Grand Junction CO – Cheyenne WY
Sat Jul 2, 2022
(~545 miles)

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it. – Abraham Lincoln

That four hours of sleep felt AMAZING – just like that, I was a new man. I was up around 12:30, had my coffee and a protein shake, packed up, and secured an ending rest receipt at the station next door just past the six hour mark.

It was a quiet ride through the night on I-70 east for the next couple hours, with very few vehicles on the road at this hour. I was in the mountains now, and rode through beautiful Glenwood Canyon without being able to see a lick of it in the dark this time.

Vail, the famous ski resort town, was well-lit, but dead as a doornail at 03:00. I’d never been here before, so it was kind of cool to have it all to myself the first time through. I navigated narrow lanes through the condos to the edge of a pedestrian-only shopping district near the The Lodge at Vail hotel. I left the bike running where the driveway ends and found bonus BSC04, a statue of a relaxed Albert Einstein, right where he was supposed to be, on an outdoor bench, chillin’ like a villain.

Returning through the hedges, trees and condos to the interstate, I turned back west for 20 miles. The last hundred miles or so at elevation had really chilled me down, so after taking the exit for CO 131, I pulled over to layer up with my heated jacket liner on low. I followed the curvy state highway higher and higher into the mountains, with LEDs on full blast into the rural mountain night. I was riding slowly as it was dark and misty, but this would probably be quite a fun road during daylight – good pavement and plenty of twists (and scenery I’m guessing!).

This was my first venture into the northern Colorado Rockies, so I’m not familiar with the various resort towns. Steamboat Springs is a pretty sizeable one, and I soon found myself there, emerging from the rural darkness into a well-lit empty downtown. I cruised down the quiet main street (my old friend US 40) around 05:00, as the mist was starting to lighten a bit in the coming dawn. The statue of Carl Howelsen, a Nordic skiing pioneer from the early 1900s, served as bonus BSP01 and is situated on a corner sidewalk under the overhang of a commercial building.

Reversing direction out of town, I stayed on US 40 as the surrounding forest slowly emerged around me with the coming daylight. A young bull moose suddenly came out of the trees ahead of me and started jogging up the road in the same direction I was heading. He kept stopping to turn and look, would apparently see me, then keep trotting again to get away. I had to laugh at his antics and had dropped down to a very slow pace so as not to spook him. Eventually, he wandered off to the side of the road and I was able to scoot by, reveling in the private encounter.

The morning was absolutely gorgeous as some of the close-by peaks and rock formations were finally revealed, with a sugary coating of mist swirling around.

Passing through the mountain village of Kremmling, I spotted a cool old-timey mercantile store and decided to pull in for fuel and maybe some hot coffee. I filled my tanks, but then decided against going inside. The store still looked mostly closed and I was already a bit warmer from moving around to fuel up, so I decided to push on.

After a bit more riding through gorgeous mountain landscapes, I started feeling antsy and quite chilled to the bone. I knew I could really do with a short break off the bike, so when I saw another general store in Granby at my turnoff for US 34, this time I pulled in and went inside for that hot coffee. I sipped it while walking around outside to stretch the legs, also gazing around at the beauty of the Rockies scenery and mowing down a half-chilled Clif Bar from my tank bag. The place was starting to buzz with locals and outdoorsy vacationers stopping in for fuel and coffee like me, all getting ready for their Saturday plans in the mountains. I made use of the convenient porta-potty and got rolling again.

I passed through the small community of Grand Lake shortly thereafter and wasn’t really paying much attention to the road signs. So I was surprised to see that I was about to enter an actual National Park. Crap! My annual parks pass had expired last month, and I hadn’t taken time to renew it before this trip. I also knew that since the pandemic, many parks were requiring advance reservations for any entry at all. I pulled to the side and played with the GPS to see if I’d taken a wrong turn somewhere. Nope, this seemed to be the only way through to the next bonus in Estes Park, without a detour of hundreds of miles. I crossed my fingers and proceeded.

At the little entrance booth for Rocky Mountain National Park, there were no rangers to be seen. There was one car ahead of me, and they went through without so much as a rolling stop. I spotted a sign stating that there was a reservation required for entry between certain hours. I think it said 7am, and it was about 06:45….so perhaps I’d made it just in time!? With nobody in sight or indicating I had to stop, I guess I’ll just…um…go? I started rolling again, looking around to make sure the feds weren’t coming for me… and then just opened up the throttle and motored on into the park.

