Day 35: Togwotee to Dubois, Wyoming

In the morning, I caught another pilot car up through the next mile of road construction. I found that construction continued on and off further up the pass. I rode past tall cranes drilling blast holes and stockpiles of corrugated steel drainage pipes. Several miles up, I reached another pilot car zone.


Installing more internet

I'd just missed a column of cars. I walked to the head of the line, where a woman in reflective gear and hardhat waved me over. With time to kill, we struck up a conversation.



I learned that she'd owned a construction and cleaning businesses and rental properties, and was only doing road work three days a week so she could spend time with her kids, aged 22, 13, and 9. I was impressed by her industry and also her age, as I wouldn't have put her at much over 30, and I said as much. In reply, she extolled the virtues of a quarter cup of formaldehyde every day.



My next ride took me straight to the top of the pass, depositing me in a pretty mountain valley. In all, I'd only had to ride about half of Togwotee. Just the other side of the pass was Windy River Lake, where I stopped for an early break.



The eastern side of Togwotee is a long, gentle thirty mile slope, tearing through outfits faster than any quick change artist, from high mountain valleys and lakes, to craggy peaks, to scrub brush, to painted desert, and on down to the town of Dubois, which rests along the Wind River on the edge of desert.

Thirty miles...

I encountered more road work on the outskirts of Dubois, as I rode through almost a mile of freshly laid tar, which coated my wheels, first with tar, and then with a fine layer of micro-gravel, which became embedded in my treads. It was along this patch that two things happened simultaneously: 1) I felt a springy metallic crack, and 2) I heard a hardhat that I'd just passed yell, "Hey!" I stopped to look back, first wondering if I'd lost something, and then wondering if the hardhat wanted me off the road. Perhaps I should've waited for a pilot car? But no, he yelled again, "You're ok! Go on!", and I couldn't see any parts missing, so I continued into Dubois.



I stopped for a late lunch at a park in Dubois. While walking my bike through the park, my seat folded up and back, opening like the hungry mouth of PacMan. I caught it and wrestled it forward again, and quickly discovered the problem. Of the two bolts that hold the seat to the mount which wraps the post, one was unscrewed, and the other had been sheared off, leaving its broken head in the channel. So now, in addition to missing chain links and a bent derailleur, I had a broken seat. Chains and derailleurs can be found, but the recumbent's seat mount is a specialized item. It was time to call for help.

I called Mary and asked her to make a trip to Angle Lake Cyclery for parts. It was too late in the day for overnight delivery, so she would have to ship them the next day. There were no bike shops in Dubois, but there was one in Lander, 75 miles down the road. I believed that all my broken parts would last for one more day. Meanwhile, I hunkered down for the night in Dubois. With virtually no services between Dubois and Lander, I would have to make the 75 miles in one big gulp. I found a KOA with reasonably priced cabins, showers, and a monkey hut covered swimming pool, and swam a few laps before dinner and bed.