Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com

  (Gallery & FAQs at bottom of post)

  Home time.

   I’ve spent a couple of months thinking about it.

  And now, I’m back in the UK, with my bike
  (Charles).

  For now at least I feel like I’ve done enough.

  I set out alone from the Arctic Ocean coast of
  Alaska at the end of May 2009, 250 miles
  inside the Arctic Circle, unsure if I could
  make it through the first day, let alone keep
  going for …

  6 months and 5,150 miles or …

  … the equivalent of cycling the length of Africa
  from Cairo, Egypt to Cape Town, South Africa.

  And yes (aside from around 50 miles after a wheel collapse and 3 miles in a pick-up through ‘construction’) I cycled every inch of that!

Before this trip (and I can’t quite believe this myself) the sum total of my cycle touring experience was … 4 days in the South Downs (near London, UK) 18 years ago when I was 16, staying in Youth Hostels.  This has been a ‘bit of a step up’ …!  Its all a little bonkers really.

I was monumentally nervous back in May but, as I remember, having to focus on the practicalities of cycling and camping wild on the Arctic Tundra somehow meant my mind did not have time to worry (much!).

To this day those 2 weeks from Prudhoe Bay along the Dalton Highway to the town of Fairbanks remain some of the hardest, yet most fulfilling of my life so far, for I carried what I’m now sure was almost 400 lb (me plus bike plus kit plus food) for 400 miles along gravel and dirt roads (and then 100 miles on pave) across a mountain range through snow, blizzards, blinding dust, headwinds so strong I had to pedal downhill and temperatures dipping to -20c, with grizzly bears literally just feet away at times not to mention the ‘oversize’ rigs carrying equipment the size of the space shuttle to the oil fields.

I had a couple of very close calls in the dust where I just missed being mown-down by one of the behemoth trucks, was buried in my tent under snow one night, survived on cold food for the first week after my stove broke, once used a welding torch to boil some water for soup, rode one day for 16 hours to make it across the mountains for a meal at a Truck Stop, spent a nervous night at the Arctic Circle after a hunter had told me of recent bear and wolf attacks at the camp and developed something akin to a Gatorade addiction.

I could write so much more but then of course, there’s the rest of the trip.

Heybridge Basin, Essex, UK - Sr. Loco con familia, mi madre y padre

It was difficult to get going again from Fairbanks and to keep heading south – I felt like I’d already done an ‘epic’ just making it solo down the Dalton, but, after a great time off the bike with a friend from the UK I did get going again and on picking up the Alaskan Highway (or Alcan) I made it across the rest of Alaska and into the Yukon, Canada.

With Alaska, northern Canada had the most astonishing wildlife of the trip – in the far north I’d see herds of hundreds of Caribou rushing across the road in front of me and I’d regularly pull round a bend in a road through some woods to come face to face with a huge Moose or Elk.  There were the Buffalo herds along the verges and the worrying but also quite weirdly magical encounters with Black Bears walking out in front of my bike, just feet away.  Full-on wilderness with vast swathes of land for hundreds of miles in every direction seemingly comprised of nothing but trees, mountains and a stupendous menagerie except there were no cages or fences here.

I also remember this section of the trip for the temperatures (approaching 40c many days) as that part of Canada underwent a heatwave and as a result drinking upwards of 10 litres per day.  And of course, I met Ward and Jacky from Iowa who taught me so much about life and the road and with whom I cycled for 2 weeks.

Monterrey, NL, Mexico - Notice the car in the sign ... it has no front wheel! (it hadn't been vandalised it actually looked like it had been made that way!)

Not before seeing the astonishing scenery of the southern Canadian Rockies in Jasper and toward Banff (up there with the best I have seen anywhere, ever) I was welcomed back to the US (Montana) by what seemed like a week of constant rain.  Montanans were a kind bunch and I slept quite a few nights, as I had done in much of northern Canada, camping on village greens or in front gardens, indeed, before reaching Montana I realised I had camped for 50 nights in a row (compared to no more than 10 days before this trip).  I was going feral I think and, starting to get used to it!

Yellowstone was inspiring but the Teton mountains really ‘got me’ – including of course a visit to the hospital for stitches after accidentally digging a still-green snapped branch into my head during a hailstorm at a campsite!  The Rockies of central Wyoming were like I’d imagine to moon to be, except maybe Wyoming has the odd shrub and of course the south of that state brought me my highest point (elevation) of the trip at just under 11,000 ft after a 4,000 ft climb (and mild hypoxia) over 20 miles, much of it dirt roads and tracks across open fields, followed by one of the most amazing 40+ mph descents.

