Cow Spokes Tour 2008

Alaska to Mexico

June 20-October 18

We made it!

We are excited to say that, after spending 79 days in the saddle and cycling 5235 miles of the North American continent, we have concluded our 2008 charity ride to benefit Heifer International. We are very proud to be at the top of the list of their fundraising groups, and we are commited to continuing fundraising to meet our goal of $20,000.

Please click here to donate to Heifer International. It’s not to late!

We would like to extend deep felt and sincere thanks to all the wonderful and generous people who have donated to Heifer International through our site, the kind people who have housed us and helped us along the way, our parents for their emotional and financial support, Westhill bike shop, Veltec, The Putney School, Ibex, and DJW Technology for their sponsorship, Nate Marsh and Emily Roose for tech support, and finally Heifer International for all their great work throughout the world. This has been an incredible journey and we will never forget it.

We left Flagstaff and headed southeast towards the towns of Happy Jack and Strawberry. Really, with names like those, how could we not go there? In Flagstaff, we’d looked at a map of the state that listed elevations for various towns. Flagstaff is at 7000 feet and as we plotted a course towards Tucson the numbers dropped slowly down to 2000. It was going to be a pleasant four days. Based on the elevations of the towns on our route, we unrealisticly anticipated a long, leisurely 280 mile descent. We were mistaken. Every day we climbed. Yeah, we descended in the end and did lose elevation, but each day had long climbs, 10 miles or longer, that nobody had mentioned. Ah well.

As we passed by Roosevelt Reservoir, we ran into two cyclists that we first met in Montana and then saw again in Yellowstone. They were a French couple who planned to spend the next two years biking from Vancouver to Argentina. It’s a small world and there are only so many roads and routes that get you from Canada to Mexico. It was nice to see them again and hear about their travels.

Friday night was our final night camping out. We had climbed an epic mountian, descending 7 miles and a 7% grade through winding canyons. We camped right on a river (rare in the desert) and had a bright moon. Sleeping in tents is fun and all, and it is certainly possible to travel around this country without paying to camp in a campground, but it was exciting to think about sleeping indoors. In Wyoming and Utah we were able to sleep on our ground clothes without using our tents. In southern Arizona, however, there are scorpions, rattlesnakes, and tarantulas. A thin sheet of nylon won’t do much against a bear or moose, but it is enough to keep very large spiders from crawling on your face. Good enough for us.

We rolled into Tucson on Saturday after a morning that consisted of climbing 13 miles up into the wind and an afternoon that consisted of gliding pleasantly downhill for 25 miles in the warm sun while a rain storm passed off to the southeast. Lovely,

We took Sunday off and then headed for the border Monday morning. We’ve had remarkable luck with our bicycles this trip. Aside from early trouble with fenders and two bum rear rims, the only other trouble has been four flat tires and only three of those were puncture flats. So it figures that 60 miles from the end of the trip, I would roll over a piece of glass and need to change a tire. It was the end of the trip and a pleasant sunny day, so it wasn’t really a hassle but rather a chance to reflect on the trip. Nice, in a strange way.

We turned south on to 286 and rode through a beautiful valley. The only traffic on the road was Border Patrol trucks racing back and forth. It was a nice way to end the trip. We reached the border, rode around Sasabe, Sonora for a while, and then came back into the United States.

Along the road to the border

A sign pointing to Mexico (clearly)

In the streets of Sasabe, Sonora

Back in the United States

We’d made it. 5235 miles after leaving Anchorage, we had arrived, and suddenly it was over.

We rode back to the Seirra Vista ranch a few miles from the border and stayed the night with our friends Troy and Melissa. We sat in their hot tub and spent much of the next day napping on their lawn. A wonderful end to a wonderful trip.

Troy, Melissa, and the sacred mountain, Baboquivari.

Some reflective thoughts from Tim and Noah…

Tim: It’s odd that it’s all over. Though I’m looking forward to sleeping in a bed and taking a shower whenever I want to and seeing friends and family and returning to a normal life, I will miss this life style. More than I probably realize right now. It’s been great. Tomorrow morning Noah will fly home to Vermont and tomorrow night I’ll take a train to California. New adventures await. Tune in next week to read about my ride from Los Angeles to San Francisco. While I’m ready for a change of pace, I’m going to settle for a change of direction. I’ve had enough riding south. I’m going to try going north for a while.

