Into the Grand Tetons

After a relaxing July 4th celebrations in Lander Wyoming, celebrating the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 from the Kingdom of Great Britain….. WHAT…… I’ve been duped, that American cycling buddy of mine said it was to celebrate the opening of the 1,000,000 th McDonalds!

Luckily I’ve been reclaiming each State on route for Queen and country, so we now have a fair chunk off our soil back in British hands. God Save The Queen!

Another surprise in Lander was to find our old cycling companion Keith, stood on the corner in the towns main street waving frantically at us. He explained that he was waiting for his girlfriend to come and get him, he had given up, the Trans Am had beaten him. He looked like a broken man and although he had hinted way back in Kansas that he may not make it, it was still a surprise to see this forlorn figure at the cross roads. It was a shame, he had suffered many of the hardships that the route hands out and was close to reaching the joys that the west offers. Keith says more about his reasons in his journal here.

Leaving Lander my excitement was starting to mount as I new we were getting close to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks, two of the many highlights of this ride, although nature did her best to slow me down as I pedalled along the Wind River in the Indian Reservation. This aptly named river was a funnel for ferocious head winds that brought us to a crawl, eventually getting into Dubois exhausted.

I was now cycling alone as Tony’s schedule for getting home meant that I’d be riding through areas quicker than I’d planned, he had been a great cycling companion for a large chunk of the Trans Am and it was sad to see him go. I cycled on alone, but the ACA (Adventure Cycling Association) group were running at a similar speed to me and the friends I had made amongst them would prove to be great company over the coming weeks, along with other cycling cohorts that came and went on route.

In Dubois we managed to covertly fit five of us on one camping pitch, with the owners thinking there were three, as it was a KOA (Kampgrounds of America) site this proved to be a good plan. KOA’s are notoriously expensive, usually charging cyclists the same as an RV (recreational vehicle (lethal bus sized holiday home badly driven by old folk)). So Me, Nick (American lived in Cambridge looks like Michael Hutchence!), his cycling\skateboarding young mate, Sky Horne the Trans Am unicyclist and Kelly Phipps, Astrologer, Mystical Poet, Cosmic Philosopher, Spiritual Filmmaker, Fantasy Novelist, Game Designer, Teacher, and Travelling Magi…. all squeezed into one spot.

After an amazing meal of BBQ braised beef and a few beers with some of the pitch sharers and assorted ACA drinkers, I was early to bed for the next days climb up the 9658 ft/2944 m Togwotee pass and down towards the National Parks.

I was one of the first away in the morning, early to bed, early to rise! But after many punctures from an unknown source I had resorted to tyre liners, they were working, but the weight of them made the bike feel like it was running through treacle. Half way up the pass the ACA boys had caught me up and we pulled into a Gas Station for coffee; where I proceeded to have a hissy fit, throw my teddy in the corner, rip my tyres off and remove the liners. I got an Instant speed gain but would the curse of the punctures return?

It was a hard morning climbing over Togowotee pass, but the reward as we descended the other side was worth all the effort.

Going around one of the densely forested sweeping curves the trees opened out to reveal a sight that no photo will do justice and made me stop and stare in awe and wipe a few tears from my cheek. The majestic Grand Teton mountain range stretched across the horizon, it’s snow capped jagged peaks reaching up high forming a seemingly impenetrable wall into the Yellowstone park, this was mother nature at her best.

I queued with the cars and RV’s and paid my $12 for my seven day pass and pedalled on through into the Parks.

There was an instant moment of trepidation as I set off, as I had a flash back to childhood trips to Windsor Safari Park and the warning signs about not opening car windows or feeding the animals as you drove through the wildlife enclosures. Yellowstone was going to be one big wildlife enclosure!

The visions of Windsor's Orangutans ripping off windscreen wipers soon translated in my minds eye to grizzly bears ripping my arms off! I calmed myself with made up statistics of cyclists who ride through the park each summer and survive!

