Thurs Oct 9th, Grand Ronde, OR -> Lincoln City, OR

Wed Oct 8th, Newberg, OR -> Grand Ronde, OR

Tues Oct 7th, Portland, OR -> Newberg, OR

Tues Sep 23rd - Oct 6th Portland!!!

Much fun was had by all.

Mon Sep 22, Biggs, OR -> Portland, OR

Rode down the Columbia River Gorge. Amazing scenery. Much like riding into a wind tunnel. 60+ miles of riding on the interstate. Mostly at night. But we're alive and in Portland!!!

Sun Sep 21, Fossil, OR -> Biggs, OR

Today we rode through huge wind farms - hundreds of wind turbines. In addition to some decent sized hills we had a stiff head wind most of the day.

Sat Sep 20, Dayville, OR -> Fossil, OR

Friday Sep 19th, Unity, OR -> Dayville, OR

We rejoined the TransAm trail today and stopped at one of the institutions of the trail - the Dayville Church. We had showers, tv, and a full kitchen to use. We had pasta for dinner, did our laundry, and watched "Surf's Up".

Thursday Sep 18th, Unity, OR

Rest day. Scott had so much fun celebrating his birthday yesterday that we've been bumming around town today. Our plan is to leave at daybreak tomorrow and try to make up some of the lost miles. The original plan called for Dayville, OR, 80 miles away, but hopefully we can blow through that tomorrow and be well on our way to the Columbia River Gorge. That does bring up an interesting question though - where will our next shower be? While using the gas station's wireless connection we have discovered that the Clear Creek Distillery is located in Portland and the Rogue Brewery has a location in Portland.

Even though we still have a few hundred miles to go to the coast we feel like we're almost there. Only yesterday did we realize that when asked "where are you heading"?, we can no longer reply "Oregon".

Wed Sep 17th, Vale, OR -> Unity, OR

Tues Sep 16th, Ontario, OR -> Vale, OR

Mon Sep 15th, Murphy, ID -> Ontario, OR

Sun Sept 14th - Mountain Home to Murphy, Idaho (60 mi)

Today was a lazy day. The desert sun really got to us. By the way, who knew Idaho had a desert? I certainly did not. Mountain Home AFB was having an air show, so we caught a glimpse. After 50 miles of biking, which included almost getting run off the road by some asshole in a big white pick-up truck, we were so hot and tired we decided to nap on the cold concrete of a rest stop for an hour. We only went 60 miles instead of the planned 83... what a cop out! Turned out great though. A wave from the helicopter pilot and everyone else in Murphy. The Murphy General Store owners were nice enough to let us camp on their lawn, use their firepit, and even gave us grilled zucchini from their home garden and some dutch oven pot roast. Can you believe the hospitality? Amazing people in amazing places.

And once again, no showers. We have protective coatings of dirt and grime. The 3 day old dirt prevents the 6th day dirt from caking on. We're thinking of getting showers tomorrow.

We credit Scott's USA bandana with
getting us great hospitality from everyone today.

Plateau city.

Nice campsite tonight.

Ohmmmmmmm....

Sat Sept 13th - Fairfield to Mountain Home, Idaho

Today we rode with Tony - the cyclist we met last night - for the day. An exceedingly skinny dude with a disproportionately bulky bike. But he can keep up! We rode through some desolate, hilly desert terrain... nothing like a swig of hot water from your canteen to crush your moral. But there's also nothing like an 11 mile, 6% downhill at the end of the day to lift your spirits. We parted with Tony at his Mountain Home motel - he is off to the Boise beat poetry scene. We were going to bike 23 miles further than Mountain Home, but it was close to sunset and ALL FOUR OF US got flat tires at the same time, near a lonesome church on the outskirts of town. We took that as a sign from above that we should call it a night. We camped on the church property without asking (they don't usually mind about that), ate our canned beans with tortillas and hot sauce, and washed it all down with PBR tall-boys. A beautiful sunset from an innocent swing set. We'll take care of those flats tomorrow morning. Let's just stare at the desert sky tonight...

Wayne's got it right:
married a rich lady, no kids, retired at 44.

The ironing is delicous.

Our desert bicycle gang.

The goat-head puncture fiasco.

Setting up camp outside the desert church.

