along the way, I think!

For now, I have to sign off and get back to relaxing in the boonies of Ohio City, Colorado and hopefully getting my dirt biking lesson here shortly!

My dirtbike lesson

Tomorrow, I promise – we’ll start biking again. Who knows where our destination will be, maybe Cimmaron or Montrose. It’ll be 70-90 miles depending… but we’ll see how we feel after all our rest time.

Fun riding a dirtbike in Ohio City, Colorado

I’ve added a few videos to http://www.youtube.com/jmukikster as well as some more photos to the album, Colorado.

The Mason Gazette just published an article about my trip across the country. You can read it here: http://gazette.gmu.edu/articles/14095