Nr Heybridge Basin, Essex, UK - Maldon on its head

The snow was starting to arrive in the mountains again by mid September (after I’d said goodbye to it in June in northern Alaska) and following a welcome weekend away in LA with some friends and some great R&R in Denver with some more, I began what to Charles, Derek and I would become known as ‘The Chase’.  Climbing back up into the high Rockies from (already ‘mile high’ Denver) staying with some friends from Yellowstone initially, we made it the 500 miles south through Colorado and New Mexico just before enormous storms hit the Rockies, leaving areas that we’d ridden through only weeks before, buried under 3 ft dumps of snow in just one night!  Even the fringes of the storm in central New Mexico meant we were almost flooded out of the tent one night spent at a Freeway intersection.

If I’d thought Wyoming was empty then parts of New Mexico gave it some very stiff competition – desert conditions (despite the recent deluges) meant stretches of 50 to 100 miles with no streams and certainly no shops or even houses so carrying 10 litres of water (normally I’d carry about 4) became commonplace.  Santa Fe (quirky locals), Roswell (aliens) and Carlsbad (caverns) gave much needed distraction.

Carlsbad in southern New Mexico had been the last place that I’d begun the trip wanting to visit – it was late October by that point and the weather was worsening (getting colder) and it had been below freezing every night for weeks by this point, leading me to often wear my down jacket inside my sleeping bag whilst camping.  It was draining to say the least.  I decided to change direction and visit another new state, Texas, in the hope that it would be warmer and that I could ‘sling-shot’ further south into Mexico by staying longer in the US before crossing the border.

Nr Heybridge Basin, Essex, UK - ... still calm

Texas was hotter, much so, wonderfully so, and also incredibly welcoming as I slept again in backyards and was given a bed for the night once too.  It was around this point that I started to feel some locals just couldn’t relate to how far it was from Alaska, answering ‘oh thats quite a distance’ but not really grasping what it really meant until I told them just har far away it was, perhaps because it defied comprehension (or logic / sanity!) in many ways.

And so it was that I ran out of things that I ‘needed to do’ in Del Rio, Texas, USA and with a flight booked from Monterrey, Mexico 300 miles away and my US visa having only a few days left I took a (very) deep breath and crossed the border…  It felt almost instantly as if I had travelled hundreds if not thousands of miles into another world, not just a few hundred yards across a bridge -  a lot of people actually walked everywhere for a start, there were horses, chickens, cattle and children running around, crazed dogs trying to burst my tyres as I rode by and of course the inevitable shouts of ‘hey gringo’.  I was expecting the transition to be more gradual, after all Mexico is increasingly well developed (especially in the north) and was surprised and slightly let down by how much it affected me (having spent time in southern Latin America before).

Monterrey, NL, Mexico - L to R: Richard (Ricardo), Sergio & I

I was unnerved I’ll admit.  The daytime temperature was increasing (toward 40c) as was the humidity at times – I was sweating buckets in the sun, ending my days riding with my t-shirt rippled with white lines of salt.  I spent a couple of days holed-up in a hotel with Montezuma reeking his revenge as it were.  Another night I had a knock on the door at 2am – it felt decidedly dodgy, my door fronting as it did onto the otherwise deserted carpark and the knock being unaccompanied by anyone calling out so I trusted my instincts and stayed-put and will never know if it was totally innocent.  Yet another night I realised that the (different) motel’s door-lock was, as they say, knackered, and that the ‘locked’ door could be pushed open by a meagre breeze (I shoved the bed up against the door for the night).

Later, as I climbed back up again, the mountains were beautiful.  I met lovely, kind people.  And also remembered how gorgeous some Latin women are, ahem.  But, I was expecting to be excited at coming back to Latin America (I spent 4 months in the south of the continent a few years back).  It was early November.  I was slowly realising that even as I’d approached Denver back in late September I had been starting to ‘run out of steam’, although not physically.

I’d begun the trip in late May, unsure of how far I’d go, although as previously mentioned even then I harboured a desire to visit as far south as Carlsbad in New Mexico (along with the the more northerly Jasper, Yellowstone, the Tetons, the Colorado Rockies and Roswell).  As I worked my way south into the lower US I decided that it was important for me to make it into Mexico such that I could feel that I’d crossed Canada and the US, regardless of what came after that.

Heybridge Basin, Essex, UK - And, back to the UK con Charles

And so it was, with heavy heart and after a couple of months of building-up to the decision, I decided to stop in Monterrey, Mexico.  My feelings right now are of both relief but also some disappointment that I didn’t feel like heading further south.  But that as they say would be a whole ‘nother kettle of fish …

6 months, solo, camping for 5 months, cycling all 5,150 miles, along the the 3,000 mile lenghth of the Rockies, through Alaska, Yukon, British Columbia, Alberta, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Coahuila and Nuevo Leon, Mexico.  I’ve found previously untapped resolve, stubbornness and drive.  I’ve seen things that I’ve dreamt about for years and realised that if you really really set your mind to something that you can do it, but also been reminded that, just because ‘you can’ doesn’t mean you ‘have to’.

