7/5/14

DAY 8 - RELAXING IN YELLOWSTONE

With one week down and around 850 miles in the bag, we took our first rest day today. Since we stayed last night in Madison campground just inside Yellowstone, we were able to tour around the park a bit and get to Yellowstone Lake where we're staying tonight (in a hotel! with beautiful showers!) and enjoy the scenery, which has been a little tough when we're trying to fit 8 hours of biking into each day. That's definitely one of the big surprises for us on this trip: not nearly enough time to relax and sight-see.


We slept in until the luxurious hour of 8:45 am, which after a bunch of nights with <8 hours of sleep was very needed. Though we felt groggy when we woke up because of the late hour, we hopped on our bikes for a quick spin to get from Madison to the Lake Yellowstone hotel to check in. It was a great idea to take a relaxed ride through Yellowstone with no pressure to get any distance done, as it allowed us to see some waterfalls, hot springs, and bison.



Yellowstone is however full of tourists, which is a little annoying when it comes to trying to find a reasonable place to eat or enjoy the scenery as we bike (so many cars - at least they drive slowly!), but we managed to hit up some general stores along the way for lunch.


As we were pulling into the lodge to check in, Don noticed that his left shoe wouldn't come out of his pedal. (For people who don't bike or use clip-in pedals, we're using different variants of shoes that have cleats on the bottom and pedals that we clip into when we're riding - this lets us get a full pedal stroke instead of just using our quads pushing down) This was perfect timing for something like this to happen, as it would have been incredibly inconvenient to have this kind of problem when we had to keep riding. Don just untied his foot from his shoe and left his shoe attached to the pedal - it turned out that one of the screws holding the cleat onto the shoe had come loose and fallen off. We didn't bring an extra screw for this so we were worried about what we could possibly do.

Luckily, Don and I headed downstairs to talk to the concierge after we checked in, and he directed us to another Yellowstone employee who happened to be an avid cyclist himself! Not only did this guy (named Wim) have exactly the screw we needed, but he also gave us a ton of advice on biking in Yellowstone. Apparently all the volcanic rock in the park will damage our bikes if we don't clean off our brake pads and rims after we leave - it sticks onto different parts of the bike and will carve grooves into the metal and carbon. Definitely some important advice - thanks!


Not too much else to report, but we are excited to sleep a full 8 hours in comfort tonight and get an early start to riding in the morning.



5 comments:

  1. Michael and I enjoy reading your blog and seeing your pictures every day. What an amazing adventure!
    Don, we miss you back in Boston. Good luck everyone.
    Hiroko

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  2. More people are reading your blog than you realize. Wish they would comment. When you post comes up, a flurry of texts go around. "The next post is UP!" We love every minute of following you. Find Friends is a godsend for a concerned mother... Ride safe!

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  3. enjoying following your progress

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  4. Anonymous7/10/2014

    Stinking awesome pics! Love reading about your progress. Keep crankin' those pistons. :)
    PHB

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