Within a few miles a sign indicated a look out point and I turned off the road to soak up the amazing vista and came across a group of people pointing and looking through binoculars. A Park Ranger walked over to me “Don’t you be going back down the way you came Sir, we’ve just seen a Grizzly chasing Elk through the pasture down there”!

A women was busy showing the other ranger her video footage of the grizzly whilst I looked out at the spooked Elk reforming their herd. Maybe my Windsor Safari Park analogy wasn’t so hypothetical after all and especially after some rough calculations put the grizzly crossing the road I was on a few minutes before I passed through!

I headed on, slightly spooked to my camp site for the night, meeting up with the ACA group and managing to get a free pitch on they edge of their groups Forestry Service Biker \ Hiker site. To spook me even more Bear warning signs were everywhere announcing “Be Bear Aware!” and there were even steel Bear boxes to store your food in.

The ACA group were cycling down to a nearby restaurant for dinner and having already had some luxurious instant noodles I offered to look after their tents for the evening. This moment of overwhelming generosity left me deep in the woods, on my own, with fading light. I pondered my predicament and decided fire was a good option and quickly gathered arm falls of dead wood and bought them over to the fire pit, flinching at any twig breaking out in the dark dense pine forest.

Realising my only way to light the fire was with my fire steel, as I had no matches, I quickly metamorphosed into a Bear Grylls \ Ray Mears character rolling up leaves, dry moss and loo roll to form a kindling and frantically showering it with sparks from my fire steel. It looks so bloody easy on the TV, but I couldn’t get the thing to light and it was almost dark.

Something moved behind me, I stupidly hadn’t even kept my pepper spray on me, as I turned fearing the worst I was met by Jack, the ACA leader, brandishing a cigarette lighter, “You probably start it quicker with this Stuart!”. I reluctantly admitted defeat and after a few minutes we were sitting round a roaring fire with the rest of the ACA group drinking beers. I’m sure they must use lighters on those survival programs…….

I awoke alive, having survived a night in Bear country, my fear of Bears did subside somewhat and I sadly never even saw one during the Trans Am!

Although I had only just entered the Grand Teton National Park, I decided to take the spur route down to Jackson WY, following the most amazing cycle paths close to the foot of the mountain range. Jackson is a tourist hot spot and home to many celebrities including Harrison Ford. This is reflected in the prices of everything being rather extortionate, including my Motel at $130 a night, I’d get three nights for that in some of the less salubrious locations I’ve travelled through!

I decided to have a day off and treat myself to a rafting trip down the Snake River, not the suicidal white water variety, but the more sedate wildlife spotting type!

As we boarded the rafts I was put with an American family Terry, Martha and their two young daughters and son; they were regular holidayers in Jackson and had family in the area. We got chatting and I explained about my travels by bicycle, Terry was gobsmacked by my journey and immediately insisted he buy me lunch.

After 3 hours floating down the beautiful Snake river, past Harrison Fords ranch and spotting Bald Eagles and Pelicans, I joined Terry, his family and relations for a fabulous lunch. It was another one of those moments of great generosity and friendliness that have epitomised the American people on this journey.

Annoyingly my puncture fairy had returned and the next course of action was to have the local bike shop in Jackson fill the tubes with a green gunk. I’m sure the cycle mechanic didn’t realise the potential implications of the failure of his green gunk idea and as I headed back into the Grand Tetons National Park the thought of getting a puncture by the side of the road and being trampled by a heard of buffalo as I struggled to fix it, or taken as elevenses by a grizzly, seemed a realistic but somewhat paranoid fear…

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A Tale of Two Cities!

Within the space of a week I was to see the good and the bad of what America could offer by the way of two very diverse towns! Guffey in Colorado and Jeffrey City in Wyoming.

Let me start with the good, Guffey.

Guffey is one mile off the Trans Am route at 8600 feet, but worth the short steep diversion into the top of the caldera where this small community is based.

Your greeted by a big new bar on the left as you arrive, “The Bull Moose” and an older locals bar The Freshwater Salon, just a block away, both offering good beers, food and full of Stetson wearing friendly locals.

There is also Rita’s Place Cafe, a post office and library; but the place to head for is the Guffey Garage and track down Bill Soux, a real character and a great bloke.

