by Paul Howard
I consoled myself by eating breakfast in bed, secure in the knowledge I would not be afflicted by crumb-induced discomfort for long. As I did so, I read an article in the Steamboat Pilot about Eric Lobeck, one of the two Steamboat residents who was participating in the Tour Divide (the other was Leighton White, who had already ridden the race last year and who had been a mine of information and reassurance in Banff). It was hardly a surprise to have it confirmed that he was significantly further down the trail than us – he had passed through on Wednesday; it was now Monday morning. Yet to find that there had been time to interview him, write the story and print it in a newspaper was something of an eye-opener.
All the more reason to press on, it seemed. Yet at the current rate of progress it was unlikely we would ever complete all the mandated tasks before lunchtime at the earliest. Just getting ready to go to the bike shop had become a logistical challenge of almost military scale.
At 8.30 a.m., with breakfast and newspaper devoured, I went to see if Cricket was awake. As if to emphasise our tardiness, she had already left. We seemed doomed to continue missing each other all the way to Mexico.
Trevor and I then rode to the bike shop to ensure our bikes could be serviced as promptly as possible. Orange Peel Bikes was every bit as welcoming and enthusiastic as we had been led to believe they would be.
‘Hey, man, you guys are doing a great race.’
It was a sign of my weakening mental state that I was prepared to agree, adopting the convenient North American-cum-reality television trait of overlooking the facts. Doing a great ride, maybe; doing a great race, clearly not. To underline the point, it was confirmed that Matthew Lee had been through a week earlier and was indeed on the last stretch to the finish, more than 1,000 miles away in Antelope Wells. More pertinently, though there were just 26 of the initial 42 riders still going, only 5 of them were behind us; 2 of those had disqualified themselves for unintentional navigational mistakes that they had decided not to rectify. The Lanterne Rouge was still within our grasp. Maybe this morning’s delay could be passed off as a cunning plan?
The owner appeared.
‘How can I help you guys?’
Trevor recounted a carefully thought-out and observed list of ailments that needed tending. The mechanic nodded sagely, obviously recognising a kindred spirit in the accompanying detail. Then came my turn. I decided that the best way to conceal my comparative ignorance was to avoid direct comparison with Trevor’s compendious knowledge and keep things straightforward.
‘So far I’ve had no problems and I’d like to keep it that way, but maybe it could use a clean . . .’
Suddenly I was conscious of the incongruity of trying to ride 2,800 miles in the muddiest conditions in the history of the race while asking for no greater mechanical assistance than a bit of a tidy up. I tried to compensate; I overcompensated.
‘Just do whatever’s needed to keep her running smoothly until the Mexican border.’
The mechanic had the decency to smile encouragingly, though it could have been in anticipation of the blank cheque I appeared to have just signed. The bikes disappeared. There seemed nothing else to do, so Trevor and I went for a second breakfast.
Accidental tourists or not, we made a good fist of appreciating the holidaymaker appeal of Steamboat. It was better known as a winter resort, and owed its venerated status to the famous Howelsen Hill skiing area and ski jump, the longest continually running ski area in Colorado. The site, first developed in 1914, was named after Norwegian immigrant Carl Howelsen, a famed cross-country skier and ski-jumper. Howelsen himself built the ski jump.
Yet the town lost none of its charms on a sunny Monday morning in June. It was, like so many other US towns, laid out in a grid format, but it was softened by its location – on the banks of a fast-flowing river, in a valley between imposing peaks. There was also enough non-tourist-related activity along the main drag to give the town a sense of vigour and purpose, and sufficient watering holes to cater to the tastes of all visitors. Orange Peel Bikes had unanimously recommended the Creekside Café and Grill. We saw no reason to go against their advice.
Enjoying the temporary freedom of being bikeless we strolled to the café which, as its name suggested, was alongside a creek. We sat on the patio surrounded by fellow visitors and resident ladies-that-lunch (or brunch), listening to the babbling brook. All in all, Steamboat Springs was the perfect holiday location. It was just unfortunate we were not on holiday.