Take care, Tim.

Noah:

Well, this was certinly the trip of a lifetime. It is amazing to look back on it, and think about what can be accomplished with time and focus. That is really what this trip was an excercise in: getting up each day and tackling the task at hand without getting overwhelmed by the enormity of the whole. Even on the last day, you can’t help but think “I am really going to bike 70 miles, with all this stuff?” Just day after day, packing the stuff, making the miles, trying not to get bogged down in the tough times, trying not to take the good times for granted. Each night, trusting that we would find a place to sleep, each morning, hoping that we would find a spot with hot coffee.

I am not going to lie and say that at times this trip wasn’t hard, but really, that was what it was about. I knew from the outset that Tim was the right partner for this ride, because I knew that he would be ready each day to get up and ride, to make the miles, to keep going even when things were at the worst. He would keep me going through his refusal to quit, and, as I thought, he did.

Looking forward to returning home to my life, to my house, to my truck, is a funny thing. After living out of a few small bags on the side of the road for so long, I am not sure how I will feel when faced with all the stuff that I was so distratracted with before we left. I’m sure in time that things will settle and feel normal again, but it will take some time. I know that I won’t appreciate the full value and meaning of this trip in my life for some time, that is a given, but all I can really say is that it has been amazing and wonderful.

I want to thank my parents for supporting me in everything, Pete and Margie for giving me a push out the door, the folks at Westhill for helping us get our act togeather, Sam for taking a chance with us, my wonderful lady Helen for her patience, all the generous and kind souls who have taken us in out of the rain and given us a place to stay and fresh motovation, and each and every vehicle that pulled into the passing lane for us (I always noticed.)

Special thanks to all of you that donated money to Heifer International. It is an awesome organization, and we are thrilled that you all have taken this opportunity to help so many people.

And, most of all, thanks to Tim, for being a great friend and riding partner, and having deep and unending patience with me and my eccentricities. It takes a special person to keep his cool while I was threatining to kick the spokes out of my bike wheel in the Yukon. Thanks Tim, now come back to Putney and help me put up some fence, dammit.

Noah

Mileage is a funny thing.  We look at the map pretty regularly.  Once a week or so, we’ll add up all the numbers and see what stands between here and there.  And here’s the thing: The numbers change.  They shouldn’t but they do.  When we were in Moab, Noah was buying his ticket home so we needed to know when we’d be finished.  Sit down with the map, add up some numbers, come up with 950ish (for some roads distances aren’t given).  Okay, let’s call it 1000.  That’s two and a half weeks of riding.  This was towards the end of September and we’ll probably want to take a day off somewhere along the way.  Three and a half weeks will be more than enough.  Buy the ticket and ease into the last part of the trip without the stress that usually comes with needing to be somewhere at a certain time.  Five days later, we sat down with the maps again.  850 miles to go.  Wait we spent five days cycling and had only done 100 miles?  That’s not right.  Is it? Are we going to make it?  Okay, let’s go to the Grand Canyon and then figure this out.  We see the canyon (more about this in a bit) and then head to Flagstaff.  Crunch the numbers a third time and now it’s 420.  That’s all.  280 to Tucson (four days of riding) and then 140 for the two day trip to the border and back.  That’s it?  Really?  What are we going to do with the extra time?  We went from not enough time to too much time without leaving the couch.  Ah well.

Since we left Moab, we’ve a winding route through southern Utah.  South to Blanding.  West to Lake Powell.  Across the lake on a ferry.  North through Capital Reef National Park on a sandy dirt rode.  West and up, up, up on an old cattle route to Boulder (UT, not CO).  South past Bryce National Park.  Into Arizona (goodbye Utah!).  Up, over, and down the Kaibab Plateau. Down into Marble Canyon.

That was the route and it went pretty smoothly.  A lot of ups and downs.  The nights above 7000 feet were cold.  The night below 4000 feet were hot.  Elevation matters.