Wow, I lucked out with some great timing! Now that I knew I was in a National Park and could see ginormous mountain peaks ahead of me, I got quite excited in anticipation of the riding ahead. It was quite unexpected, but by George (or Abe – this is Leg B after all), I was going to enjoy the hell out of it while I was here!

The speed limit was very low, despite being on a wide open straightaway, so I tried to keep a reasonable pace as I paralleled the Colorado River to my left further north into the park. Just as I turned the sharp hairpin to start the real ascent, I caught up to a slow moving car. The curves were mostly blind, so it was hard to break free, but I finally managed to get around the guy and enjoy the riding up up and up! The occasional views during the ascent made me want to stop, but I couldn’t risk getting behind that slowpoke again, so I focused on enjoying the twists and getting further ahead so that I might be able to take in some scenery stops.

What followed over the next hour and twenty minutes was a ride though some of the most spectacular scenery I’ve seen in my life. Though I did pull over quickly in a couple spots to document this passage for memories, I almost hesitate to include any photos here because they simply cannot do it justice. The vast scale and sense of majesty of the alpine meadows and high Rocky Mountain peaks in this region is awe-inspiring. The fact that I hadn’t expected any of this when I planed the route or woke up this morning, made it all the more delicious. I felt like I was getting away with something, bearing witness to such beauty while on the rally clock, for free, and without a reservation! All the stress and disappointment of my failed leg plan were forgotten (well, almost), as I soaked in the moment-by-moment experience on Trail Ridge Road.

Coming down from the 12,000 ft stratosphere, I rode up behind another rally rider as I entered the town of Estes Park, situated at 7500′ elevation in the middle of the National Park. I followed him as we skirted the middle of town on side roads and pulled into the lot for a small municipal park, joining yet another rider already collecting his bonus photo.  It was 08:00, just 3.5 hours until penalties. Seems like the herd was starting to round towards the barn, so I wasn’t surprised to come across more riders at this point.

BIN02 is a statue of Enos A Mills, an author and naturalist who was the driving force behind the creation of Rocky Mountain National Park. He was dubbed the “founding father” of the park, in the Denver Post.

Snagging my photo from behind the other rider, I quickly shed and packed a layer of clothing and got right back on the road. US 34 snakes east down the wide canyon carved by the Big Thompson River through Roosevelt National Forest. Lots of fast curves and beautiful canyon scenery present the rider’s dilemma once again. Having had a healthy dose of scenery up high already today, I decided to focus on the riding and was able to tuck in behind a local blue pick-up truck setting a fun pace through the other traffic on the mostly four-lane stretch of highway.

I noticed one of the other bikes settling in behind me as well, apparently enjoying the quick pace being set. We zipped and swerved for miles and miles down through the forested lands, and it was an engaging stretch of outright fun that got my juices flowing. After the stunning scenery of the National Park, getting to also enjoy some nice leaning at speed was making this an epic day of riding!

Our rabbit deserted us as we finally emerged onto the busy urban grid of Loveland, where the other rider and I turned north on US 207. It was strip-mall hell riding for a few miles, then a brief open stretch again before hitting more stoplights straight through the middle of Fort Collins. Still a bit unsure as to whether I had time to make it to the bonuses in Laramie, I was running scenarios on my GPS while waiting at the many stoplights.

I lost my companion at one of the lights, and then took a bad turn towards nearby I-25 when Garmin calculated that going north through Cheyenne was a better way to the bonuses in Laramie. That didn’t seem right, so I pulled to the curb to get my bearings before returning to 207 and continuing north. Local knowledge would have proven very handy here as I’ve since located some very quick-looking shortcut roads that could have kept me west of these population centers and avoided all the lights.

The terrain and road both opened up quickly after leaving Fort Collins behind me. I rode briskly north on 207, crossing back into Wyoming again at last. I came roaring into Laramie with my hair on fire, feeling the pull of the finish line and wanting to make sure I had time to mop up the few remaining bonuses. I forced myself down to reasonable city speeds and found my way to the campus of the University of Wyoming.