Friday Sept 12th - Arco, ID to Fairfield, ID (90 mi)

Today we rode like monsters past the Craters of the Moon, through the sunset and into the night until we reached Fairfield Idaho. Is it a real town? Is it just a gas station with its own dot on the map? We weren't sure but we made it our goal. After some night time explorations of the town we found their city park, and it turned out to have another bicyclist. Sweet! His name was Tony and he was into the hip-hop poetry scene. We chatted briefly, but for the last 10 miles or so we were running on empty, so we hit the sack pretty quickly.

Kyle Rogers, chillin' outside our cheap KOA cabin.

Scott Porbansky, talking to his mommy.

Craters of the Moon.

Tony, bicyclist, runner and poet extraordinare.

Thurs Sep 11th, Idaho Falls, ID -> Arco, ID (73.4 miles)

Woke up 7:30, drinking coffee by 8:30, on the road at 10:00. Half a mile from the edge of town, Scott's rack broke, so back to a bike shop. Ann and Nicole told us about hot springs at Craters of the Moon, 90 miles away. Alas, we finally left town at 12:30. Good day for riding through the desert but we were tired when we hit Arco. The local KOA had a steal of a deal on a cabin, so we've finally showered and charged our electronics. Oh, good day for laundry too.

Wed Sep 10th, Palisades, ID -> Idaho Falls, ID (69 miles)

Free camping in the city park. No showers. Near train tracks.
6pm: Kyle "Why would they say no camping here? Its so perfect!"
3am: Kyle "Fucking sprinklers. That's why they say no camping here"

Tues Sep 9th, Jackson, WY -> Palisades, ID (65 miles)

Free camping! Cute dog, no shower.

Mon Sep 8th, Grand Teton National Park-> Jackson, WY

Breakfast at the local diner where our waitress, Allie, told us about her west coast bike trip. Turns out the Oregon and California coasts are beautiful! Adrian left for Jackson and we went to break camp. Met up at the Snake River Brewery and split a hotel room 5 ways. Penne + olive oil for dinner with the hotel's kitchenette.

Sun Sep 7th, Dubois, WY -> Grand Teton National Park, WY (50 mi)

Off to a late start to maximize our stay in the hotel but covered 20 miles and 1000 feet of climbing in about 1.5 hours, so we stopped for lunch. At lunch we saw a east bounder zip by, then Adrian, a west bound brit on a recumbent passed heading west. At the same time, Daniel and Ben pulled up. They are riding the Great Divide Trail from Canada to Mexico. We had a beer with them at lunch then continued on our climb. The peak promised us 17 miles of a 6% grade downhill but between the construction and the occasional hill, it didn't pass as fast as hoped. We met Adrian at the campsite at the end and built a fire and had some beers. Beautiful sunset.

Sat Sep 6th, Lander, WY -> Dubois, WY (80 miles)

Left at 12:30 but good day for riding - rolled in to Dubois just before sunset. It was Kyle's 21st birthday so his mom got him a hotel room. Excellent duck for dinner.

Fri Sep 5th, Lander, WY (3.5 miles)

Thurs Sep 4th, Jeffery City, WY -> Lander, WY (50 miles)

Wed, Sep 3rd, Rawlins, WY -> Jeffery City, WY (70mi)

Tues Sep 2nd, Riverside, WY -> Rawlins, WY (65 miles)

Mon Sep 1, Walden, CO -> Riverside, WY (55 miles)

Today started off well. It was a cold night camping in the city park. My sleeping bag is made for 20 degrees, but Aaron's is made for 55 degrees. Tonight it was below 55. Aaron slept with multiple socks, a hat, pants, and jacket and was still cold. I slept in my boxers and was sweating. So after a night of sleeping in the city park and 2 hours of hanging out in the gas station convenience store, we set off for Wyoming. We finally made it. We were crusing with a nice tail wind making good time. At one point we stopped for a snack and thought, "Isn't it weird that we're on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming?"




