Today we rode from Salida, Colorado, US to Tomichi Creek Trading Post (Sargents), Colorado, US. Sunny weather with little clouds. Road conditions included paved roads and different sorts of gravel roads (smooth & difficult surfaces). Highlights of the day include having a lunch break on Marshall Pass and meeting all kinds of different people.
Riding statistics: on Tuesday August 30, 2022, the 30th day on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route route, it took 07:42h (05:03h moving time), between 09:26 and 17:08, to cover 67 km (42 miles), including 1125 m (3691 ft) elevation gain, with an average speed of 13 km/h (8 mph). During today's ride the average temperature was 32 °C (94 °F) with a minimum of 20 °C (70 °F) and a maximum of 44 °C (118 °F).
Totals: So far, it took 8 days, 18 hours, 26 minutes and 37 seconds of cycling time to cover 3089 km (1919 miles), including 36251 m (118940 ft) elevation gain, with an average speed of 14.9 km/h (9.3 mph).
Leaving Salida
We did not set an alarm clock. Our planned ride for today is only about 60+km (although we quite some elevation). The room was warm (no airco) and we were just laying. My clock showed 6:20am and the both of us did not feel in getting up and starting to pack our gear and bikes yet. Eventually at 7:45am we got out of our beds and began getting everything ready. Anna went to the gas station nearby for some breakfast ‘food’, and I used my new Italian bread with Salami + yoghurt + banana + Frappachino as my breakfast. Again, enough to start the day. Yesterday we bought quite some food in the Safeway for the coming days. Of course that all needs to be stored on the bike somewhere. Fortunately you get some experience during such a trip such I managed to get it all stored. Fortunately the day started warm already so I did not need my puffy jacket (because otherwise I store it in my framebag during the morning, now I could store it in my seatbag for the whole day, making room in the framebag). Around 9:15 we were ready to leave our motel and start our ride for today. Salida is a nice town, if we had some more time available, we might have stayed here for an extra day. While riding out of town we met Eric. When Eric approached us, he asked if we were Anna & Eef. Yes, we are. He had heard about us from a friend, Chuck, which we met earlier at the Brush Mountain Lodge. And we also heard about Eric from Chuck when we were there. Nice to meet each other and exchange stories.
Marshall Pass
About 10km from our motel, a while outside Salida, we started the climb towards Marshall Pass around 10am. This is a climb with a distance over 31km and an elevation gain of 1100+ meters. Meaning that it is not really steep (average of 4%) but it is just long. Just as Boreas Pass, this climb used to be a railroad, therefor the limited steepness. It took us about 4 hours to do the climb, including some breaks we took. It was cool to see how we got higher and higher. At first we circled around the same valley so it was obvious. It was also nice to see (and smell) the forest, which included a lot of pines and aspens. Some sections of the road were difficult. Someone was working on improving the road surface but we were there before he was finished so partly it was a lot of loose sand and rocks. During the climb we saw Eric a couple of times during our breaks. At the top of the pass we enjoyed our longer lunch break. I had again my Italian bread with Salami & Nutella!! During the break we met several people. Including hikers of the Colorado Trail, other mountain bikers doing daily rides (electrical!), and hikers who parked their 4×4 at the top and hiked some trails over there. Around 2pm we started our downhill, which was again another +/- 25km and ended up at Sargents. During the downhill Eric caught up with us and with the three of us we rode to Sargents.
Sargents (Tomichi Creek Trading Post)
The downhill ended in Sargents, which is a place with only a dozen houses, a gas station + little shop + small RV park. We all went to the bar/restaurant and ordered a big salad and something cold to drink. Then we all arranged a camping spot on the RV park for the night. It included a shower and we could do some laundry on-site. We set up our tents at a patch of grass next to a small stream, picnic tables and fire pits. Could be worse! I changed my chain. I was still using the (new) one I mounted at home just before I left. It did well, but now I want to make sure it does not wear out the other components, so I decided to replace it with a new one (which I took with me because of worldwide logistics). All good. Maybe I need to replace my back tire in a couple of days when we ‘re in a town with a bike shop. I’ll see how the wearing is at that moment.
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