From Kremmling, CO to Walden, CO - 63.6 miles
Story [in numbers]:
Time on bike: 5:20:09
Average speed: 11.9 mph
Max speed: 41.5 mph
Story [in words]:
when we woke up this morning, my tooth and gum were still not feeling all that well...so, we decided that i should try to see a dentist because we knew that there was a dentist in town and we didn't know when we might come into another town where there was one. so, cailyn called them as soon as they opened and they said they could work me in at 11:30.
we showed up at about 11:05 and they took me straight back in put me in a chair to see what was going on. to make a long story short, about 14 years ago i had a root canal done, and apparently they didn't get all of the root, and now i have managed to get a fairly large abscess above that tooth. so, when i get home, i will have to have the root canal redone...not fun! but for the time being, they gave me a prescription for an antibiotic to get the infection cleared up for the rest of the trip.
so, we cycled down to the pharmacy to get the prescription filled. the pharmacist was a really nice guy, who i shared some really good conversation with. he even gave me the prescription for much less than it was supposed to be...ahh, the beauties of a small town.
by the time that we got things all taken care of, it was about 12:30. we were just about ready to jump on the bikes when, although it was completely clear and sunny, a huge rumble of thunder rang out...loud enough to set off a car alarm in the parking lot. so, we then took another 10-15 minutes trying to decide if we needed to wait out some weather or not. in the end, we decided to just get on the bikes and see what happened.
we got maybe 5 miles down the road before it did indeed start raining on us. it is just crazy what the weather does up here in the mountains...it can be totally sunny in one place and crazy raining just a mile or two away. just insane!! fortunately, the rain didn't last very long...but not too long after the rain ended, cailyn had a nasty noise coming from her front tire. after closer inspection, it was apparent that not only the tube, but the tire was completely shot. thankfully, we have spare tires with us, and man, am i glad we brought those with us! some of the cyclists we have encountered seem surprised that we are carrying tires with us, but it sure does decrease the stress. so, without too much trouble or time spent, we patched the tube and put a new tire on cailyn's bike and then got back on the road.
a little before the middle of our ride today, we had to make about a 1500 foot climb...and as luck would have it, as we were just about ready to start the climb to the summit, it started to rain and sleet on us as we headed up. needless to say, it was cold and wet!
we made it to the summit of the climb and by that time, the rain had subsided. from the point of the summit, we had 35 miles to get to walden...and it was down hill. as we began the descent, we surveyed the horizons, and it was quite obvious that there were numerous storms continuing to hover around us. and for the most part, it seemed that the crazy stuff was behind us, and there was blue sky in the direction we were headed. this all added up to incredible motivation...especially for cailyn. for those of you who know cailyn well, you know that when she finds the right motivation, she can be quite impressive to say the least. and what was going on in the clouds was definitely the right motivation...because she seemed to absolutely fly through our last 35 miles...i found myself constantly 20-50 yards behind her. i simply could not keep up with her...man was i proud of her!! i wish that we would have had an average speed for just our last 35 miles...it had to have been 13-15 mph.
now we are sitting at a restaurant here in walden...which i guess is known as the moose viewing capital of colorado. it sure would be so cool to be able to see a moose while we are in the area! it has been a fun time here at the restaurant as well as we have been 2 other west bound cyclists, as well as 5 east bounders! sounds like there is a good chance that we will get to swim in a hot spring at the place that we are staying tomorrow night!
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