sherry's blog

Hey its Mary Collier. Its day 13, June 24th. Today was a sad day in WY. My riding buddy, Mike Dion, had to drop today. I think all things considered he had a day yesterday with very little food and a whole lot of stress. So I think that was a kind of breaking point for him. So I will be sad to say goodbye to Mike. Wish him luck in all his future adventures. I’m sure he has some fun stuff coming up. But for myself, I made it 80 miles today to Flagg Ranch. Seems like I have yet to have a day go as expected. 80 miles wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to get in more mileage than that. My legs are doing OK. I started out at a descent time. Got about 10 miles down the road before a seal tore in my rear shock. I tried to just re-inflate it, didn’t work. So I started heading back to a bike shop that was there when I started today then realized that they wouldn’t be opened for few hours. So I opened up my shock and shoved a sock in it which gave me a virtual hard tail for the day. Which wouldn’t be bad because I know there are people out there doing this on a hard tail. BUT It was the longest section of the washboard rail bed that I’ve ever ridden. It made for fun morning. Not that bad though. Just getting tied up with time taking care of it. Beyond that the rail bed was fairly uneventful. It was beautiful but somewhat monotonous. Until I got to the tunnel, which was actually not as bad as expected. Hiked around that. I’m getting better at carrying my bike on my back. Beyond that was the snowy pass coming in Flagg Ranch. It wasn’t too bad. I had my share of walking in snow and ending up on puddles. Props to the guys that came before me. Because I saw in lots of dry areas I was riding through I was riding through and over ridges that they carved in the mud. Props to them for carving the way for us all. Here I am in Flagg Ranch. Just had some dinner, I’m going to crash out. Hopefully tomorrow I can get down the road further. Have a good night.

Hi its Alan. I’m in Rawlins, WY. I’m still with Dominik. The last two days went pretty much as planned. Yesterday, we headed down to the Basin. We had dinner at Atlantic City before heading out and camping as the Diagnus Well. Earlier in the day, we bumped into the film crew on the way down. We hung out with them for about an hour. They filmed Dominik’s feet. I’m sure they are going to be the star of the movie. But it will have to be x-rated, I’m afraid. Today, we got up about 4 and headed off I guess around 5 and made it to Rawlins by 3. It was pretty tough. Gets pretty warm in that Basin. We just made it in chased by a storm. We got a little bit damp but we didn’t get struck by lighting which is the main thing. Tomorrow, we are going to Colorado. To celebrate our half-way point, we did our laundry and ate a lot. Time to go. Bye. (Recorder time: 2008-06-24 23:02:24 EST)

Hello this is Dominik Scherer calling in from Rawlins. It is 20 minutes to 10 on the 24th of June. I’m just about to get a good night’s sleep in a motel. Tomorrow we are going to head out towards to Colorado. Be good everyone out there. Have a good night’s rest. Bye. (recorder time: 2008-06-24 22:48:59 EST.)

Hi this Adrian Stingaciu calling in from Pinedale, WY on Tuesday, June 24th at 3:42pm I just picked up my package from the Post Office so I'm good to go with the raw food for a few days. Yesterday, coming over Togwotee Pass, everybody said yeah, it is clear of snow and then as soon as I get up there, there is snow everywhere on either side. Then I look at the map and oh no, we have to take a dirt road for about 10 miles. I fearing the worst of going for 10 miles in the snow around sunset. Luckily, it was only about 5 miles. But still…seems like...Does anyone else see a pattern here? Every other Pass seems like it is snowed in. Union Pass no snow, except on the south side a few patches of snow about a couple hundred feet or so. Anyway, I'm doing alright. Going to push on today and see how far I can get. Lots of love and hugs to everyone back home. Bye. (recorder time: 2008-06-24 16:43:53 EST. )

Hey everybody Leighton White checkin' in from Atlantic City, WY. Couple of rough days. But it was beautiful coming over from Buffalo(?) this morning. If anyone has some climbing legs, they want to fed ex to me in Rawlins, I'll give you my number. I'm climbing like a snail with an elephant on its back. Any preschooler with a bike with training wheels could kick my butt going up a hill now. But ___ each day. The snow has been pretty entertaining there through MT and WY. Made the Pass through Ashton-Flagg Road at night by headlight in the muck. Anyone that follows me probably thinks there was drunken epileptic midget pushing a tricycle through there cause I was hoppin all over trying not to eat(?) it. I figured I could go through and make it to Flagg Ranch at a reasonable hour. But that wasn't the case with the mud and snow. So I ended going to bed at 2:30 in the morning 10 miles outside. I think that kicked me for the next day. I only made 85 miles the next day. Togwotee Pass. Then they send us on 515 Forest Service Road which was snow for 4-5 miles. I think a rough estimate of snow so far is about 14 miles. I'm in the Basin. Looks like there is a gathering thunderstorm so this is ought to be fun. I'll check in later. Bye (recorder time: 2008-06-24 16:12:03 EST. ) (Note: I had to guess at some of this. Lot of static on the line)