After shaking your hand bill will promptly plant a cold beer in it and precede to tell you all about Guffey. Bill has been instrumental in restoring Guffey’s heritage, mainly it’s rustic cabins which date from the 1880’s and if your planning to stay a night in Guffey Bill will rent you a rustic cabin at a cheap price.

Our cabin was the towns original assay office called the Chow Hall, a basic bunk house with gas lights, an outdoor toilet and a shower down the road at another cabin. Some of the cabins come with a TV/VCR and old black and white western videos. Not the Ritz by any means, but for $12 this piece of gold rush history was ours for the night, although we did also share it with Dan who rolled in later after sharing a large herbal cigarette with Bill!!

Bill can usually be found at his garage, which in itself is a museum of oddities with Bill either building hot rods or signs and tourist gifts out of horse shoes, the bright arc light from his welder lighting up the inside of the dimsy shed.

Guffey is also semi-famous for electing animals Mayor of Guffey, although such an office does not officially exist. According to local folklore, the two main political parties in Guffey are called the "Democats" and the "Repuplicans". The last known Mayor of Guffey is a cat named Monster (elected in 1998). I caught sight of Monster creeping around outside Bill’s garage, he didn’t seem to be wearing any mayororial cloak or chains of office, probably a hindrance when hunting for gofers!

The town is perhaps less famous for the annual Fourth of July Chicken Fly which they were hurriedly preparing for as I passed through. During this holiday event chickens are ejected from a mailbox atop a ten-foot-high platform using loo plungers. Prizes are awarded for distance; Bill’s lady friend assured us that no chickens are hurt during the event and this years other activities will include the “Chicken Drop,” and the “Chicken Rollin’ Alley.”

She showed us round the Town Hall which acts as a museum and as with the rest of the town contains an eclectic mix of the weird and the wonderful including a skeleton riding a rocket! Their is also a Bikecentennial certificate on the wall awarded to Bill for providing accommodation for the many cyclists that made the initial cycle across America back in 1976.

I ensure that any East bound cyclist I meet always gets the “don’t forget to go the Guffey” pitch. I’m not on commission but a place as friendly, eccentric and picturesque as Guffey is a “must” see on the Trans Am.

But in complete contrast Jeffrey City……!

Wikipedia states that.. “Jeffrey City is a former uranium mining boomtown located in Fremont County, in the central part of the U.S. state of Wyoming. The town is famous in Wyoming and the American West as a symbol of a boomtown that went “bust” very quickly, as the mine was shut down in 1982 and over 95% of the inhabitants left the town within 3 years. The population was 106 at the 2000 census, far lower than its onetime population of several thousand people.”

I’d probably guess that the population is nearer 50 now! My Jeffrey City experience was something I’ll never forget…..

To get from Rawlins to Lander Wyoming or vice versa requires a monumental ride of 145 miles that very few could make. This then leaves you to the prey of the limited accommodation that exists on this section of the route with most people resorting to Jeffrey City as a rough half way point.

20 miles out of Jeffrey City we were hit with a bad omen, the sky was darkening rapidly, the wind speed started to pick up and what had been a picturesque sunny ride through a beautiful landscape started to deteriorate rapidly.

Ahead in the distance lightning bolts were striking the ground; I watched as the ACA (Adventure Cycling Association) riders who we had caught up with were leaning their bikes into the storm force winds to avoid being blown off. Then the sleet started, but sleet coming in sideways at high speed feels like someone firing grains of rice at you from a gun, luxury compared to the pain of the marble sized hail stones that came next. Soaked through, travelling at 3mph our bedraggled group battled on knowing that our savoir, Jeffery City, was only 5 miles away!

Up ahead Rob from the ACA group went down hard when the wind blew him off of the hard shoulder, the gravel rash was nasty. Eventually still fighting the storm we spotted the Motel sign, relief at last.

Mmmm but this Motel looked closed and derelict, we cycled on down through this one street town until we arrived at the Split Rock Cafe, the only cafe or business in this whole sorry place.

