July 2, 2018 Jackson to Dubois

Ken and I were awake before the alarm this morning and were packed and ready to go in no time.  We talked about him sagging or riding and decided that the safer plan was to sag.  It was a 95 mile day with 4900 feet of climb.  This sounded like a lot on an ankle with tendonitis. 

The ride out of Jackson could not have been more perfect with a nice tail wind blowing us up along the Teton Range and through the Teton National park.  Temperatures were in the low 50’s and the sky a brilliant blue with only the odd little puff of white cloud.  The route took up the same route that we had ridden down when we went through Yellowstone. However seeing it from the opposite direction was great.  Tom and I rolled along together and chatted about doing different bike trips. 

At the end of the bike path we turned east on the highway (287) to Dubois. As we turned east the wind shifted from a south wind to a west wind and it really picked up.  The 47 miles down to picnic just flew by and I was in picnic in no time flat.  

After picnic was the big climb over Togwotee Pass at 9658 feet.  It was 17 miles of 2-6% with most of it at 6%.  The climb just seems to go on forever.  The increasing tail wind sure helped and helped keep things cool.   In fact the tail wind was so strong that at one of the 2% sections I was going at almost 20 mph. 

After the big climb to the pass there was still 35 miles to go. There was a 9 mile decent which was quite tricky as there were a lot of rough patches where the road crews had put down cold roll asphalt and not done a very good job.  Added to this was the wind which was swirling around at different angles in the canyon and it would grab your bike and throw it off.  I was glad to not have deep dish wheels. The narrow rims shed the wind.   After the decent the road was somewhat rolling but I just flew down the road at 20-35 mph without hardly pedaling due to the tail wind which had now turned to 30+ mph. 

Tonight we are in the Dubois convention center which is quite nice however outside camping is a long way from the center so packing bags was a chore. However the major compliant is the showers of which there are none.  Showers were in a laundromat which was about 2 miles away so you had to take a shuttle. Once there big line ups for one of the 3 stalls. I spent over an hour getting a shower.  Yes it was ok once in but in my opinion an hour to get a shower is unacceptable.  This is the fourth bad shower on the trip. So not to complain but the percentage of bad showers is getting out of hand.  However they do have wifi and it looks pretty good.

 Not losing track of why we are here and that it the ride.  And what a great ride we had today.  The wind gods are truly smiling upon me.

Terry