Sargents, Colorado

We started riding just after 7 AM. The road was uphill all the way, but there was no wind at that time, and the road surface was good, so we made good time.

 I was still feeling a bit run-down from yesterday's epic ride. By 8 AM, the temperature was already a balmy 17 degrees.

It was a 14 km climb up to the top of Cochetopa Pass, at 10,067 feet. We stopped at the top for some food, and to be serenaded by some noisy cows grazing in among the trees.

 It was a fantastic descent down the other side, though the wind had begun to pick up, and we had to work when the road flattened out.

As we rode on, the headwind picked up, and I made good use of my aero bars.

 At 30 km, we reached the Dome Lakes, which were two artificial lakes joined by a weir. We stopped beside the upper one, where a hand pump provided good drinking water.

We had lunch by the lake, and then continued our gradual descent. 

About 10 km further on, we met a guy touring the Divide Route. He had a Bob trailer, and seemed to be having a good time. His wife came out and met him occasionally, and they had spent the night at the Sargents cabins, where we were aiming for.

 A bit further on, we passed two lakes, one green and the other blue. It almost felt like home!

The road climbed about a hundred metres up to the highway, which we had to follow (into the headwind, of course) for a couple of kilometers before turning off again.

On the highway we passed another racer, but we could only wave at each other because of the traffic.

Once we turned off, we began to climb up yet another unsealed road, straight into a stiff headwind. This looked like only a small climb on the map, but it was painful. About halfway up a car pulling a huge trailer came racing down, and didn't slow at all. I had to close my eyes and hold my breath for about ten seconds while the dust cleared...not the easiest thing to do while climbing a big hill!

At the top the road became undulating, and turned slightly so the wind was more to the side.

We stopped again at 39 kilometers to eat more food. By this time I was getting low on water: the bladder in my backpack had run out, and I was down to one drink bottle on my bike.

 By this time the temperature had reached the mid 30s.

We had a big descent. Close to the top, we met Brian Bridau, a racer from Canada. He was crazy: he had shipped home all his sleeping gear, expecting to just ride 50 hours at a stretch, but it didn't work out so he bought himself a tarp and a piece of fleece to wrap himself in when he needed to sleep. He said it worked well...

After the descent, I discovered that the bracelet Anneke had made for me had fallen off my bike. It was lost somewhere on the hill, but there was no way I could go back for it. Losing that made me rather sad.

We turned and began to climb up a small valley, with a tailwind. The temperature climbed to 40 degrees. Then we climbed out of the valley, turned, and began the final descent to the highway -- straight into a headwind again.

We met a woman racer, Sarah Caylor, who had very little gear on her bike but a heavy backpack.

We crossed a cattle grate with a sign that said "No trespassing, no playing in ditch" (!).

We reached the highway at 68 km, and turned to climb the final 20 km on the road to Sargents. Fortunately we had a tail wind, and made good time. The road also had a good shoulder, so I felt much safer being further back from the line of traffic. It was still warm; the temperature was in the mid to late 30s the whole afternoon.

I was down to my final half bottle of water, and was quite dehydrated by the time we reached Sargents.

We finally arrived at Sargents at 3 PM, having ridden 89 km and climbed just under 3,000 feet.

I was quite dehydrated, and my body felt quite worn down. It was a huge relief to sit down, eat and drink at last!

We met two racers passing through, Patrick and Kent.

We decided to stay in a cabin beside the cafe. It's cramped, but the beds are comfortable.

We also met Andy Amick, another Tour Divide rider. He's staying with two others in one of the tepees.

I'm still quite dehydrated; I drank a litre of Powerade, and I'm now onto my second litre of milk and I'm still thirsty!

We discussed our strategy going forward. Pete may have to bail early, in Silverthorne, to get back to work. We've been pushing the distance lately, but our bodies are suffering as a result. So we may ease back a bit to keep the pace sustainable all the way to Steamboat Springs. We should get there on Sunday, a week from today.

We had dinner at the cafe, and also ordered food for tomorrow. Gay ordered a pizza, but instead of getting it in a box, he asked the waitress to cut it in half, roll up each half and wrap them in tin foil, making two "pizza burritos"! He planned to have one for breakfast, and the other for lunch.

In the evening, I met Ken Scott, the third Kiwi on the Divide. Had a good chat. He was very tired and had a bad Achilles' tendon.

Nowhere at 9,000ft (somewhere in Rio Grande Forest)

We left the motel at 7, and bought breakfast at Subway. It was surprisingly good -- much more wholesome then a burger. I also bought another sandwich for lunch.

We were on the road by 7:45. Almost immediately we had to find the right turnoff, which was tricky. As we rode away from Del Norte, we found a sign saying Great Divide Mountain Bike Route...pointing the wrong way!

 There were lots of bike tyre tracks on the road, so we followed it. The road zig-zagged back and forth across flat ground. Finally, as we rode down a slight incline, we saw a small plane coming to land right in front of us -- and we figured out that the original road had been turned into an airstrip!

 Gay's older map showed the original road, while Pete's more recent version showed the zig-zags. 

