A 4500km Journey !

Our day started off with a pick up from Chris at Silver City hike and bike. He immediately helped to put our minds at rest about getting a ride by saying - wow it’s wet out this ways! Then he proceeded to tell us that it was not uncommon for people to get stuck out in the Gila National Forest for 3-4 days waiting for the road to dry once the monsoons hit. We had made the right decision for us - phew !  Off to Silver City we went and Chris shared some area history with us then we had an interesting conversation about politics ( many of them have been about this in our travels through America) It has been interesting to hear people’s views on this and we have heard both sides of the fence so to speak.  Once in Silver City we left our bikes at the shop and went wandering. We found a great wee coffee shop for breakfast and had another great conversation with a local man- a lot of it about accents.  After breakfast we explored the old town a bit more and discovered it has a vi...

The morning started early - up at 4.30am and rolling out by 5am and straight into a pass. La Maunga Pass was our last in Colorado. Shortly after that we turned off the main road and headed into Carson National Forest and New Mexico!! What an awesome feeling to be in our last state- I think it helped carry us through the day. There was a lot of climbing today 2400m and 140kms but we were pretty happy bikers for most of the day! It was a lovely forest, and nice to be back in the trees.  It was also closed due to extreme fire danger but there was some sort agreement that let us riders go through. ( that evening we passed some firemen and they all just waved hello). At about the 90km mark we hit the main road again and headed up another pass towards lake hopewell about halfway up the climb a truck stopped and asked us if we needed any water. No we replied but thanks for the offer! Then at the top of the climb there sat an empty mini bus, the driver had just dropped off a group of peopl...

Well I forgot to tell you all that I had named my bike! Well at least I think I have forgotten. So this may be a bit of a strange story and potentially may have come to be after a long day in the saddle in extreme heat and /or exhaustion !  So anyway my bike is now called Dorothy as I feel like I am following a yellow brick road to the end of my journey ( well my GPS line is purple but close enough!) and at the end I will find my way back home! I think I may have had the thought as we traveled through the basin in Wyoming after a 3am start.  I’m not sure out of my compatriots who would have been likened to the tin man, scarecrow and lion 😂 but the rest of it made for a great story to the rest of the team when we all needed a laugh one day! The things that go through you mind when you spend all day cycling!  Hope you all enjoyed that and had a wee chuckle 😊

The 4th of July meant a holiday not only for the American Public but also us. We had a great day relaxing by the river, getting the bikes checked over, stocking up for the next few days and catching up with family back in New Zealand. It was nice to have a day off but also strange to not be riding and a little hard at times to fully relax. As it was July 4th there was a bit of a carnival in the local park very similar to something at home, a parade down the main st at 4pm and then music in the park into the evening.  It seemed while we were there that everyone in Salida has a bike and a dog - it is a very dog friendly place !  There is also the Arkansas River that runs through the bottom of the town and it was a great spot to sit and watch people floating down either in blow up tubes, rafts, kayaks or just with life jackets. There is 3 man made waves similar to the ones on the Hawera River near Wanaka.  After our day off the next day brought a big climb up over Marshall P...

We were up early ( nothing new there!) and heading out of Breckenridge by 6am with a big day planned - Salida 150kms down the road! It started with a great climb up the Boreas Pass with amazing views back out over the valley we could see hundreds of ski runs over all the hills and the city scattered below in the trees.  It was quite a gentle climb and we eventually reached the top - a new height record 11482ft (3499m) We discovered it was an old train line and there is quite a bit of history around that area for gold mining. After the pass we turned onto the gold dust trail - it would have been awesome on my full suspension stump jumper but not quite so much fun on my fully rigid, fully loaded tourer ! Still fun though.  As we started to move down the pass we could smell more and more smoke and as we left the forest we could start to see the haze of forest fires south of where we were. As we cycled towards Hartsel it turned quite basiny and very dry. It is easy to see why ther...