Then the cold set it. It hit us all at once, like a ton of ice-cold bricks. Grey ominous skies came hurtling towards us while we put on our rain gear. We decided to go for it instead of waiting it out, basically because we had no choice. There was no house or even tree in sight. We were 15 miles from the nearest town. So we went for it. Biking in the ice-cold Wyoming winds is harder than it sounds. And once it started raining that ice-cold Wyoming rain we started clutching our handlebars, keeping our heads down so the rain would hit our faces and go up our noses when we breathed. The wind was STRONG. And did I mention COLD? Staring at the odometer can be depressing at a time like that. 8 miles left of this? Just keep pedaling. Once we were 2 miles away I was thinking "Man that sucked back when there were 8 miles left." But we finally made it to the Bear Trap Cafe in Riverside. It had only been 50 miles, and we were planning on doing 110, but it was just too cold. Well it turned out to be a good thing. We met Scott and Kyle, who hitchhiked once the cold rain set in because the closest thing they had to bad weather gear was a garbage bag poncho. They are from New Jersey. They both work at bike shops and are crossing the country together. They do things a little differently than us, but it's cool. They don't wear biking shirts or gloves, and they eat gas station cream cheese danishes constantly. They are fun guys though and we split a cabin with them. We went through 5 six-packs between the 4 of us - with a couple going to Chris, the Continental Divide hiker.



Chris is the travelingest dude we've met so far. He is hiking the Continental Divide from Montana to Mexico. He's already biked cross country, and down the pacific coast, and has hiked the Appalachian Trail (in 3.5 months!). The best part of this trip is the people we've met. In fact, we're even planning on biking to Rawlins with Kyle and Scott tomorrow. That should be interesting...

Sun Aug 31st, Hot Sulphur Springs, CO -> Walden, CO

Every day that passes I have been wondering if we will see any more transam bikers, as we are getting late in the season. Today we met a biker from New York as we were breaking camp, on a recumbent bike. He claimed that since he was from New York, he would have no trouble sleeping near the train tracks. Of course, we couldn't put that to the test since he got a hotel room clear across town. I'm sure he slept just fine there.
Shortly after starting on our journey we ran in to an Australian couple (Scott and Liz) on their way to Kremmling. They liked to go about 45-50 miles in a day, but got on the road early, so I think they were enjoying their time.
After setting up camp in the city park in Walden, we saw two more bikers heading to setup camp there as well. Haven't talked to them yet, so more on them later.

Sat Aug 30th, Silverthorne, CO -> Hot Sulphur Springs, CO (60 miles)

Excellent russian food at the Stagecoach B&B. Shake'n'Burger in Kremmling was not as good as Five Guys, but better than one of the brewery burgers we had.

Fri Aug 29th, Breckenridge, CO -> Silverthorne, CO (20 miles)

Breakfast again at the Blue Moose Cafe, then headed downhill for the Pearl Izumi outlet in Silverthorne. We met another biker there, West-East, chatted for a while, then decided to get lunch. Since it was getting on, we decided to rest in Silverthorne and make Walden the following day. Much Law and Order ensued.

Thurs Aug 28th, Breckenridge, CO

Rest day. Had breakfast with Annette at Blue Moose Cafe, dinner at Backcountry Brewery in Frisco.

Wed Aug 27th, Breckenridge, CO

Rest day - had breakfast at the Crown Cafe, drank coffee, and enjoyed free wifi till the evening. Met up with John Forensic for dinner at the Dillon Dam Brewery.

Tues Aug 26th, Guffey, CO -> Breckenridge, CO (69 miles)

Crossed Hoosier Pass, the highest point on our trip and discovered that Guillermo's batteries were dead. Only camera phone photos. We met our first host from warm showers, Annette, when we arrived in Breckenridge. She was an amazing host - she let us stay two rest days! More to come:)

Mon Aug 25th, Florence, CO -> Guffey, CO (42.5 miles)

Sat Aug 23rd, Eads, CO -> Pueblo, CO (119 miles)

Riding through Arlington... Colorado, that is.

I bought a book on identifying wildflowers and trees. Staring at the same trees and flowers all day, it would be kind of embarrassing to not be able to name even one of them by the end of this trip.

One of the zillions of sunflowers in Eastern Colorado.

The sunflower family is one of the most evolutionarily advanced flower families in North America. The "petals" are actually rays, and the brown center is actually a collection of a whole bunch of mini-flowers, each with their own petals and ovaries. The sunflower is a compound flower. Bet you didn't know that!

Nice lady who gave us RO water and free electrolyte thingys.

Is it getting little cloudy?