The menu was comprehensive and largely understandable, even if it did seem to consist of incongruous juxtapositions of everyday items. With some trepidation, I plumped for a croissant breakfast: sausages, eggs, cheese and fried potatoes, all with a croissant (the trepidation was caused by remembering the adverse reaction of a French friend on a visit to London when confronted with the admittedly unedifying spectacle of a ham-filled croissant: ‘Why are you murdering a perfectly good croissant?’).
I need not have worried. It looked and tasted delightful, though the compulsive need to consume calories coloured every culinary critique. Trevor and I had almost finished when Per and Stephen arrived. They were still en route to the bike shop.
I went to collect my bike. They had done exactly what I would have asked them to do had I had the presence of mind to be able to articulate it. They had cleaned and re-greased all moving parts, and replaced the chain.
‘Yeah, it was pretty much about to wear through. You certainly wouldn’t have got to Mexico without it snapping.’
They had also replaced the gear cables, which had become encased in gunk and had stopped moving freely.
‘We had a look at your forks as well but we couldn’t find anything wrong with them,’ the mechanic explained.
For some days now I had not been able to lock out my suspension fork at the front of the bike. It was a minor issue. When riding on paved roads it was more efficient to be able to lock them out; on some climbs, even off-road, it was also beneficial. But the vast majority of the time it was much more comfortable to have the full effect of the suspension to cushion the unevenness of the terrain. In the past, racers had been compelled to quit due to the hand-numbing impact of the millions of daily vibrations. Not content with a damaged knee and a home-made bike, Per, of course, had fully rigid forks.
I did some more food shopping and went back to the motel to check out. I returned to the bike shop. Trevor’s bike had been restored to full working order, but Stephen and Per were in the middle of major bike re-builds. Or that’s what it seemed like to a mechanical novice like me. Of course, for them, installing a new drive train, whatever that was, was just a pleasant manifestation of a favourite hobby. Still, for all the practical assistance being rendered by the shop staff, I couldn’t quite dispel the notion that this was akin to having a dog and barking yourself.
It was clear we weren’t going anywhere soon. In spite of the two breakfasts, my stomach was also telling me it was nearly lunchtime. I went to buy another sandwich. I also went to the post office to send home some unwanted belongings. I didn’t actually have anything that I felt was surplus to requirements, but one of the morning’s principal activities for the others had been discarding weight. I was now paranoid that they would be able to ride much faster than me and would eventually leave me behind.
I selected a bag at random from inside my rucksack. It was my change of cycling shorts and top, along with a spare vest. That would have to do. Smelliness seemed a reasonable price to inflict on the others for my being able to keep up with them. Then, perversely, I stopped at a thrift store and bought a rather smart, light blue cotton shirt. Having seen the success of Stephen’s approach to protection from the sun, something loose and made of natural materials seemed appealing. I returned once more to the bike shop. Everybody was now waiting for me, with varying degrees of patience.
We set off immediately. It was half past midday, and cycling further than the small town of Kremmling 80 miles away was now out of the question. Somehow it had taken five h
ours to complete routine bike maintenance and shopping, yet now we were in a rush. I had great difficulty riding out of town while trying to eat my recently purchased sandwich and drink a can of Coke. In no time at all my one remaining set of clothes had become saturated with sugary liquid and covered in mayonnaise. I could pass as a tourist no longer.
The first 10 miles or so of the day’s ride took us along a stretch of road that could have been European. The vast, straight, highly engineered roads of the ride so far had provided compelling evidence why old-school road racing and riding has never taken off in the US. Here, though, was a strip of tarmac that wound and undulated its way through fields and between barns. It would not have looked out of place in the Alps. As we rode we were mobbed by red-winged blackbirds.
Buoyed by the terrain and the sunshine, we made good progress. Until Stephen disappeared. Initially we were not concerned. For all his meticulous preparation, he had developed an almost Pavlovian habit of having to respond to a call of nature within the first hour of starting each day’s ride. When he still had not rejoined us after five minutes, though, I retraced our steps to see what could have gone wrong. I rode more than a mile back the way we came, yet found nothing. I was just about to break the alarming news to Per and Trevor when I saw that Stephen had already found them. Apparently his call of nature had necessitated drastic action.
