Catching Up

We are now well past halfway, just into Montana having a rest day in West Yellowstone, after a wonderful day yesterday riding through the national park. It is an interesting transition point at half way around the city of Pueblo. We move from flat, hot, desert riding, back to mountains. The Rockies, while much higher than the Appalachians and Ozark Ranges in the east, have much more gradual gradients.

We are really glad to be going east to west for a number of reasons. A lot of the uphill gradients seem easier going west. As well the scenery is so spectacular in the Rockies. There have been many days on both sides of the continent when I have said to myself this is the best day riding I have ever had - it keeps getting better. And the prevailing westerlies have not been overly prevailing. Wind directions change across the day and we have been rising early to beat the headwinds that pick up around the middle of the day.

One unexpected joy is making friends with other westerly riders that we frequently ride with, and sometimes leapfrog over days. There is an informal group of us from the US, UK and Australia that have bonded as we ride along sharing the joys, stories, meals, drinks and the love of bikes. Tonight they have headed on to Ennis where there is apparently a distillery that puts cyclers up. it should be quite a party. we are hoping we will stay there tomorrow night and catch our friends by Missoula, about 5 days away.

Missoula is home to the American Adventure Cycling Association that organise the wonderful TransAm route maps, as well as many other bike touring routes across the US. We are told their headquarters is a Mecca for bike tourers and bike lovers in general.