Before we could even enter the cafe a ferocious dumpy Rottweiler of a woman came out and glared at us, “Don’t park you bisickles against the winda”, welcome to Jeffrey city I thought! She obviously wasn’t a member of the tourist board.

After “Parking Pretty” the six of us filed into the Cafe \ Bar and sat battered and bruised around a table where a more congenial , yet semi-deranged waitress presented us with menu’s.

We later found out from other riders that the menu is a ruse, you can basically have what they’ve got, which can consist of one or two menu items if your lucky, depending on when the delivery truck has been! We must have arrived on delivery day, as the menu had it’s full gamut of deep fried potato products to chose from.

Whilst recouping our days lost calories on the Split Rock Cafe’s fine fare we asked the waitress where the Motel was. “You sickled rat buy it, son thedge tarn”….. The shovelling of fried food and all mastication ceased as if time had stopped…. A look of utter disbelief started to appear on our faces…… “That was the Motel!!?”

We found out that most of the other ACA riders had done the same as us and cycled passed thinking the Top Hat Motel was closed. But we all new that apart from the floor of the former Masonic Lodge or mosquito infested wild camping, the Top Hat was our only option.

With 14 ACA riders pre booked, we weren’t sure if the Top Hat had any spare rooms and on tracking down the owner JT, I immediately went into my best plumy English accent to try and convince JT that we were worthy of a room. “So use Australian” he enquired…”One of these here Adventure Sickling group?”,  “ah not quite”, we just happened to have rolled into town with them!”

After much debate about his Scottish heritage and how he liked the Brits, he agreed on the ACA’s discounted rate and then fleeced us for $60, with that look of someone who knows he owns the only digs in town!

He continued to talk at us and in whispered tones and told us about his secret missions he used to do for Uncle Sam and how during one of these missions a Fatwa was put on his head after he threatened a bunch of 'A' rabs that he would “Wipe his back side with the Koran”!!

He explained he was using Jeffrey City as a hide out; I guessed no 'A' rab in their right mind would dare venture to Jeffrey City. But after the dire service and rip off price I'd like to point out that JT can be found most days in a large work shop to the east of the Motel complex, the location of which is highlighted by the red dot! Go get him...

JT "was" obviously a delusioned nutter of the highest order and was more than likely a Uranium miner than a special agent for Uncle Sam!

We were some of the lucky few that had a key to our room, the ACA girls, Bryn and Amber, had their room ceremoniously opened with a crow bar; not only that but they decided to pitch their tents on the beds to avoid the creepy crawlies that lived in the rooms.

Our room had an en suite flood and bedding that was attached to the headboard with cobwebs, we did on a positive note have two TV’s, neither of which worked as they were analogue and couldn’t pick up a digital signal!

We survived the night but had to face the Split Rock Cafe one more time, to eat breakfast before the long ride to Lander.

Now you would think that a large group of cyclists descending on your town and probably doubling the takings for your cafe that week, would put a smile on your face and step up your customer service to a new level. But no, we found out the Rottweiler with the social graces of a slug was still intent on yelling at people and my three attempts at a “Good Morning” were dismissed with not even an acknowledgment.

Her finally was to try and bill anyone with an electronic gadget on the table an extra $5 for use of her WiFi. There was a mass exodus from the cafe and I can guarantee that no one tipped the staff or paid for WiFi.

This town had been a total exception to the normal friendly way Trans Am cyclists get received in Americas small towns and all those that survive this section on the route will have earned their right of passage.

As we pedalled off the mosquitoes swarmed and attacked in force, tumble weeds skitted across the road and I wondered how long it would be before this God forsaken place turned into another deserted ghost town.

Maybe it’s the Uranium in the water that makes the locals such a “happy” crowd!!!

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Into The Rockies

We headed out of Pueblo early to avoid the rush hour and the heat, the route taking us quickly up into the foot hills of the Rockies and into Custer County, where the sticker on the County sign stated “Save a Kid, Shoot a Drug Dealer”.