I feel like I’ve lived about 6 lifetimes and I’m sure it will be many years before I can ‘take it all in’.  But, that sounds ok to me!  Indeed, that which I’ve written about in this and prior posts only scratches the surface of what I encountered.

Thank you, profoundly so, to all of you who have encouraged me from the start.

I would like to think that I’ll use this website again for future trips so please feel free to ‘Subscribe’ using the button on the top right (scroll to the top).

Again, thank you.

Oh, and I simply love my bike – it is utterly utterly phenomenal.  Well done Charles.  And thanks Derek.

See FAQ

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Villa Grove, CO, USA - Alpenglow abounds

Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com

(Gallery at bottom of post)

“Wait here while I get the spear I used to kill him!” he says, running off to his van.

Its almost pitch black, its below zero, I’m at the otherwise deserted far-end of a campsite in a remote Colorado valley and John, half-Irish, half-Sioux has just gone to his ‘RV’ (a converted UPS truck in which he lives year-round) to get said weapon.

“And I put one end on the ground like this and the dagger-end up like this and then, HE RAN!  He ran onto the blade and I twisted and I twisted and held him down until he stopped fighting.  I had no choice.”

John is a Vietnam Vet, ex-Special Forces, a ‘tunnel-rat’, Mossad-trained in hand-to-hand combat.  In the months following the war he, in his own words became dangerously unstable after so much, well, I think you get the picture.  Again in his own words he was saved from the brink through taking a job from his father, as a cowboy spending months on end with a herd of cattle or flock of sheep, living wild up in the Colorado mountains.

The ‘he’ in the story above was a Mountain Lion (although a real one this time, not a dog / bird as per my previous experience!).

It was coming for his sheep.

(the spear was hand-made by him and carried in preference to a rifle)

I didn’t know whether to cry at how brave and protective he was of his flock or cause a distraction and run for the hills myself.

He turned out to be a lovely guy, really sweet and very paternal toward me – later in his ‘van’ we discover a mutual penchant for Clint Eastwood films and he makes me hot chocolate to warm up, we chat and laugh about life.

(he tells me how all those years ago he talked to his horse for months on end, venting all of the pain from his time in Asia – and I heard some horrific things about what went on which I won’t repeat here – and how the horse therefore saved his life, in a sense)

Langtry, TX, USA - 1 sec exposure, max optical zoom & improvised tripod but I still don't know how it came out so well!

Continuing on this slightly (!) sureal tack I’ve since been through the one area in the world which has had more UFO sightings than any other, met those who are convinced they’ve been at some point abducted (I go to Roswell, New Mexico), had thoroughly enjoyable debates with a congressional advisor about the psychology of ‘modern government’, met someone wanting to further Einstein’s ‘Theory of Special Relativity’ who is challenging the status quo over the nature of the speed of light, slept in a spare bedroom covered on every square inch by NASCAR memorabilia, met the owner of one of the biggest ranches in Texas and almost been charged by a wild boar.  Oh, and I crossed the border into Mexico.

(hi also to Joe and Toni and thank you again for dinner and to Stanley, and thanks for a great time at Carlsbad and its amazing – do go there if you ever get the chance – caverns)

For much of this time I was chasing south out of the Rockies having really, really chanced my arm as much as I could with the weather – I felt a bit like this guy except I was on a bike, the wave was the weather and, er, I didn’t have a jet ski (sadly, for that would have been quite fun!).

As Sean, a resident of Vail, CO (whom I met and had the pleasure of cycling with in Texas for a day) said to me about climbing BACK UP to 10,000 feet from 5,000 ft Denver into the Colorado Rockies in MID OCTOBER, “Woah, that was bold man”.  I knew it was a ‘bit risky’.  Ice on the road was my biggest fear as that would have been carnage on the descents.  Even in northern Alaska I wasn’t (generally) so worried since gravel roads allow (relative) tyre adhesion to much lower temperatures.  Pavement / tarmac does not, much below zero, and you’re ‘toast’ without studded rubber, especially carrying the weight I am.

One day it was so cold that the fog was causing ‘ice rime’ on any surface it touched – that was and still is the only day I’ve not ridden due to the weather.

