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| -0.3 degrees Fahrenheit |
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| Gilmore Summit |
Day 13 started out
with some pretty cold temperatures – negative 0.3 degrees
Fahrenheit was the lowest that my Garmin saw that morning as I was
packing up. Both temperatures and elevation was getting more extreme as the trip progressed! Good thing I picked up that better winter gear
yesterday and brought the heavier, warmer down sleeping bag!
The day was a gradual descent for the most part but unfortunately
the wind was not my ally today so my speeds weren't as fast as they
should have been. My plan was to make it the roughly hundred miles
or so to St. Anthony Idaho where I would stay with my third
Warmshowers host.
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| See anything on quick inspection? |
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| Oh, right. A barbed wire fence... |
Things were going great until I turned onto an unmarked dirt road (from a gravel road). Biking slowly along the bumpy road in the evening, I ran into a barbed wire fence strung diagonally across the road. No warning signs, no floursecent flags hanging from it, nothing. Just two brand new strands of wire that were near invisible strung across the road attached to fence poles well on the side of the road. Luckily it was diagonally strung across the road and I saw it a few feet before I hit it so I was mostly parallel when I ran into it instead of getting clothes-lined. It knocked me and my bike over, gave me a pretty deep gash in the inside crease of my right elbow, and some superficial scratches on my leg. However, it completely ripped up my rain paints and put a bunch of holes in my trusted JL Rowing shirt and Underarmor tights which I've had for years and have kept me warm throughout freezing days on the Schuylkill River as well as freezing days on the bike. Also, my jacket got a bit ripped. Overall, several hundred bucks worth of damaged clothing.
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| Hoogerland-ing it up. |
After cleaning myself off, I skirted underneath the fence to continue on my way. The road got even worse with soft, deep, silty dirt that was impossible to ride on a heavy bike/rider combo with 35c tires. I ended up riding along the side of the road which was almost impossible to ride with thick brush and uneven surfaces. Along the way I ran over a couple cactus like plants and had to skirt a few more sections of barbed wire strung across the road. Finally I made it through this short section of hellish road (probably less than a mile total), and got back out onto a somewhat better gravel road. Then I got a flat on my front tire, probably from the small cactus plants that I ran over. Now I was really starting to get frustrated and angry, as I was no longer going to make it to my Warmshowers host by daylight. After slowly changing out the front flat (much harder with the bolt on dynamo hub which also entailed removing both front panniers), I finally got going again and just hammered it as fast as I could across miles of sketchy gravel roads. I was travelling faster on these rolling roads that I was on the smoother paved roads, that's how motivated and angry I was to finish up the day.
Finally, about an hour after darkness had settled in, I arrived in St. Anthony at Jack and Pat's place, a recently retired couple. Thankfully I had burned myself out from my angry bike ride after my barbed wire/flat tire fiasco so I was (hopefully) a gracious and pleasant visitor. They had prepared an scrumptious dinner of chicken breast with a banana and nut glaze, an excellent baked potato (and that's coming from me, not much of a potato person!), some great bread, vegetable dip, and some dessert. Afterwards I took a much appreciated shower before relaxing in the family room with them discussing our cycling adventures (he had biked the Northern Tier route earlier this year with his wife driving SAG). Afterwards I went online to update photos, check email and plan out routes for the next couple days before heading off to bed.
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