The scenery started looking more like a set for a western movie with rock stacks rising out of the plains, sage brush covering the ground and a landscape that seemed to support only cattle and antelope. 


It had been so long since we had last seen hills that they had a novel attraction, although I didn’t expect that to last long.

A message had come back down the trail from Keith who was a day ahead cycling with his brother. He advised us to cycle the Arkansas River Walk (are ken saw, not are Kansas!) to take us to Canon City and avoid the busy main road. This we did and it was a gem of a cycle path with very few people on it and the tumbling Arkansas river beside us.

The area we were cycling through seemed to be a popular spot for Correctional Facilities (prisons!). A vast one covered acres across the plains outside Florence and allegedly holds some of Americas worst criminals, I gave them all a wave as I cycled by knowing that the freedom I was feeling on the open road was in complete contrast to the razor wired entrapment of that high security hell hole!

Even Canon City 9 miles up the road had a large prison, bizarrely right on the edge of town. The inmates must be able to smell pizza cooking and hear the chink of glasses from restaurants across the street, I think I’d rather be out on the plains!

Leaving Canon City we climbed for 10 miles on the fast highway 50 and with the shoulder strewn with glass and wire from blown radials it wasn’t long before I started to loose air from my front tyre. I nursed it up the hill pumping it up every mile, this wasn’t made easy by the storm that came in and soaked us through to the skin. We also had forest fire warnings flashing at us from the overhead gantries; certainly not the most memorable 10 miles! 

Arriving at the “Mountain Vista RV Park & Cafe” at the top of the hill was a welcome relief and the Hispanic honey of a waitress was a little darling and topped up our coffees endlessly until we thawed out. The RV Park also had Cabins at a reasonable price, so that was that, WiFi, good grub, eye candy and cabins, we were sold!

We also noticed in the cabin opposite ours there was a cyclist who we had seen all the way back in Virginia. Dan was towing a Bobcat trailer behind his mountain bike and was riding a hybrid Trans Am route, part ACA, part his own! We were to spend some time with Dan over the coming days

The name of the RV Park was quite apt, the views from our glorified garden sheds was of the snow capped high peaks and with the cold thin air we really felt we had made it into the Rockies.









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Strange Facebook Coincidence

Now I know this Blog is out of sync and I've still got some catching up to do, I'll get there I promise! But something happened today that was well worthy of a Blog post.


It was a massive day today, Twin Bridges to Jackson Montana. Head winds all the way and Badger and Big Hole Passes to cross 6760 ft and 7360 ft. Having crested Badger Pass I flew down the other side, looking at my maps I saw there was an intersection between the Trans Am and the Great Divide routes.


Now the Trans Am is what I'm on, East to West across America on road and the Great Divide is North to South, Canada to Mexico off road. Occasionally the Great Divide will jump on road for a short section before heading back onto the dirt roads.


Now, before I left there was a group of long distance cyclists who were chatting on Facebook; Sue was one of them and she was planning to ride the Great Divide. I have planted a power bar for her at an intersection between the two routes and given her directions via Facebook to collect it later on.


Passing the intersection today I decided to leave her a rehydration sachet and Facebook her it's location.
Having jammed the sachet behind a sign I carried on down the pass. A group of four cyclists were heading towards me, the lead rider shouts out "Great Divide", I return with a "Trans Am" and continue waving to the three ladies following him..........


Your probably already a step ahead of me on this... but I noticed one of the ladies was riding a Thorn Sterling bike, mmm it's usually mostly Brits who ride Thorn's (and you Chandra!)


I swung my bike round and chased the pack up the hill, the guy spotted me and turned back thinking he may have dropped something.... "Is the lady on the Thorn called Sue" I shout... "Yes".


I pull up next to her and it is indeed Sue from Facebook! We end up chatting fort half an hour, totally bemused by our chance meeting.


So bizarrely in the middle of a road miles from anywhere in Montana USA I bump into someone I only know through Facebook and who five minutes before I had just planted a rehydration sachet for in a road sign!!


I think there is probably more chance of winning the lottery than that happening again!!


Enjoy your ride Sue, great to meet you.