Thank you so much again to Rose, Miki and the dogs for letting me stay (I met the guys in Yellowstone, Wyoming).  The next day I set off and it turned out to be a monumental 8 hours of two 10,000+ ft passes, 60 mph gusting side and head winds across South Park (that of the TV Cartoon, yes) and a night camping at 10,000 ft at -10c, sleeping, spent as I was, for 13 hours!  For 2 weeks it was consistently -5c and lower in my tent at night, the winds were becoming dangerous, not to mention demoralising and exhausting and the heavy snow was coming.  My luck was running out.   If I wanted to carry on riding I had to crank up the pace and get south to lower elevation and quickly.  I put in a few big big days, the hardest being over 100 miles, still in the mountains to make it to New Mexico.

(that day ended at ‘Ojo Caliente’ a very plush indeed ‘Hot Springs and Spa Resort’ where I camped and got a 50% discount to use the – wonderful wonderful wonderful – floodlit hot-pools perched beneath dramatic red cliffs, an unusually decadent evening!)

Nr Mina, NL, Mexico - Palm trees & mountains

A few lovely days to rest in Santa Fe – having the day before for the first and so far only time run out of water, such was the ‘swing’ in weather from extreme cold to heat in this part of the world at this time of year – and I’m off, somewhat tentatively, south again.  Should I go lower and head south-east to the desert through Texas and north-eastern Mexico?  Or should I stay in the mountains, heading due south?  After some research I decide to head for Monterrey, Mexico, taking the desert route, at least initially.

The Rockies however had a little bit more in store for me and even after Santa Fe I was caught in the worst storm of my trip so far with my tent leaking somewhat due to slightly rushed pitching and the phenomenally intense wind and rain as I camped at a freeway intersection next to a truck stop with fellow cyclist Robert (Bob) from Canada.  The higher Rockies which I’d left just a week before had over 3 feet of snow as a result of the same storm.  Eek!

Cycle-touring in the desert was a new experience for me.  Water is the ‘thing’.  Even in remote northern Canada and Alaska with stretches of 200+ miles with no shops or taps / faucets I could at least rely on there being a stream or river every few dozen miles at worst.  In southern New Mexico and once in Texas and again in Mexico I had stretches of up to 100 miles with no guarantee of ‘fluids’ whatsoever – no streams (dried-up), no gas stations, shops or houses even.  That meant carrying up to 10 litres of water versus the normal 3-5 i.e. an extra 5-7 kilos!  Ouch!  On one of those strecthes I decided at lunch to push on to Roswell as I didn’t fancy a night out wild-camping with the rattlesnakes and with fading light (increasingly a factor); I made it, a little bit tired (!) but ok, after another 100+ mile day…

(for the first time I started on this ‘leg’ to have some days where I just felt like stopping, full-stop as it were – leaving Denver after such a lovely time was hard and the conditions and if I’m honest the prospect of crossing into Mexico -  more on this below – almost became like a bit of an extra ‘load’; it was toward the Mexican border that I started to find motels as cheap as many campsites further north so I must admit where I’d camped for months on end previously, I did stay in quite a few super-budget motels to pamper myself somewhat – so much for the Explorer persona!)

Nr Sanderson, TX, USA - this chap gave the distinct impression that he was going to charge until I rode off (he was protecting his family who are in the bushes - they're 'Javelinas')

Texas (south-west) welcomed me with some amazing hospitality – thanks to to the Putnams for letting me camp in the yard and for breakfast, dinner and the drinks and to Byron and Linda for taking me into your home and for the food after you insisted I come indoors as otherwise I’d “freeze my butt off”.  Riding along the US-Mexican border (the Rio Grande river in that area) was a strange experience for I could have (easily?) walked across to Mexico at numerous points since the Rio Grande (until the Pecos river joins from the north) is only a couple of feet wide; as I worked my way toward New Mexico and certainly into Texas, the horror-stories about how (life-threateningly) dangerous the Mexican border areas were, began.  Almost without fail US residents thought I was insane to try, solo, on a bike.  The US-based Mexicans that I met meanwhile generally just said ‘be careful / sensible’.  I’d later learn that something somewhere between the 2 was (at least my interpretation) the ‘reality’.

The border crossing was spookily quiet – I purposely chose a less-used crossing at Del Rio / Cuidad Acuna, but even so, there were just 2 cars and I in the ‘queue’.  The Mexican customs officer asked what was in my bag: “A tent”.  “Ok”.  That was it.  I was in Mexico!  As mentioned in a previous tweet, I was stopped by the police just a mile or so into Mexico … expecting (which I now feel bad about) a “shake down” of my gear, the driver just wanted a chat and to see that I had some semblance of what I was doing and where I was going.  This became a trend and I was stopped by the ‘Federales’ on a number of occasions in the following weeks, all of which were totally amicable encounters.  I thought Texas was friendly but Mexico now takes the prize for so many people wave, shriek “Go go go!” (and I’m certain they’re implying “Good for you” rather than “Leave the country!”) and stop me for a chat, fascinated by what on earth I am doing.  I’ve had meals bought for me, been given gifts (thanks to the guys at Canada Cabanas Resort in Mina, NL for a lovely stay in the otherwise empty high-class Butlins waterpark!), had offers to come to people’s homes, been introduced to friends of friends and gradually, in wading through the quagmire that is my rusty and never actually that brilliant Spanish, come to understand that Mexico is … wonderful

In the 2 weeks between the border and reaching Monterrey (the 3rd largest city in the country at 3.5 million people) I met no non-Mexicans.  None.  Nada. 