Google brought me through a parking lot and then onto a service road behind some of the university buildings, to a dead end by a walking path. I could see the bonus was out on the quad somewhere, so I grabbed phone and flag and trotted off in that direction. Luckily, nothing tricky – I reached bonus BFF02, a statue of Benjamin Franklin, after a couple hundred yards. It felt good to walk, though I was already exhibiting signs of the “eighth-day limp”. 🙂

Hot-footing it back to the bike, I headed east out of Laramie via the 80-BL business loop and joined I-80 east of town. Zip, zip! In a couple miles, I pulled off a very familiar exit to Happy Jack Road, heading for that same rest area where I’d stopped in my days before the rally. Little did I know at that time that I’d be back here getting ANOTHER photo of Abe’s giant head during the rally! Yep, bonus BPR91 was my 11th and final Lincoln bonus for the rally.

It was 10:15, just over an hour to go to penalty…time was on my side now, but I wasn’t going to get comfortable. Back on I-80, I was getting up to speed and reached up to check my Sena communicator and … it wasn’t there! What the hell! I had disconnected it briefly at the rest area for some reason, but it must not have clicked back in fully. Shit! I thought briefly about leaving it behind, but I still had some time to burn, and I felt I should at least go back and check the parking spot in case it had fallen off there.

I found a cut-through to the other side of I-80 just a mile away, and headed back to the rest area. As I pulled up in a rush to the parking spot, which was still empty, I spotted it right away, lying right next to where I’d parked last time. It was so lucky that nobody had decided to use that spot in the past several minutes! It was undamaged and responded immediately after clicking it back into the mount. That makes two devices on this rally that survived a fall to pavement and passing traffic (three if you count the bike tip-over!). OK, off to Cheyenne, take 2!

I set a quick but safe pace back east to Cheyenne and it was smooth sailing now. I took the WY 225 exit just before the I-25 interchange, and arrived a mile later in the lot for Martin Luther King Jr. Park. A quick walk over to the bust of the civil rights leader, bonus BCR04, and my final bonus of the rally was in the books at 11:00.

Now, it was a just a quick five minute cruise through some side streets of Cheyenne, over the railroad tracks and under I-80 to reach the Red Lion Hotel, finishing my rally around 11:05, just 25 minutes to penalty.

After stopping the clock, I parked close-by in the front lot, grabbed my stuff and headed inside to prep for scoring. Lisa Landry was in the house, handing out swag and helping out with the scoring process – very nice to see her here supporting the LDX! I said hello and let her know I was present, but not ready to be scored yet. Then I spread out my stuff on a nearby table at the rear of the lobby and got to work.

Knowing how badly I’d screwed up on this leg, I had absolutely no expectations for a good finish at this point, but was still high on the great riding I’d experienced today in the Rockies, and happy to have finished. I couldn’t wait to find out who’d ridden to Gerlach with 15 Lincolns for the win – that’s how convinced I was still about that option at the time.

I filled out the rest of my scoresheet, gathered my receipts, and headed in for scoring. Jim Owen was in there and we chatted a bit about our rides until getting reprimanded by staff to keep quiet please! Trying to keep freshly arrived rally riders from jabbering is like showing a hungry man a steak, but we obeyed respectfully. Jim had apparently come into the finish with a very high Lincoln multiplier and scooped all those Colorado bonuses up. Like me, he’d also hit some severe weather outside of Lamar CO, but on the day after I’d been through there. It sounded even worse than the storm I’d ridden next to, and had forced him off the road for a couple hours. Surprisingly to me, he had not chased Gerlach, but had gone to New England! Curiouser and curiouser!

After we signed our scorecards, we headed out to the lobby to check in to our rooms. Another random guest was there in the lobby with their dog while I was chatting with Jim and his wife Janet. I was tickled to see Mr. Owen, bedraggled from seven days on the road, immediately get down on all fours to give kisses and tummy-rubs to his immediate new canine friend. While the rest of us are regularly screwing the pooch, Jim plays them like a violin. :0)

There didn’t appear to be any foodstuffs available (I’d arrived too late), so after check-in I just collected my luggage and headed up to my room to clean up and catch some well-deserved z’s.

BONUS STOPS: 6

 

 

Leg B Stats

Miles: 3879
Bonus Locations: 31
Meal Bonuses: 3
Rest Bonus Hours: 6
Combos: Madonna of the Trail
Points: 197,299
Bonus Order: BPR26, BPI08, BPR28, BCR01, BPR27, BPI07, BPI06, XEAT4, BPI05, BPR21, BPI04, BPR19, BST50, BPR18, BPT03, BPR10, BEX23, XEAT5, BPT02, BPR08, BPR07, BPT01, BPR01, BCL07, BPI09, PBI10, BPI11, XEAT6, ZSLP2, BSC04, BSC02, BIN02, BFF02, BPR91, BCR04