July 4, 2018 Riverton to Worland

Ed and I rolled down to the Trailhead restaurant for breakfast and feasted on pancakes and sausages before hitting the road at 6:50 Am.  It was a good early start on a 92.5 mile day with 1950 feet of climb.

As forecast the wind was straight out of the north and as we were headed due north it was straight into our face.  However instead of the forecast 5 mph it was closer to 15 mph and was gusting to probably close to 25 mph.  To say it was a slog would be an understatement.  Ed and I were taking one mile turns doing the pulling.  Working about as hard as we could we could do about 12 mph.  This translates to an eight hour day plus lunch and breaks, we are going to be lucky to get in by 5:00 pm. 

We  drag out to first water stop which is at the 19 mile mark when the van pulls up. We jump in the van! Hey this is the comfort tour and I am not going kill myself.  We drive up to a service station and I grab a giant French Vanilla Cappuccino from the machine. When the van gets to the second water stop at mile 35 we are entering the Boysen State Park.  The road has turned the corner and we are protected from the wind and there is no wind all the way through the Wind River Canyon.  It is about 16 miles to picnic so Ed and I jump out of the van and ride the canyon.  The Wind River Canyon is the most beautiful section of the ride and it is downhill.

The canyon is a huge cut in the side of the hills with the rail road and the highway stuck alongside. The road has three tunnels.  In 2014 they were paving through the tunnels and it was a busy and scary section.  However as today is the 4^th of July there was no traffic and we just sailed through.

We fly down the canyon and into lunch.  On this side of the canyon there is hardly any wind so Ed and I check the weather report at a couple of places and the wind is out of the north but only 5 mph.  So we jump back on the bikes and ride on.  I cannot help but think what a brilliant move getting in the van was. We skipped 17 miles of grinding (or about 1.5 hours of hard grinding) into a horrid head wind through boring burned out sage brush country.

After lunch we took turns pulling but not in any real organized way just kind of riding along.  When we came to the last water the route turned down a side road but we could see the main highway in to Worland was straight ahead and so Ed and I took the main road and saved a further 3 miles.  The main road was along an irrigation canal so it was dead flat and had a huge row of cotton woods along one side which protected us from the wind so it was an easy pedal into camp.   

Ed and I made some smart moves and turned a tremendously tough day into a pretty nice ride. 

Terry hot biker