And I’ve pretty much had to speak spanish constantly.  Tourism is hugely depressed.  There are Federal Government TV ads telling the Mexican people “We’re busting the drug cartels, we’re arresting hundreds, raiding properties, seizing narcotics and rescuing ‘kidnapees’, we’re going to beat this” and there seems to be an unprecedented level of co-operation between the US and Mexican authorities to make that happen.  I still need to be ‘careful / sensible’ though and am.

Monterrey, NL, Mexico - I reach Monterrey!

In getting to southern Texas the temperatures started to rise and when lower into Mexico the daytime temperature on the road pushed over 40c on a few days (giving me a temperature range, since leaving Denver of 50c!).  Monterrey and the surrounding mountains (for I had to climb back up into the hills) are glorious, the city set as it is in an amphitheatre of soaring 6000 ft peaks.  Getting into a city of this size was a challenge and I found myself riding on sidewalks / pavements, across scrubland, beneath underpasses, down minute cobbled streets and for the first time on this trip using the streetmaps loaded onto my cellphone / GPS in order to avoid the tunnels along the ‘direct’ route shown on my larger scale paper maps.

Adding to Monterrey’s general greatness, last night I went out – with 3 gals living in Texas, 2 guys living in Vancouver and my (fantastic) Hostel’s owner & his brother – to (1) a great Mexican restaurant (2) a huge Woodstock-esque open-air private party with Mexican 60s & 70s rock cover-bands (3) a Salsa dance club and (4) a House night hosted at a club with a ‘luchador’ theme where the dancefloor was in a real wrestling ring, with costumes on the walls and hung from the ceilings and the staff wearing the associated masks! It was a ‘late one’, like 5 am.  How old am I?   Thanks Jose Juan and Antonio for showing us a great time.

(this ‘leg’ of the trip, since Denver has covered almost 1,400 miles in a little over 5 weeks – I’ve not travelled so fast over such a prolonged period on the whole trip to this point, but, I really wanted to get to Mexico to have then covered the whole of the US and to Monterrey for various practical reasons…)

I fly home from Monterrey tomorrow, back to the UK – I’m Best Man at a wedding in the UK in early December with the all important prior Bachelor / Stag Party duties and I want to see family and friends for xmas, having been away for over 6 months.  We shall ‘see what happens’ as regards future plans so watch this space in the new year.  Thanks again to everyone both at home and away who have supported and encouraged me so far – I couldn’t have done it without you  

Happy xmas all.

Have I actually ridden 5,150 miles all the way from the Arctic Ocean coast of Alaska, 200 miles inside the Arctic Circle down almost all of the 3,000 mile long Rockies to a Mexican city just 100 miles north of the Tropics?  I have.  How, never having done anything like this before, I do not quite know!

End of Stage 1.

… Charles – and Derek – have decided to stay in Monterrey over xmas to see the sights …

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Yes, I am 5 years old, taking pictures from the plane to LA (oooh look, you can see the curve of the earth!)

Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com

(Gallery at bottom of post)

“Where’s my gin!” we’d mockingly imagine her adding after she’d ordered us to “Keep left on highway 270″ in her slurred, robotised voice.  I’m driving, near Denver with Jeff, a long time friend from Milwaukee and we’ve just switched on the GPS unit that came with his hire car – we decided we got a bit of a dud since the unit’s ‘voice’ always seemed distorted at first but improved later (after she’d had some gin, we teased).

(on later occasions ‘she’ would go completely silent despite frequent and complex intersections as a result of which we’d joke that she’d ‘gone for a bit of a lie down’ not before telling us “you know where your going, just look at the pictures”)

Not since June had I taken any real break from the cycling – aside from a few days here and there at campsites – so I was very much looking forward to 10 days off the bike in Denver with Ethan, April, Gage, Elise, Jeff and Catey, relaxing, catching-up and exploring the more far-flung bits of Colorado.  Just prior to this I’d found myself slightly ahead of schedule so took the opportunity to visit (for the first time in 10 years) David and family for a few days in Westlake Village near LA, CA, taking advantage of cheap flights from Denver.

