Eric B. at Flagg Ranch Saturday night

Hi there, Eric Bruntjen calling in from the Tour Divide. I’m in Flagg Ranch, Saturday the 20th. I came over the pass today on a mucky road, just getting clobbered by the rain. Makes it really tough out there for me in that wet mud, cold. I had a few mechanicals; I lost a sleeping pad, broke a spoke, had no rear brakes coming down, used my spare brake pads, fixed that. Just now running on almost no front brakes; going to have some pads sent to Rawlins; hopefully I can make it there. I had a chance to ride today with Joe from Minneapolis; he was in Lima for 24 hours waiting for a part. That was great -- I don’t normally get to ride with guys of that caliber, and he left me behind pretty quick. But it’s just an amazing thing to be out riding with guys like that. The way he motored up the passes today really impressed me. Other than that, the mosquitos are crazy. They’re not that big, but there are millions of them. Riding today behind Joe, and he was a couple miles ahead, and you could see clouds of mosquitos coming. You know, you just kind of think, maybe that mosquito that just went into my mouth was just eating on Joe, because there’s so many of them, they fly right in your mouth. It’s disgusting. Out here I’m sure some Tour Divide riders are solving world problems and thinking deep thoughts, but today all I was thinking about was accidental cannibalism and thinking about how cold I was. I’m out and I’m going to try -- I’m out for tonight, not out for the race -- I’m going to try and make Pinedale by tomorrow. It’s 160 miles and the weather does not look good, it’s going to be tough; so I might make it only 120, but we’ll see. Bye.