‘I found a Portaloo by the roadworks and I, er, couldn’t resist.’
We rode along the Upper Yampa River Valley, then on a pleasant cycling trail round Stagecoach Reservoir. Next came the long climb up to Lynx Pass. It was warm work, but not overly demanding. The valley was dotted with expensive, exclusive ranches, though ranch-style condominiums might have been a better description. Several were for sale; a sign of the times, perhaps.
After the top of the pass we crossed a main road, then headed into high country that had managed to resist attempts to turn it into a private playground for the rich. Instead, the watery meadows dotted between the surrounding peaks had been little touched since the demise of a Wells Fargo mail service that had used the same route. We passed the well-preserved Rock Creek Stage Station, a smart, timber building. Shortly after we had to ford the deepest stream of the route so far.
‘If this creek is too deep to safely cross, which it may be in May or June, backtrack to the highway and turn right,’ advised the map.
It was not too deep to cross, but it was deep enough to warrant removing shoes and socks and also to necessitate the shouldering of bikes to prevent recently re-greased bearings from becoming sodden. It was also cold enough to merit a five-minute pause to restore circulation to chilled extremities.
The next noticeable feature came in the form of an unintentional rollercoaster. What was dismissed on the map as 3 miles of short ups and downs was, in reality, five near-suicidal descents, each followed by five lung-burning climbs. Then came the mother of all downhills, losing 1,500 feet in little more than 3 miles. It was exhilarating, but not as exhilarating as crossing the railroad at the bottom with only moments to spare between two converging freight trains. It was not any danger that caused such a frisson – the trains were far too slow-moving for that. It was the belated realisation that we had narrowly avoided having to wait for these juggernauts to trundle past before we could proceed. With a combined total in excess of 200 wagons it would have been a long wait. One train-jumping exploit was enough for any trip.
‘Proceeding’ was still a priority. It was nearly 6 p.m. Kremmling was a mere 20 miles away, but the profile was not encouraging. In fact, it was greatly discouraging. We were now in a great, rocky gorge, Gore canyon, carved by the nascent Colorado River, which we had crossed shortly after the railroad. The railroad had monopolised passage through the canyon, leaving the road to find a tortuous route over and around the fearsome granite bluffs.
The first climb was less demanding than anticipated; the second much more so. It had the temerity to lead straight past a great natural promontory called Inspiration Point. Even in the cold evening air of altitude, Perspiration Point would have been a more fitting title; or ‘driven to distraction point’, due to the thousands of voracious mosquitoes attracted to the sticky, sweet-and-salty mess that masqueraded for my cycling outfit.
Nevertheless, the views of the canyon were indeed inspirational. It had been named after the unlikely figure of an Anglo-Irish Baronet, Sir St George Gore, who had passed this way on a hunting expedition in 1854. During a hunting spree in which he lived up to his surname, he and his men were reported to have killed 2,000 buffalo, 1,600 elk and deer and 100 bears, ‘a destruction that shocked and angered Indians and Whites alike’, according to the roadside sign.
Eventually the climbing finished and we were rewarded with a 40 mph descent to the main road. Three miles more and we had made it to Kremmling. It was nearly 9 p.m. Unlike Steamboat, and in spite of the obvious opportunities for an ironic, Moscow-themed amusement park, tourism had passed it by.
As a result, options for food and accommodation were strictly limited. At a crossroads in what appeared to be the centre of town we found a solution: Shake ’n’ Burger. Placing four orders at once, even though we were the only customers, seemed a challenging concept. The situation was aggravated when I ordered a takeaway ice cream sundae for dessert. While every other order was compiled inaccurately (no chips, too many onion rings, the wrong burger, that sort of thing), an assistant barely out of high-school spent an age creating my sundae, ensuring it was an exact replica of the picture on the menu. It was a work of art. He presented it proudly to me, only to be visibly crushed when I asked him to squash his towering creation into a plastic container so that I would be able to take it to the motel over the road.