Ah, the sea, the sea, the sea.  How I love the sea – I’d not seen it since mid-June (which was over 4 months past at this point).  Thank you so much David for taking me to the beach, not just once but twice in my 3 days in CA so we could jump waves (in between the odd ‘face-plant’ on my part!).  And to go there by open-top Mustang was also pretty cool!  I chill, meet their extended family and am treated royally.  Basking in the warm summer evenings, top down, listening to Deadmau5′s (mesmeric) ‘I Remember’ was sublime.  And to top it all I get to watch a film at ‘Grauman’s Chinese Theatre’ in Hollywood, the one where many of the US film premieres take place (I just know I had Nicole Kidman’s seat).

Nr Boulder, CO, USA - Just about to set out Mountain Biking with Ethan & Jeff (yes, I know, I was meant to be having a rest from the biking!)

“Do you want to go Mountain Biking” Ethan asked.  “Absolutely” I said, oblivious to the fact that this was meant to be a ‘break from the cycling’…well, it was Colorado and we did go to Boulder and I hadn’t ridden anything with suspension for months and months, so how could I refuse?  Jeff, trooper that he is still came even though he’d been up at 4am to do a charity run.  Great route Ethan, allowing for total abandonment on the downhills and some nice technical stuff although I was a bit rusty – I felt like I was hurtling down some Welsh descents that I know, except the hills were a bit (ooh, maybe 4 times!!!!) higher.

You know you’re getting older when a DJ of your ‘yoof’ is now seen as ‘retro’.  LTJ Bukem and MC Conrad, who I’d never had the chance to see previously were playing at the Fox Theatre, Boulder.  Drum ‘n’ Bass mayhem ensues and Jeff, bless, had his eyes opened to something new.  For a moment I was 19 years old again although we did make it home before 2am and coco may have been involved before bedtime.

Nr Boulder, CO, USA - Jeff, ready to get on his lurvly loan bike!

There was a lot of laughter, ‘Wii-jinx’, the discovery of ‘Guitar Hero’ (OMG that can be a fantastic game), lovely meals, chats, not to mention hiking trips up into the fabulous ‘Rocky Mountain National Park’ and around Colorado Springs with Jeff and Catey where we saw some great Elk-shenanigans (well, it was the time of year…).  I was introduced to some lovely ‘friends of friends’ (thanks Catey – hi to Jackie and Josh and thanks again for the cycling gear! – and Ethan and April).  And of course there was the lovely and hysterical moment when 3 year old Gage told mum (April) to ‘not let kitty out’ because he would ‘eat the pumpkin’ that they’d just bought in preparation for Halloween (ooh those cats they love their pumpkins!).  I also slept in a bed and had an en suite bathroom which was wonderful – could I tow a chemical toilet / port-a-potty behind Charles?

(thank you again Ethan and April – also originally from Milwaukee – for wonderful hospitality)

Well rested I then took a deep breath and headed up into the highest mountains in the ‘lower 48′, the Colorado Rockies, where snow was a real possibility as the not-so-subtle embrace of autumn / fall closed-in … more of this later.  Take care all.

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Grand Teton Nat Pk, WY, USA - The 'snapped-off branch in question' aka 'the culprit' deftly decorated with a small wad of my hair from the injury (I sawed the branch off afterwards, sorry US Federal Government)

Courtesy of www.SladeRide.com

(Gallery at bottom of post & 2 videos below)

I value the top of my bonce, my head, my noggin, my tete, my skull, my scalp.

So, why is it that I stabbed a broken, dagger-like tree branch (still attached to pine in question) into the top of it?  Yup.  And I wasn’t even riding my bike at the time!

Picture the scene: having just ridden some amazing descents through construction areas on dirt roads, cranking the top gear, grinning wildly at the road crews as they waved me past, having seen the Teton mountains (gorgeous) for the first time, having met and chatted to some lovely people along the route and then not failed to notice a truly enormous proper mountain storm developing overhead, I’m part elated part anxious to get to the campsite quickly and pitch my tent before the maelstrom unleashes its wrath and fury from overhead.

15 miles, I have to go 15 miles.  I can feel the growing head-wind, smell the rise in humidity (what am I some kind of wild animal now?!) and see the clouds building and the lightning arcing on the horizon, getting…closer.  Time to crank again, I push hard as there’s nowhere nearby to shelter at all.