The descent from the Kaibab Plateau was wonderful.  We spent the morning climbing 3000 feet over the course of 15 miles.  This climb wasn’t marked on any of our maps, so it was a bit of a surprise.  At the top of the climb is scenic Jacob Lake, which is little more than a lodge and a gas station next to a small pond/mud puddle.  (It’s tough to have a lake at 8000 feet in the desert and Jacob Mud Puddle wouldn’t have sounded as majestic.)  And then we got to go down.  A lot.  We lost 2000 feet over the next 10 miles and then another 2000 feet over the next 35 miles.  It would have been nice if we weren’t able to look far across the plain and see that we’d be climbing up out of the valley the next day.  Ah well.

The first half of the next day was up; the second have was down.  It was all into the wind and all with a narrow shoulder that was dominated by the rumble strip.  Not a wonderful day.  But it brought us to Cameron, so that’s something.  No, actually, it’s not.  Cameron was full of stray dogs that barked all night so, although the campground was free, neither of us got any sleep.  It’s odd to get into your sleeping bag when the sun goes down, get out of your sleeping bag when the sun comes up 13 hours later, and still be tired.

The next day we headed towards the Grand Canyon.  The park entrance is 30 miles west of Cameron and in those 20 miles we gained 3000 feet.  (It’s the same 3000 feet.  Up and down and up and down.)  Halfway up the hill the rain and wind started.  We pulled over to the side of the road and huddled in the lee of a jewelry stand.  Eventually the rain stopped and we were able to bike high enough into the trees that the wind wasn’t a factor any more.  At the end of the climb, though, we were at the Grand Canyon.  It’s tough to remain angry at the weather when you’re looking over spectacular views.

The next day, we headed to Flagstaff and stayed with the friend of some guy we met in a coffee shop in Utah.  An odd connection, but it’s been awesome to take some time to relax.  They’re all big bike guys, so we’ve been talking shop and trading stories.

After putting up with my rambling thoughts, you all deserve some pictures, so here you go:

Noah plots a course across Lake Powell

The descent off Kaibab

Our first view of the Grand Canyon

Tim and Noah look at a majestic hole in the ground

The garage of the guys we stayed with in Flagstaff.  How many bikes can you see? (Hint: it’s more than 10)

Now we’re off to the grocery store and then heading south to Strawberry, AZ and on to Mexico.

We’ve taken a couple days off in Moab and, in true Team Cow Spokes fashion, we’ve ended up biking more than we intended. Wednesday we biked into Arches National Park and headed for Devil’s Garden. We hiked around a bit and ended up camping on the second highest piece of land in the park. (The highest was about 100 feet to the west, but it was too hard to get there) Thursday morning we biked around a bit, saw some more arches, and then headed back into town for some ice coffee. A lot of ice coffee.

Yesterday we headed out of town, bound south for Monticello.  For much of the ride we were escorted by three state troopers.  I suppose they were actually escorting the over-sized vehicle that was taking up both lanes of the highway, but we were all moving at the same speed.  It was like being in a parade; we got to ride slowly and wave at the people stopped by the side of road.

Today we’ll continue south to Blanding and then hook west towards Lake Powell.  The next few hundred miles look pretty scarce, so this might be the last post until we reach Arizona.

Noah felt that I didn’t properly describe the misery of the climb out of Flaming Gorge a few days back.  It was a long slog up the hills, the wind was in our face for much of the day, and it was probably the worst 38 mile stretch of the trip.  It was pretty bad, but we did it.  Once a climb/windy stretch/lousy day is completed, I tend to think “Well, that was miserable but it’s over and I don’t have to do that again.”  Noah tends to take the “Biking is stupid.  I’m going to send my bike home and by a plane/train/bus ticket when we get to town.  This trip is dumb.  Why would anyone do this?” approach.  Both are reasonable views.  Both views are made better with a hot cup of coffee and a cheeseburger.

We spent that night in an open field that was not quite BLM land.  As we lay in our tents after settling in for the night, a strong stench of propane wafted across the field.  Great.  Then there was a crazy lightning show with wind and rain.  Great.  In the middle of the night, a truck drove up to our tents and the driver revved his engine a bunch.  Great.  In the morning we were strangely relieved to be alive.  Lest our parents worry too much, at no point were we in danger; it was just a string of unsettling events.

Just before sunrise.

The next day we biked into Colorado.  We had burgers in the lovely town of Dinosaur.  It took us 4000 miles, but we finally found the perfect burgers.

One pound of beef and onion rings to boot.

