Mary Collier Fixes her Shock with a Sock

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. (Recorder time: 2008-06-24 23:11:12 EST)