July 16,
2001. Jeffrey City to Lander, Wyoming. (59 mi.) Mile 2820
Headwinds
and road rash
The Jeffrey City Motel is
deceiving. It looks like a ghost motel, but inside, rooms are clean and
adequate, a welcome retreat from the wind. The proprietors have been running
the motel since the town's uranium mining days. We're finding that we have
actually been sleeping better in our tent than in motels, but it was hard to
get out of bed this morning.
Coat's Motel in
Jeffrey City
When we went to
breakfast at the town
cafe, we discovered 3 other cycle tourists (2 Brits and
a retired Syracuse teacher) doing the same. The five of us were the only
customers. The other cyclists, traveling east, had camped in an abandoned
shelter in town last night. TransAm cyclists make up a large part of Jeffrey
City's summer business because of the town's location miles from other
services on the route.
The Split Rock
Cafe, Jeffrey City
The wind had howled
all night long and was still blowing strong when we headed west again
after breakfast. This was the worst wind all trip, coming from the SW at 20-25
mph with gusts to 30. It reduced our progress to a discouraging crawl. At
times, it was a struggle to keep the wind from knocking us off the road. When
we reached a 5 mile 6% downhill grade, we had to pedal hard just to go 5 mph.
I contemplated whether or not I was the type of person who would feel cheated
because the wind had spoiled what would be an easy, fast descent, or grateful
for the downhill, feeling lucky it was there because without it, we wouldn't
have progressed at all. Temperatures the last few days have started in the 50s
in the morning, and peaked in the 80s later in the day. Scenery: more of the
same, stark, arid sagebrush rangeland.
We stopped and chatted
with 7 other cycle tourists today going east, who were sharing the same
challenges (a French couple; an American couple, a Scot [Geoff], and a retired
couple who started in N. Carolina in Feb., had already crossed the continent
from Florida to San Diego, and were riding home). They all had the side wind
too, but were going uphill instead of down. These people may be strangers, but
we all share a bond. We want to be doing this. Despite the hardship,
everyone we talked to was full of philosophical musings that can only be
generated by grinding away crossing a continent by bicycle. And everyone was
still in good spirits, with an intact sense of humor. I suppose if that wasn't
the case, they would have already abandoned the adventure in a U-Haul truck.
Not everything worth doing is easy. Don't our kids wish they hadn't heard this
from us a million times!
1) 
2) 
1)
Geoff Gardner from Scotland, one of many eastbound bicyclists whom we met,
hammed it up for the camera. Bicycling across Wyoming against the wind
requires a certain crazy spirit.
2)
Fighting headwinds east of Lander
Ten miles out of
Lander, we turned with the wind to our back, and I thought we were home free
as our speed went from 5 mph to 28 mph. Suddenly, a freak side gust knocked my
bicycle out from under me and I went down, landing hard on my left hip and
scraping up my arm and leg. Mike was ahead of me and said it felt like a small
twister, hitting him hard, first from behind, then from the front. I suddenly
lost all interest in pushing beyond Lander to camp, thinking it best that my
road rash receive the TLC of a nurse practitioner (me) in the comfort of a
motel, maybe with some ice cream therapy too.
Mike had his rear
wheel checked out at the very helpful Lander bike shop (still OK), while I
cleaned the gravel out of my road rash and applied ointment, ice, and Band-Aids.
Maybe the calcium in all those milkshakes helped prevent a hip fracture. I 'd
better keep up the habit just in case.
