Today we rode from Pinedale, Wyoming, US to Atlantic City, Wyoming, US. Sunny weather with thunderstorms in the afternoon. Road conditions included paved roads and gravel roads. Highlights of the day include sleeping in a nice cabin.
Riding statistics: on Sunday August 21, 2022, the 21st day on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route route, it took 12:18h (09:03h moving time), between 08:10 and 20:29, to cover 142 km (88 miles), including 1304 m (4278 ft) elevation gain, with an average speed of 16 km/h (10 mph). During today's ride the average temperature was 22 °C (74 °F) with a minimum of 14 °C (58 °F) and a maximum of 31 °C (92 °F).
Totals: So far, it took 6 days, 5 hours, 10 minutes and 59 seconds of cycling time to cover 2174 km (1351 miles), including 25412 m (83377 ft) elevation gain, with an average speed of 14.8 km/h (9.2 mph).
Leaving Pinedale
After a comfortable night at the Quality Inn, I got out of bed at 6:30am. This gave me time to make the bike ready, clean myself, and have breakfast in the hotel. Anna and I would meet in front of my motel at 8am. I got enough sucker at the motel breakfast, 2 toasts with jam, 2 waffels with sweetener, a yoghurt, fruits in juice, and three orange juices. And I took two mini muffins for later today. 8am, I was checked out and ready. No Anna yet, so I called the family to hear their voices. That was nice. Lovely to hear they enjoy their holiday as well. During the call Anna texted that they were doing some last minutes changes to breaks/gears. No problem, so I went to their hotel, which was only a few hundred meters away. Their we said goodbye to Anna’s boyfriend and we cycled to the grocery store. We had to stock up for several days since we would not be seeing any real grocery store before Rawlins, which is a town at the other side of the Great Basin. We bought quite some food and water. It was challenge to get it all on the bike, but of course we managed. We left town via a bike path which eventually ended and from there we had to use the shoulder of the main road. Which was pretty big (about 1.5m wide). After about 10km we would leave the paved road and start riding a gravel road.
Rolling hills
Today would be a day of rolling hills. Meaning that we do not have a big pass to climb, but many (many!) small hills to climb. And I can say, for me that is much more tiring than climbing a big hill with a big downhill. Earlier today we already saw another cyclist in the grocery store, he asked if we were heading south-bound as well. Yes, so we should see him down the road. And yes, eventually we catched up. He was Melvin from Newcastle in the UK. He saved up some money and quite his job for a sabbatical. He has until the end of October to stay in the US. After completing the Great Divide Mountain Bike Ride he would be renting a car and explore the Utah area. During the day we saw Melvin multiple times. It was a hard day, especially because we wanted to make it to Atlantic City, the last stop before the Great Basin. During the afternoon we saw again thunderstorms building up. During our lunch break we got caught by one. Got our rain gear, once we got it on, it took 1 minute and it stopped again. OK, rain gear of again otherwise it gets too warm. For several hours we have seen a thunderstorm in the far distance, it did not move at all. And, it was in the direction that we were heading. Eventually it started to rain again, so again rain gear on. Now it rained bit longer, but not that hard fortunately. The were some lightnings but somehow the thunderstorm started to dissolve and eventually was gone. So, all in all not too bad.
Atlantic City
Our main destination of today was (hopefully) Atlantic City. Not long after the thunderstorm we got on the highway, which we had to follow for about 10km. It was not a fun ride, a shoulder of about 1m, and cars that were allowed to go about 100km/h. I was glad when we turned of and where back on gravel. From there it was 9km to South Pass City, a small settlement before Atlantic City. Between the highway and South Pass City was a simple campground but we decided to move forward to make it to our preferred destination. Well, from the campground onwards it got harder. Very steep climbs that we not really expected anymore. It was hard to get to South Pass City. However, Sunday evening, not a single soul to be seen. There were also no camping, or other lodging options, so we continued to Atlantic City. Getting out of South Pass City was difficult, a large steep climb. They even made that uphill paved because otherwise it would be difficult for other vehicles as well. But, now sooner than expected, we arrived at Atlantic City. About 20 houses, with a few lodging options. We first went to the bar/restaurant/mercantile/… because it was still open (we arrived around 7:30pm). Unfortunately the kitchen was already closed, but we could select options from the menu for the deep fryer because that one was still hot. So it became chicken tenders with fries. Just before we checked Wild Bills B&B, they also have cabins, but they were completely full. On our maps there was also another contact number, so we called that one. It was fro a couple that rented out a cabin. We decided to take that one. After our ‘dinner’ we went to the address and the woman showed us the cabin. It was a nice one, living room / kitchen, 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. We had a great place to sleep.
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