The next day was the windiest day of the trip yet.  The day began with a long climb up Douglas Pass into a strong breeze that hurled sand and small stones at us.  There’s nothing like being hit with projectiles to make a bad day worse.  After clearing the pass and descending down and down and down out of the mountains, we ended up camping on a hilltop in the desert, close to the Utah-Colorado border.  It was the nicest campsite of the trip and a good way to end the day.

A beautiful hilltop in the desert.

Yesterday we woke up and pedaled along the Colorado River, down into the canyon, and on to Moab.  A truly beautiful day.

The Colorado River.

Down into the canyon.

We’re in the desert.

Now we’re heading into Arches National Park for some hiking and camping.

We’re in Utah. No more Wyoming for the entire trip. And no more Idaho. We crossed from Wyoming into Idaho for all of seven miles before crossing back into Wyoming. Eastern Idaho is indistinguishable from western Wyoming. That’s all I have to say about Idaho. For that matter southern Wyoming is indistinguishable from northern Utah.

The weather looks like rain and we have a couple miles to go before settling down for the night, so this will be brief. We spent last night a few miles south of Manila, UT and just to the west of Flaming Gorge. It was beautiful, but this morning consisted of climbing up and up, for miles and miles. When we weren’t climbing 8% grades, the wind was in our face. It was a grueling day, but now we’ve had cheeseburgers in Vernal, UT, so everything is looking up.

Here are some pictures from the past two days:

Our campground on the high desert (thank you BLM public land access)

On the way to Utah (maybe in Wyoming, maybe Utah, who can tell)

The lovely Flaming Gorge (it was lovely, but a long climb)

The descent into Vernal, UT (9 miles downhill at an 8% grade, wonderful)

Now it’s off to the grocery store to buy more chili in a can and then we’ll head east. Tomorrow we’ll cross into Colorado and visit the scenic town of Dinosaur.

We’re back on the move. After taking a well-deserved break in Bozeman (and Putney and Berkeley), we packed up and headed south. The last four days, as we’ve pedaled through Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, have been beautiful. Blue skies and no wind has made for wonderful cycling. The nights are getting cold, so we’ll be trying to get south quickly. It’s odd, the trip is coming to an end (only 1500ish miles left). We’re now in a position to say “only 1500 miles”. We’ve gotten pretty good at this touring thing. The nights are cold, but clear and bug-free, so we’ve taken to sleeping on ground-clothes without tents. The routine of cooking dinner and cleaning the dishes is exactly that: routine. We’re not super worried about our route; we look at a map and plot out the next few days and then see where we get to. It’s a nice way to be.

Anyway… here are some of the views we’ve had in the last few days:

Along the road to Yellowstone.

Farther down the road to Yellowstone.

At the north entrance to Yellowstone.

A pretty meadow.

A field of geysers.

Noah delivers a lecture on different types of algae.

See the pretty waterfall.

Old Faithful comes through yet again.

Noah plots an inadvisable course.

Some tall mountains we don’t have to bike over.
We’ve taken a day off in the scenic town of Jackson, WY.  I know we just took a long break from riding, but we’re easing back into the trip.  The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting colder, so we have fewer hours we can be riding and will have to reduce our mileage accordingly.  In addition to that, the Eagles are playing on Monday Night Football, so we practically have to stay.

Tomorrow we set out with the Moab, UT as the next major destination.

So there are finally pictures up.  Sorry it took so long.  Here’s the skinny: Judith speculated about the possibility Noah and I had stopped riding entirely and were avoiding the website as a result.  This hit a bit too close to the truth for comfort.

We’ve reached Bozeman, MT.  Noah flew home a few days ago to go to a family party to celebrate his brother’s wedding and a family reunion.  I’m heading out to the west coast with some friends who are moving to the Bay Area.  So, though we haven’t quit the trip completely, we’re taking a break from riding for a bit.  A vacation from our vacation.  Don’t worry, we’ll be back on the road in a lilttle over a week, but it was time for a change.  Prior to arriving in Bozeman, we had gone 35 days with only one true day off.  There were a few days that were softer, only 25 or 30 miles, but only once had we gone to sleep in the same place we woke up.