I make it, just, for the hail starts almost as soon as I’ve pitched my tent and am packing the metal ‘bear-proof box’, but then as I stand and start to walk toward the tent I feel an excruciatingly sharp jab on the top of my head and I fall instinctively to the ground.  Swearing ensues.  Oh yes.  Now being tall (6′ 5″) I’m unfortunately used to hitting my cranium on ill-designed fixtures and fittings at various locales.  Like most would I check for bleeding and, thankfully, 99 times out of 100 (like I say its an occupational hazard for the tall!) there’s nothing, just a bruise.  Not this time.  First a spot on my fingers then my hand is covered then I can’t see out of one eye from the goo dripping down my face…seriously!  Expletives!

Grand Teton Nat Pk, WY, USA - Biblically proportioned storm approaches...now starts the race to get to the campsite (15 miles) & pitch the tent before the impending maelstrom

Aside from getting to water my first thought is: bears.  The shock must have addled my logic slightly since  for a brief moment I think that they’ll all sprint down from the hills (calling up their bear mates on their bear-phones no doubt) as they sniff the intoxicating perfume of the plasma oozing from my skull, ready to maul and devour me, feverishly (more of this fear later).

They don’t (of course) but I do try to concentrate and tilt my head away from my body in an attempt to keep blood off my clothes as I make it to the campsite’s restrooms leaving a globule-trail of red along the sandy ground as the hail squalls around me.  Wow head wounds bleed a lot don’t they?!

I wash under the tap and a kindly chap in the loos helps out, passing me a wad of toilet tissue with which I apply pressure.  After about 10 minutes I seem to have stemmed the bleeding as he then heroically applies some antiseptic and a band aid but not before saying something like ‘Man that looks a bit narly, maybe you should get that looked at’.  In the confusion of it all I’ve forgotten his name but if somehow you’re reading this, thank you

At this I walk to the RV of the lovely Jim and Faith the campground-hosts who kick into action and call up ‘dispatch’ – within a couple of minutes Ranger no. 1 appears, a very nice lady who has some First Aid training (she’d been giving a ‘Ranger Talk’ on the campsite and had heard the call on her radio).  She defers to an ‘EMT’ Ranger who is apparently in the area on his way to a fire caused by the lightning storm – he’s able to stop off and check me out.  His prognosis is that the wound looks on the cusp of needing more attention.  So, another radio call and Ranger no. 3 arrives, Miriam (she is Ranger, Police Officer and Paramedic in one) or ‘Super Ranger’ as I have decided to dub her who very kindly offers to drive me to Jackson hospital, negating the need for an ambulance to be called (remember, topically readers, this is the USA…!).

I’m sure I’m talking jibberish in the truck as she drives the 20 or so miles but in my mind it was a lovely chat.  I try not to stare at the shotguns that sit between us in a rack.

It must have been a quiet night in Jackson for I’m seen straight away (those who know admission / triage may tell me that head wounds have a priority) and given a much needed Gatorade as I feel positively dehydrated after my long ride which ended more than 3 hours ago at this point.

Nr West Yellowstone, MT, USA - Hawks' nest (those look a bit big to be babies don't they? Kids! They're all the same, think you've got rid of them and they're back, treating this nest like a hotel!)

“Ooh thats a nice one” says Dr Thomas.  4 stitches later, my first ever (despite numerous tumbles, crashes and wipe-outs whilst mountain biking especially as a kid, somehow I’ve reached the age of 34 never needing stiches) the inch long gash is closed-up (sorry, bit graphic) although not before the bleeding started again in earnest!

After chatting to Dr T and fellow Doc about my ride (they know the Dalton in Alaska so are somewhat intrigued) and saying goodbye to Nurse Kim (thanks all), Miriam, who has been able to wait for me, drives me back to the campsite.  I think I may have made a bit more sense on the return journey.  Miriam you were fantastic, thank you

I let Jim and Faith know I’m back and ok at which point they insist that I come and eat dinner with them – its now around 9pm and I haven’t eaten since about 5pm (granola bars!) and in spite of the shock of the assault on my bonce I’m famished.  The kindly Texans give me some good home food and we chat about life.  Thank you ever so much both and Rangers 1 and 2, too.

(The next day Jim talks to me about getting a Ranger to come and remove the low-lying branch in question at which point I try to avoid the topic for I had already put my Leatherman to work and sawed-off said ‘dagger’ partly in revenge (!) and partly to stop it happening to anyone else…that said, it being a National Park, damage to trees is in fact a Federal Offence, oops!)