We continued on up a canyon, and the track deteriorated into a sandy mess that ascended for about two kilometers. As I was riding up, I startled two rabbits. I surprised myself by clearing the whole climb, though I probably got my heart rate too high as the sandpit/track was quite steep in places, and it was hard riding. Pete and Gay walked, and I had to wait for over ten minutes for them to catch up.

The countryside was quite like New Mexico; there was even the occasional cactus. The temperature was also warmer than recent days; by 8:30 it was already 24 degrees.

 There were some amazing rock formations sticking out of the desert. The view was quite spectacular.

 Pete described the area we were riding through as "badlands" -- the land couldn't be used for anything, and nothing really grew there.

Gay was worried that we were lost, even though there were lots of bike tyre tracks in the sand.

As we rode along, we saw a pronghorn antelope. It was quite timid, and raced off before we could get close.

We stopped at the 16 km (10 mile) mark for a rest and some food. We saw a strange stunted lizard, and I managed to get some (blurry) photos of it. We also saw some bones, probably of a pronghorn.

 Despite Gay's continuing worries that we were lost, we finally reached a major intersection at 17.5 km. 

 The road we turned into was still unsealed, but a lot easier riding than what we had just ridden through. Pete and Gay were cursing the course designers, as the road led straight back to Del Norte, and they could have skipped all the sandy parts just by riding along this major dirt road.

The road had lots of washboards, but it was still quite easy riding. We passed a turnoff to a natural stone arch, though we didn't have time to go and visit it.

We reached a section of tar-seal, near a place called La Garita, and we followed the tar-seal for about 8 km. at the top, some farmers on horseback were moving their cattle along the road.

 We stopped and had lunch beside the road where the tar-seal finished.

This was the 32 km point; from there, the dirt road climbed constantly.

 At the 55 km point, we stopped at a campground to rest, eat and filter water. At the campground, I saw a squirrel, a woodpecker, and several amazing-looking butterflies.

Pete was having trouble again, so I offered to carry enough water for dinner and breakfast.  And so when we left the campground, I was carrying about 6.5 liters of water.

 The road continued to climb, and I found it hard going. The temperature by now had reached the mid 30s.

We met two racers from New Zealand as we climbed. Rod Davidson.

We finally reached the top of Carnero Pass at 60.8 km. The pass was 10,166 feet high.

As we descended, we met another racer, who was in 8th place. He said that he had seen no water sources at all since leaving Sargants. We descended, and promptly found a large muddy puddle. Pete went down and filled two water bottles with the murky water, so he could filter it later. The edges of the puddle were so muddy that he had to lay down stones to stand on so he could get to the actual water.  The water was brown and disgusting-looking, but at least we got some.

We continued the huge descent down the other side. As usual, I was ahead (I can descend on a mountain bike much faster than Pete and Gay can do on their touring bikes). I startled three large deer, and it was amazing watching them run like horses as I rode by.

 A bit further on, there were a bunch of cattle in the road. I slowed down and tried to sneak past. That worked for the first quarter of the herd, but then they began to run, and suddenly I found myself in the running of the bulls!

There were probably 50 cattle, ranging from calves and cows to huge bulls, all running down the road with me in the middle of them. It was quite scary as I sneaked past the bulls with their big horns. I managed to sneak towards the front, but the last few wouldn't let me past, and I was stuck in the stampede.  Finally we reached an area where there was grass on the side of the road, and the rest of the cattle turned off the road. Whew!

We finally reached a sealed highway. By this time it was about 5 PM. We ate some food and discussed our options. Unfortunately, we had just left the national forest, and it was all private land where we couldn't camp, so we decided to push on to the next place where we could camp.

We began riding along the highway. It was horrendous: no shoulder on the road, traffic, a strong headwind, and a setting sun which would be in the eyes of any drivers coming up behind us! We tried taking turns drafting, which sort of worked, but it was slow and stressful going. My legs were quite sore by this stage.

I got another bleeding nose from the dry air, the third one today, only this one was much worse. Very annoying.

We thought it was hilarious that the racers had said there was no water -- there was a stream running beside the highway, and we crossed several more streams.  Finally, after about 10 km, we reached the side-road we were looking for and turned off the highway. What a relief!

We began the final climb of the day, into a headwind. It was 3 km along a dirt road, all uphill, before we finally reached the national forest where we could camp. We stopped just past the national forest sign, and set up camp just out of sight of the road.

 We were all exhausted. We had ridden for 92 km, climbed over 4,000 feet, including riding over a mountain pass. We had been cycling for 7.5 hours, and it was 12 hours since we had left Del Norte.

The camp site was on pretty rough ground, though there was a nice spot among the boulders where we could cook.  We had dinner of pasta, hardboiled egg and cold tuna. I was so thirsty that I drank the pasta water. It wasn't too bad at all.

Normally I write up my diary entry in the evening before I fall asleep, but I was so tired I couldn't do that. I made a start, but had to finish it in the morning. I slept well despite the lumpy ground. Exhaustion will do that to you.

Jefe Branham finished the race today in Mexico.  He rode from Canada to Mexico in 16 days,