Now comes the other change: We’ve decided to bike to Mexico but not continue to through Central America to Panama.  Neither of us speak Spanish and this seems like a problem.  Sleeping in a ditch on the side of the road in Montana is fundamently different than sleeping in a ditch in Mexico.  So that’s that.  We’ll ride another 2000 miles and call it a trip.  This will give us a chance to explore the American southwest a bit more.  Thus far we’ve hard clear destinations and clear deadlines and have been biking hard to make them.  It will be nice to ride roll along without worrying about getting Noah to an airport.

3300 miles biked, 2 countries, 2 states, 2 provinces, 1 territory, $4961 raised, another $377 pledged, still no bears wrestled, and not enough goofy beards to please those interested.

Okay, here’s the scoop: We left Grande Prairie on a hot sunny day, headed south on Route 40.  It was a lovely road, if you enjoy long empty stretches of hot pavement, being passed by logging truck after logging truck, and slogging up five mile climb after five mile climb.  If that sort of thing isn’t your gig, I’d recommend avoiding Route 40.  We climbed a long hill into scenic Grand Cache, a lovely small town perched high among the mountains.  Then we waited out a rain storm in a gas station before descending down into a valley and losing all the elevation we’d worked hard to gain.  After three days we were done with Route 40 and ready to head west into Jasper National Park.  Our bad luck with wind continued and we fought a nasty headwind for the first 30 miles.  After a quick stop in town to buy food and eat some lunch we headed south.  The wind had shifted ninety degrees and was again in our face.  Great.  There is a lovely hostel system in the park, but we refused to pay $24 each and so we biked down the road a ways and found a campsite to crash in.  The next morning was rainy and cold and, after a miserable 6 miles, we huddled in an outhouse for an hour to wait out the storm.  To our credit, it was a lovely outhouse: good cement floor, nice cedar walls, no graffiti.  The rest of the day was quite pleasant and we cruised along the Icefields Parkway, crossing from Jasper into Banff National Park.  Another day of rolling through beautiful mountains found us leaving the park and rolling into Lake Louise just before dinner.  The day after that found us in the city of Banff and the city of Canmore and halfway to the city of Calgary.  It’s wonderful, after 6 weeks of getting excited about every small gas station we rode past, to be passing through multiple cities every day.

If you ever find yourself between Banff and Calgary with an afternoon to kill, take a ride on Route 40 (a different Route 40) which rolls south through Peter Lougheed Park.  It’s a lovely are and contains the highest paved pass in Canada.  We learned this fact after climbing for miles and miles.  Had we known beforehand we would have avoided the route and missed a gorgeous area.  We’ve been told that it is Lance Armstrong’s favorite ride in North America, but he doesn’t ride it with a loaded touring bike, so we feel a but superior.  One the other hand, neither of us have won the Tour de France, so he has that going for him.

After finishing the better Route 40, we rolled south, slept in the dugouts of a unmaintained baseball field, watched a parade, and headed for the border.  We climbed over Chief Mountain and crossed back into the United States.  It’s nice to be back home, even if we’re thousands of miles from home.  A few miles down the hill we ducked into the woods and camped for the night.  The next day we decided to take off, so we found a campground, set up tents, and sat in the hot tub for most of the afternoon.

Yesterday morning, we woke up early and climbed up to Logan Pass in Glacier National Park.  Due to inane traffic rules, bicycles are not allowed to descend west on the Going-to-the-Sun road between 11 and 4.  We met up with a great group of riders from Seattle and hiked down to Hidden Lake.  It was odd to be active in a non-cycling capacity.  Last night we camped with them and had a great time hanging around the campfire, our first fire of the trip.

Today we rode out of the park and headed to Whitefish to visit the bike shop and get some minor (and some major) work done to our cycles.  In the next few days we’ll work our way down to Bozeman and then rest for a bit before heading into Yellowstone and Wyoming.

And now we reach the promise.  As you’ve been reading this, I sure you’ve thought “I want to see pictures of Banff” or “Let’s see that Highwood Pass” or “What did that lake look like?”  Sure we could have put pictures in, but that would have required us remembering to bring the camera to the coffee shop.  We didn’t.  Sorry.  I promise, really, to post all sorts of pictures.  Soon.  Really.  The part you need to know is that we’re alive, the bears haven’t won (though there was a close night-time encounter), and, on top of that, we’re back in the United States.