‘I did say takeaway,’ I said sheepishly.
‘He meant “to go”,’ explained Stephen.
At the motel, my misanthropy returned and I grumpily insisted on banning television for the night. As a result, endless speculation about Michael Jackson’s demise was replaced by stunned silence. The sense of shock was exacerbated by the tiny room (to save money, we all shared a twin room, which came equipped with two double beds). Fitting four of us inside was enough of a challenge; adding four bikes was a recipe for chaos. Even bedtime afforded little comfort. The novelty of sharing a bed with a different cyclist each night was beginning to wear a bit thin.
CHAPTER 22
EAT, SLEEP AND BE GRUMPY
DAY 19
After the successful day into Steamboat, when we had covered 135 miles, yesterday had been something of a disappointment. We had, on reflection, made good progress in the time we had been cycling: 80 miles in eight hours. It was just that the time we had spent cycling had been limited.
This disappointment came as something of a surprise. But although we might have come to accept that we were no longer racing in the sense of competing against others – everyone else was either too far behind to catch us or, more commonly, too far ahead to be caught – we were, in spite of occasional appearances to the contrary, intent on making it to the finish as quickly as possible. We also had the imperative provided by Per’s flight. It might have lacked the life-and-death urgency of the classic Western 3:10 to Yuma – Per was certainly an unlikely Glenn Ford-style villain, and none of the rest of us had the nobility and desperation of Van Heflin’s rancher – but it was an imperative all the same, and we had invested as much honour as is possible in completing such a self-indulgent frivolity as the race itself.
Accordingly, we had all resolved to start early. It had also been agreed that it should really take no more than an hour to be in the saddle. The only outstanding question was which hour that should be. Rising at 4.30 a.m. was mooted, but the likely shock to the system after yesterday’s laxity was considered too great. Alarms set at 5 a.m. for departure at 6 a.m. was the compromise solution. It sounded like a half-hearted challenge to a duel, and the negotiations on which it was based recalled the nagging impositions of everyday life from which we had all sought refuge on the
Tour Divide. Yet it was better than emulating the Tammy Wynette hit ‘D-I-V-O-R-C-E’.
For once, and apart from the unanticipated distraction of an open gas station serving fresh coffee, we succeeded in our aims. In the morning light, and in a more philanthropic state of mind, Kremmling seemed a more welcoming place. Certainly, the icy-cold half an hour spent cycling alongside the youthful Colorado River was a delight. Then came another long Colorado ascent, gentle at first, then steeper, up to Ute Pass. The first few miles were through a wide, open side valley. Further up it narrowed and became more wooded.
We cycled past a series of signs at the side of the road that presaged another imminent change in scenery: ‘Warning: Natural Gas Pipeline’. Written in large letters, this seemed clear enough. In smaller letters on a separate sign underneath, however, came some rather contradictory advice: ‘Pipeline not under marker’. Which had come first? The sign that required the stake to be wrongly placed, or an inaccurate placement of the stakes that had required a modified sign?
Then the man-made scars of active mineral exploitation came once more to the fore. To our right was a huge earth dam straight from a Hollywood disaster movie. As we climbed higher it became clear that it contained a noxious mass of mine sediment. The nearby slopes, in stark contrast to those visible further afield, were conspicuously denuded of trees; those that did remain were mostly dead or dying. It was almost sad to admire the magnificence of the snow-clad peaks across the far side of the valley.
A fast, paved descent took us down the far side of the pass and onto a 13-mile stretch of main road to the large town of Silverthorne. On a road bike it would have been good riding. The fat tyres of a mountain bike merely added to the frustration of riding such an inefficient means of transport, however. In fact, the hotter it became – it was now late morning – and the longer I had to spend in the company of the vast trucks thundering past, the more I was inclined to revert to old prejudices about mountain bikes in general.
