Today saw two orders of business. The first was to catch up to yesterday's goal of Green River. The second was to bike what I had planned for today, which was Wellington or Price. Last night, I camped in BLM (Bureau of Land Management, not Black Lives Matter) territory, so I only had the water I carried on me. Actually, a bit less, since one of my water bottles wasn't closed properly, and leaked overnight.
My plan was to take the dirt road back to the highway, and bike until I hit the junction between route 191 and interstate 70, where there was a gas station. The ride was unusually tough, whether is was because I didn't drink enough, didn't eat enough breakfast, or slept in a tent in yesterday's clothes, or some combination of the above. Eventually, I arrived at the gas station, with about 500mL of water left.
It was closed. Fortunately for me, the automatic gas pumps were working, and cars were pulling in and out to fill their tanks. I asked around, and was very quickly offered some ice-cold water. Mom, I know you're reading this, and I want you to know that at no point was I far from passing traffic. Google suggested a shortcut through some dirt roads, but I specifically chose not to take it so that in case I had a flat, or some other breakdown, I would have people around me.
With the help of these strangers, I got to Green River, and ate a huge lunch by the riverside
The road to Wellington was speculated to be a hard one. 500m uphill, 80km, and nothing but the ghost town of Woodside in the middle. I restocked water, caffeinated myself, and was on my way. An hour after I started on what was supposed to be a four and a half hour ride to Wellington, the wind started. A strong headwind, of course. I battled the wind until I got to the ghost town of Woodside:
The only thing there was a guy selling exotic jerky in Rocky's Jerky Stand. The strange thing is that I've heard of him all the way in Moab, where people were saying that there's a jerky stand up on this road. There was a jerky stand, a trailer where Rocky lives, and a port-a-potty where Rocky goes to the bathroom. I bought some elk jerky, as I've never tried elk before, and got a cold bottle of water from Rocky. Rocky really was in the middle of nowhere. Thirty miles from Green River, and thirty miles from Wellington. I put on sunscreen, and was then on my way for about five minutes, in strong headwind, when I got a flat.
Now, normally, flats don't bother me. I patch flats all the time, and by now a flat tire is just a mild inconvenience. It makes me lose some momentum, takes up a bounded amount of time, and sometimes gives me an excuse to stop for a snack. Sometimes flats can come in inconvenient places, like that time I was climbing a big hill on a two-lane highway that had no shoulder because of construction. That one sucked. When I can't repair the hole in the tube, I just replace the tube no questions asked. Today, however, I started to run into problems. My patch-kit was not working. The glue might be denatured from the heat, the patches might be too old, or it might just be a bad case of the Mondays. Regardless, it's been a while since I got a patch to stick.
And I was running out of inner tubes.
Of course, I still had to try to patch the flat tire. The hole was tiny, and took a while to find. I found it by blowing up the inner tube with my pump and listening for the hiss. As I was doing this, my pump broke. Broke is a strong word here, as nothing broke, but rather, things that should move didn't and things that did move shouldn't. What could I do? I started taking apart the pump in the hopes that in the middle of the desert, I'll be able to figure out how a bike pump works on the inside, and that I'll be able to repair it too. Time was ticking, as the wind had already slowed me down enough to make my arrival in Wellington coincide with the sunset.
I unscrewed what I could, accidentally popped an o-ring out of place, got my hands covered in some strange, grey grease, and closed up the pump again. The reason my pump started working again will be joining the other great mysteries of Americana. Bigfoot, lizard-people, Area 51, that weird clicking sound coming from my pedals when I pedal uphill in certain gears, and the repaired bike pump.
Anyway, I found the hole, sanded the area around it, applied the glue, pressed the patch to the area, and nothing stuck. I pulled the patch off, waited a few seconds, and put it back on to the now stickier glue. The patch stuck perfectly. I now realize that I've been patching inner tubes wrong my entire life. I now look up videos on how to patch an inner tube with a patch-kit. You're supposed to apply glue, then let it dry for a minute before putting on the patch. I now question my sanity - how could I be doing this wrong when I've been following the instructions on my patchkit? I now dig through my bags to find the patchkit. I now read the instructions. They are wrong.
With the inner tube patched, I rode without rest through the mountains
and into the sunset.
After all of this, and the altitude, and the cold, and the mood, I checked into a motel for the night.
Today I biked for 150km over the course of just under eight and a half hours.