It started to get cloudy in the distance near the end of the day, as we were approaching Pueblo. We began to see some major lightning, and when we were about 11 miles from our destination, I said to Aaron "You think we should put our rain gear on now?" "Not yet, we'll get too hot in it. Let's wait till it rains." Approximately 12 seconds after this exchange, raindrops the size of my saddle sore begin to pound us, while the raging winds from hell blew us over and made it nearly impossible to walk our bikes - let alone ride them - to the shelter of the abandoned house across the street. Under the shelter we put on our rain gear and waited out the storm. There was some intense cloud-to-cloud lightning, which kept us entertained while we waited. It was bad enough that cars were pulling off the road as well. Once the rain died down a bit we biked the last 11 miles - make that 15 once you count riding around town looking for our motel - to Pueblo Colorado. By the time we showered, ate dinner and went to sleep it was 1:00am. What a night!

Fri Aug 22nd, Scott City, KS -> Eads, CO (106 miles)

breakfast : imitation grape nuts with milk
lunch : chef salad aka cheese + ham + wilted lettuce. good honey mustard though
100 mile snack : beef stick (aaron), 5 starburst superball (gmo)
dinner : don't get me started

the first 25 miles we fought a pretty bad headwind so we stopped for an hour at the gas station in leoti. we met Kevin there, the local youth pastor, who bought us coffee and rockstar. very nice guy who has done bike kansas and wants to go cross country one day. picture coming asap.

Kevin, a Kansas youth pastor, bought us drinks at the gas station.
Heck of a nice guy.

After leaving Leoti, the wind lessened a little, or at least gusted from a variety of directions so we started to speed up. The last 10 miles before we hit Tribune were actually fairly calm weather. Since it was the last stop before 58 miles of no services, we took a lunch break. Sure enough, the wind was back when we started biking again. After only a few miles though it started to shift from the South West to the North and ever so slightly East. In other words, we picked up a small tailwind. We were cruising along pretty nicely when we encountered Sheridan Lake. The auto shop that sold sodas was no longer selling sodas but a brand new gas station had appeared in its place. We ran inside and grabbed a few drinks - Gatorade, v8 fusion, and of course, rockstar. Upon leaving we started discussing how we should make a commercial for rockstar. Almost the instant we left the gas station we were racing along at 20-25 mph and kept the pace for about half an hour. Yep, tailwind + downhill can't run forever. Still, it was nice to see what a few hundred feed could do for the trip. In the Appalachians 200 feet of vertical descent is wasted on your brake pads, but this was so gradual we rode it for just over 10 miles before we had to climb back. Oh, we actually gained about 1300 feet in elevation today - at 4200 or so right now, which is the highest so far.

Grain Elevator + House of Guy Who Runs It
= A Western Kansas Town

After the only diner in town screwed up our order we were so tired and upset that we decided to get a room at the econo lodge rather than pitch our tents in the dark. Not sure how dinner managed to take 2 hrs, but we want to make up the time somehow.

Fellow touring cyclist.
His wife was too exhausted to talk,
so they declined our offer to join us for dinner.
Or maybe we smelled bad. Can it be both?

Thurs Aug 21, Ness City, KS -> Scott City, KS (~60 miles)

We were on the road by 9:20 and excited by the prospects of completing our second century. Alas, Kansas is back to normal. After 4 hours of 10.8 mph average, we abandoned hope of making our goal of Tribune when a gust of wind actually knocked Guillermo off the road. I've got to go hop in the shower, so you'll have to wait a little bit to hear about the virtues of manure trucks.

Wed Aug 20th, Nickerson, KS -> Ness City, KS (130 miles)

What a day. We'll have to write more later. Excellent breakfast, candy from strangers, picking peaches in the middle of a city, best sandwiches of the route, pitching tent in the dark. What's missing you say? Showers perhaps? Ride time: 9 hours

Tues Aug 19th, Hutchinson, KS -> Nickerson, KS (12 mile)

We planned to go further this day but after dropping off the rental car and trying to attach my new handlebar bag, it was getting late. It is a 58 mile stretch of nothing after Nickerson, so we decided to stay at Hedricks Exotic Animal Farm. It's every bit as cool as Anna thought it would be. We're sorry that she missed it, but I think we'll have to come back and play with the kangaroos again.

Mon Aug 18th, Ft. Collins, CO -> Hutchinson, KS

Sun Aug 17th, Denver, CO -> Ft. Collins, CO

Sat Aug 16th, Denver, CO

Fri Aug 15th Hutchinson, KS -> Denver, CO

Thurs Aug 14th, Newton, KS -> Hutchinson, KS ( 40 mi)

Coming soon: Anna and Tony's last day of riding, Braum's most delicious concoction, Guillermo's new double kickstand.