Hi this is Felix Wong calling in at 1pm on Tuesday, June 24th. I just got over the Togwotee Pass in WY this morning. The Pass itself wasn't too bad but however the section beyond it by Brooks Lake was absolutely horrendous. Lots of snow. Even worse that the snow was mud. There is so much mud that collected on my bike that both of my wheels seized. I had to spend a lot of time trying to clean up my bike. Just trying to get rid of enough mud so the wheels would start turning. I used a stick, my fingers. I tried dragging my bike through snow even, even when there were dirt areas adjacent to the snow. Just to try to get enough mud off my bike so that the wheels would turn. I also tried to picking up my bike and carrying it however will all of the mud on the bike the bike weighed about 50-60 pounds so that wasn't very practical. It took me about 2 hours 30 or 2 hours 45 minutes just go 4.5 miles down to the Lake. After that I still had more bike clean up to do just so the bike was rideable. I also had a front break problem which I had to fix which was quite difficult when there is mud all over the place. I think the bike is rideable again. It had a lot of chain suck, I tried to remedied that. Up to now, I've done 20 miles today. I think I'll be lucky to get 70 miles today. Difficult day. Hope it gets easier. Bye. (recorder time: 2008-06-24 14:01:06 EST.)

Good morning, this is Mike Dion. It’s Tuesday the 24th a little after 10 o’clock. I’m calling from outside Flagg Ranch. This is a call that nobody wants to make but I’m gonna go ahead and call it on the ride, on the race I guess I should say. The ride is absolutely amazing and as a ride I’d love to keep going, just not at a race pace. So I’m going to call it on the race, but its just absolutely amazing out here. The body has actually kind of pushed through. I think most of my issue is, the mornings have been going great, 25-35 miles, I’m cruisin’ strong, but then as the day goes on my legs start getting heavy and it feels like I’m biking through molasses with 5 pounds of pressure in the tires and then just to kind of keep going later in the afternoon just getting slower and slower and slower so to actually put any miles on the bike is getting more and more difficult as the days go on. I don’t want to be out here for 35-40 days but I sure could. But I just want to say – Tina, your support throughout this whole thing has been incredible and I appreciate that so much, you wouldn’t know. Being out here is just the most incredible experience anyone could ask for. The beauty and the scenery is just intense, its amazing. So its definitely a once in a lifetime experience. So anyway, I’m going to hook up with the film crew and continue with the project and the other racers and the route. So that feels good that I’m going to still kind of get to be out in it. But again support to everybody that has been with me – Tina, Dylan, Mikaila, you guys have been awesome and incredible and I can’t wait to see you again. All the friends and family that have been throwing support my way, thank you so very much. I’ve been feeling it, it’s been awesome. As far as the other riders go, you guys keep pluggin’ away and kickin’ butt. Mary, you’ve got to keep going.

Hey, This is Ardie Olson and it is Tuesday, June 24th at 9:12 AM. I’m in Rawlins, WY and I’m sitting at the table at Square Shooters getting me a mega-breakfast and then I’ve got to find some food for the trail and I’ll be headed out towards, I guess it’s Steamboat that’s next. I don’t know if I’ll quite make it there tonight but we’ll give it a shot. Yesterday was pretty good, I had the wind to my back, I made some good miles. I hope everybody else is doing well. I’m holding up okay, things are hurting but that’s the fun of it. Again this is Ardie Olson, Bye. (recorder time: 2008-06-24 10:14:06 EST.)

Good Morning, Its Steve Gleasner. Its Tuesday morning, I’m calling in from Lima. Yesterday was a real bad day getting to Lima, I called in about it. The easy ride was not easy and today I’m feeling a little bit better. I’ve gotten a little bit of rest and I’m gonna move on. That’s my report. So, I’m packing up and moving down the road, and there we have it. Thanks for all of the encouragement. My wife read me some of the advice and that sort of thing and hopefully we can punch through this fatigue and get on with it. So down the road we go, bye. (recorder time: 2008-06-24 08:00:35 EST.)

Hi this is Felix Wong calling at 11:15 Monday from Togwotee Mountain Lodge NW of Jackson. I just wanted to give an update on my flat tire saga. I found the root cause of all of my flat tires. It was rim tape not applied properly. Some spoke holes were exposed causing all of my flats. So now I consider it quite fortunate that I got a flat tire right in front of this lodge where I could stay for the night and diagnose this problem.. I also patched up all of my spare tubes. So now I have 3 good spare tubes instead of just one. Hopefully I won’t be getting so many flat tires now. Talk to you later. Bye. (recorder time: 2008-06-24 00:19:23 EST.)