(In all seriousness, bears are a risk in the ‘Greater Yellowstone Area’ with an average of 14 people per year being killed by them.  Having been in ‘bear-country’ almost constantly since late May I was realising at this point in the trip that maybe I was growing tired of the daily precautions and in spite of some education, resignation and acceptance, of the unavoidable ocassional fear.  I awoke one night in my tent whilst in the Tetons hearing what was, incontravertibly, a growl.  I’m pretty sure it was a dream but it showed me what was on my mind if I didn’t know already.  That morning Jim told me that a couple of backcountry campers had only last night been run out of their site by 3 bears, just a few miles up the mountainside – I’d been hiking just a mile away from that area only the day before.  Spooky.  On thinking through my future route and considering the approach of winter, when bears commonly come to lower ground to ‘stock-up’ I found myself ‘reasoning’, sensibly around the concerns but I won’t deny they’re still ‘there’, less apparent but there nonetheless.)

Before I left Helena in Montana I’d crossed the Continental Divide 4 times in 3 months and reached a maximum of 6200 ft.  In the last month I’ve taken that total up to 10!  8262 ft, 8391 ft, 7988 ft, 9658 ft, 6720 ft & 7174 ft,!  All of these were in Wyoming where I was regularly above 6000 ft, often 7000 ft whilst camping.  A lot of it has been on ‘High Mountain Plains’ – I haven’t really felt like I was Clint Eastwood.  Oh no, not me

(Admittedly the highest of the above crossings included 500 ft of ascent in a ‘Pilot Car’ through major construction work, despite my protests with the driver that I wanted to ride it!  I met another cyclist later who told me he’d heard about the ‘Brit who wants to cycle everthing’ from the driver…oh dear!  Actually it was quite cool sitting in the back of the truck with Charles looking at the view…I still want to ride everything though!)

I also chose to go via the Snowy Mountain Pass (10,847 ft) in southern Wyoming – whilst some of the aforementioned passes were tough (the highest having 3000 ft of height-gain) this one was in a different league.  It had over 4000 ft of ascent,  a rocky track across a field at the start where I found myself out of the saddle in order to balance the bike and stop it from falling sideways, squalling thunderstorms at the top, a definate case of mild hypoxia (unexpected since I’ve previously been almost twice as high but it taught me some lessons about cycle-touring at altitude) and absolutely stunning, huge granite cliffs towering above windswept lakes.

And the descent, oh my oh my oh my!  10 miles, uninterupted, flat-out with a tail-wind only braking twice, once for the second of two tight hairpins / switchbacks and then for a cattlegrid.  Thank you disc-brakes!  I did it in 15 minutes!  Thats averaging 40 mph!  On a bicycle!  Without a doubt, this was one of the best day’s riding I’ve done in a long long long time and if I ever doubted why I’m doing this, its for days like those ones!

(and to think that one reason for doing it was that I wanted to do a 10,000 ft Pass – proud fool!)

Snowy Mt Pass, WY, USA - 10,847 ft & just incredibly hard with hypoxia & frequent 'pauses' near the top but wow was it worth it to see, this

I’ve had brutal headwinds in southern Montana but amazing tail-winds in Wyoming pushing me to 25 mph on the flat, seen the bonkers ‘Great Divide Basin’ (like ‘the moon but with shrubs’ I’d say) where the spine of the Rockies splits in two (go figure), almost ridden over 2 Rattlesnakes (I know!), seen Autumn / Fall approach as the leaves turn, been reminded that Winter is just a snowstorm away (I had a few inches of snow on my tent last week and rode through a near white-out whilst climbing to 8000 ft to reach the Colorado border), visited the only prison (now a museum) to house both Butch Cassidy AND Billy the Kid, met more lovely and fascinating people including an increasing number of cyclists doing the ‘Trans-Am’ route across the USA (hi to Trevor and Nick from Ohio) such as the couple with 4 kids on 2 Tandems and one Single where one of the Tandems had…a kiddie trailer, more Store owners giving me free-camping and great Campsite hosts (hi Dave and Chris from Lander) AND been joined by Derek the Jackalope my new ‘Navigator’ (he and Charles are now in cahoots on all sorts I’m sure).

(thanks again to Chuck & Pauline for dinner in Centennial, WY)

In Yellowstone I treated myself and took a vehicle tour to cover the hundreds of miles of parkways and then spent a few days riding through the park seeing some of the thermal wonders (which were great) but I think I’d like to come back in winter to see those Bison covered in snow, breathing steam into the air (thank you David Attenborough for presenting me with this image!).

Somehow I’ve also had a large number of rest days too.  Hmmm.  On one of those I think I gatecrashed (unintentionally!) an amazing Rock Climbing Film Festival at the University of Wyoming in Laramie ( highlights of which for me were Alex Honnold ‘Free Soloing’ Half Dome in Yosemite plus some Patagonian Base Jumping – see Reel Rock ).

I’ve reached the outskirts of Denver.  Its rained for the last 3 days and there is heavy snow above 9000 feet.  I’m taking a couple of weeks off the bike to meet friends and chill-out…more about this soon

Take care all and thanks for your ongoing support.

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