Hartsel, Colorado

We had breakfast at the motel, and headed out at 7 AM. There were dark clouds overhead, and blustery winds. It felt quite cool.  We rode across Salida, through quiet suburban streets, and began to climb as soon as we reached the outskirts of the city.

It was a steep, ugly climb up a dry rocky gulch on an unsealed road. We climbed 1,000 feet in the first 5 km!

 Pete saw a pair of foxes, but they ran off before he could take a picture.  It was still overcast and just 16 degrees, with no wind at first.

Finally the climb began to flatten off, but a headwind came up so it wasn't all that much easier. It actually felt quite cold once we had stopped sweating from the steep initial climb.

 I saw several squirrels, and a groundhog. At one point when we stopped to eat a muesli bar, I saw a strange red bug crawling across the road.

 I also saw a rabbit, some cows, and a group of people fixing the power lines that followed the road up the hill.

After 20 km of climbing, we finally reached the top. We had done 3,000 feet (950 metres) of climbing. Ouch!

 

We began to descend. Even though the thermometer on my cycle computer said it was 14 degrees, it felt cold.

About halfway down, I saw a big red feather and stopped to pick it up. Pete said it was from a red-tailed hawk. I put it in the zip-lock bag with the crow's feather I picked up earlier; if I'm lucky I might be able to bring them both back to New Zealand as souvenirs of my ride.

We reached a huge grassy plane, which extended almost to the horizon in every direction. The cloud was starting to break, and the wind became more of a cross wind. It also felt warmer. I saw a few horses by a remote farm-house.

We descended into the centre of the grassy basin. The winds were quite strong, and we looked for somewhere sheltered to have lunch.

As we were riding along, we met a racer, Allan, who said he was riding with someone else who was a short distance behind.

 As usual, we stopped at the 32 km mark to eat lunch. It wasn't very sheltered, but we had reached the point where the road forded a small stream, and there was an old tree-trunk that we could use as a seat.

Just as we began to eat, Allan's partner rode up: Casper from Denmark. He stopped and joined us for several minutes, chatting and eating. He said he tended to start late (he had ridden from Hartsel that morning) but then ride later into the night to compensate. 

 He said they tried to ride about 120 miles a day, but often had easier days and probably averaged 100 miles each day. He also said this was the first and last time he would be riding the Divide on a bicycle. Next time, he would bring his son and ride a motorbike!  Casper also said that there was someone else touring northward about an hour ahead of us, though we didn't see him.

We continued riding through the basin. It felt strange riding through miles of empty grassy hills, with no animals or people in sight.

 We discovered that Gay had miscalculated the distance from Salida to Hartsel. He thought it was going to be 66 miles (105 kilometers), but it was actually only 48 miles (76 kilometers). Whew!

The wind was our constant companion. Sometimes it was a tail wind, sometimes a cross wind, and at other times a headwind.

We stopped for more food at the 48 km point, sheltering from the sun and wind behind a cattle corral. The views of the Rocky Mountains was amazing -- Pete described it as a "moving postcard".

We saw two more racers, who didn't stop to talk. The road turned again, generally descending but with lots of small rolling hills to climb over, and plenty of washboards to keep our insides agitated. It was never easy despite the descent.

My legs weren't feeling that good after the long climb in the morning, and my calves were threatening to cramp up. I rode fine, but had to ride a bit more slowly to rest my legs.

We finally reached the highway at the 75 km point, and rode the last 3 km into Hartsel on the pavement.

There isn't much in Hartsel, just a general store, a saloon, and a real estate office. All three look like something from a movie set: the general store was cluttered with all sorts of junk that looked second-hand, and smelled strongly of dog; the saloon had a stuffed deer on the wall and delightful signs like "no dancing on the bar with spurs on" and "don't talk about yourself...we'll do that after you leave"; and the real-estate office looked like a derelict petrol station! 

I discovered that there's a third store in Hartsel: a petrol station. Except it doesn't have any petrol (the pump's broken), they have an ATM which is out of cash, and they don't have any milk in the fridge. Great place!

 We immediately went to the saloon, where we ate and drank as much as we could. 

 I had a glass of milk, a flagon of iced tea, and a buffalo (!) burger. The buffalo tasted quite different to beef; with a stronger flavour and with much less fat. Our meal was delicious.

The bartender said we could pitch out tents across the road, behind two derelict trucks. It was still very windy, and my tent almost blew away until I could whack in the tent pegs.

We had covered 78 km in total, and climbed 1,300 metres (4,300 feet) in 5 and a half hours of riding.