16th August, Ely to Euraka-ka-ka-ka – 79 miles

We wanted to get breakfast before our day of no stops.  The only place open early enough, 6am, was a Mcdonalds.  After many many Mcdonalds breakfasts I’m a bit sick of them.  I swore to myself this would be the last as after eating it I felt so sick, Christian was the same.

Today had 3 more summits to do which were much the same as yesturday.  Apart from that there was nothing to see. I think Nevada only has 1 type of plant and its a small bushy yellow thing so that got boring pretty quickly too.  I was on the lookout most of the day for a rattle snake as we had been warned about them and would have loved to see one in the flesh so that kept me occupied for a lot of the day.

We got to Eureka in good time and headed off to look for the pool so we could shower.  We got there to find a sign that said ‘closed Mondays’.  A bit annoyed we stood there for several minutes.  A car pulled up and a guy about our age asked if we were ok.  We told him we were hoping the pool would be open so we could shower.  Turned out he was a lifeguard at the pool and could unlock it for us! The Lang/Schneider luck hadnt run out yet!

After the shower we headed to the Sherrif’s office to ask if we could camp in the local park and we had seen a nice bit of grass.  We couldnt but we could camp on some grass which was behind the local casino.  This ‘bit of grass’ was a campers haven.  The grass was perfect, it had clean toilets and a power socket!  Thrilled with ourselves after the luck we had we went to the casino, but only for dinner, it was a great big portion and I went to bed happy as larry.

15th August, Route 50, the loneliest road in America – 61 miles

Route 50 is famously the loneliest road in America, its the road we will be taking throughout Nevada.  This morning was the first time we joined it.  Looking though the maps recently, Nevada looks to be kinder than Utah.  All of the towns are nicely spread out, about 60-80 miles apart.

This set us up with a good routine that we started this morning.  The restaurant the night before opened at half 6 for breakfast.  We were there at half 6 and it still hadnt opened.  I think the lady that ran it wanted a lie in but maybe our knocks on the door woke her up!  It was a cracking breakfast though and I felt fuelled up ready to go!

Nevada is a mixture of the straight roads of Kansas and the mountains of Colorado.  In total, there were 14 summits we would have to climb in Nevada, averaging about 3 per day. 

The first one today was kind and a gradual climb, I felt good for doing it without having to stop.  The best suprise was yet to come.  After going over the peak, it led to a valley.  From here the road is stright out before you and you can see for at least 20 miles, dead straight, going all the way up to the mountain range the other side.  I have never seen anything like this before.  Normaly on a flat the furthest you can see is maybe 5 mile ahead, due to the curvature of the Earth, but because of the gradual decent and then gradual ascent, the 20 miles is very decieving.  For example I looked up to see a tiny dot in the distance, maybe it was a cow.  It turns out it was a car coming towards me.  It was probably going about 70mph and didnt go past me for about 10 minutes!  And I could watch it the whole way.  This does get demorilising when I relaise I am going 14 mph and the same distance would take me more like an hour.  Although amazing to see it was mentally very hard.

The summits are smaller than Colorado, ranging from 6000-7000ft so the cycling was a bit more enjoyable.

We got to our town for the day, Ely.  Christian went to a bike shop to get some stuff.  It was there a child asked for his autograph, obviously mistaking him for someone else.   Instead of saying who he really was, Christian signed the kids notpad as Mark Cavendish, he lied to a poor little child, it made for a funny story though!

My day was later made by a family outside a mexican restaurant.  They had doggy bagged their food and had left it on top of their car.  We watched eagerly and the guy accelerated off quickly and the food went flying into the road, I laughed for a good 30 minutes, laughed myself to sleep!

14th August, Finally into Nevada – 84 miles

The last night spent in Utah was an interesting one.  The campsite we have found turned out to be concrete ground and the owner wasnt there.  So the only option left for us was to find some grass, pitch up and hope the police wouldnt come knocking asking what we were doing.

We woke up having not been disturbed by the police so got away with some stealth camping.  Today we would be getting to Nevada, it couldnt come soon enough.  Nevea I had thought would be a real test.  But after meeting a fair few East bound cyclists, they had all said great things about Nevada so I was no longer worried.

I was so happy to eventualy reach the Nevada sign that I cycled right up to it and gave it a big hug, even if it was just a metal post.

Our town for the day was called Baker and we had arrived in time for the annual horse shoe throwing contest.  All the locals were there and boy can they throw horse shoes.  A useless skill anywhere esle but here it can earn you glory!  The town had a really friendly feel and even though it was not far from the Utah border it felt different.  Its amazing how different each of the states so far has been.  It almost like each state is a country in itself the second you cross the border.  Thats the great thing about America is that it has so much to offer, every type of terrain and weather, a real test but it keeps it so interesting the whole way as there is constantly something new around each corner.

Baker had a couple of good home food restaurants and the first time I had pasta in a while and it was great, no doubt I would feel the benefits of the good meal tomorrow.  I went to bed smiling, to be in Nevada, the penultimate state.

8th – 13th August, Utah. – 441 miles

Utah and I didnt get on.  It was as simple as that.

Dont get me wrong the scenery is absolutly amazing, the most stunning and dramatic of the trip.  But from a cyclists perspective, Utah is a nightmare.  This is why I have only granted Utah one blog post.  I decided this during a particularily brutal uphill where I was so angry I didnt want to waste too much time writing about this state, so I wont.

Its a shame I found it so hard as I couldnt, at the time, appreciate the amazing scenery it has to offer.  Hopefuly I will look back at the photos and remember how beautiful it was.  Actualy no I wont becasue Utah broke my camera, the bastard.  It blew up sand right into the lens and that was the end of that, no more photos.  From now on I will have to borrow Christians.

I should explain why I found Utah so hard.  Firstly it is one of the least populated states.  This is because it is canyon country and a desert so the conditions make it harder to live in.  So this meant there were very long stretches without anything, not even water.  The longest being a 128 mile day that had only one little store half way which was luckily open, otherwise it would have been dire times.

All the days were the same, get up at 5, struggle for a whole day cursing and getting angry at nothing, arrive at destination and crash out.  The one good thing was that it was cold at night so we could camp the whole way across which was great as we had to rely a bit too much on motels in Colorado.

This was also the state that I noticed how much a lack of food can affect your body.  Because we had to carry all our food we could not have as substantial lunches as we had been having.  The effect is profound and the feeling of not eating enough calories is hard.  Thats another thing about Utah, it was very expensive.  The priciest of all the states, mainly becasue its a tourist state.  Breakfast was near on 20 dollars so we also ate less due to money worries aswell.

Canyons make for great views but they also mean very steep hills, up to 14% gradient which is a lot, some lorries would not get up this.  Another reason for not liking Utah.

So that just about sums up Utah for me.  I would say it nearly broke me, the closest I had come to tears so far, but I knew in the back of my mind, once it was over then Nevada and California would be a breeze compared to this hell hole!

7th August, Rico to…….Utah… – 97 miles

This morning to my relief my legs felt ok.  It reminded me how amazing the human body can be, aslong as you give it the right stuff it really can go through a lot and repair itself overnight.  It was the first time I’ve had to use all of my clothes to keep warm.  I even had my tracksuit trousers on rolled up to the knee, a great look!

The day started well with 40 miles of gradual downhill so manged to do this all before breakfast.  Due to the exhasting day yesturday I was constantly hungry all day, breakfast was 2 bagels and cream cheese and a breakfast burrito and I was still hungry!

During the past few days we had met various cyclists who had just been through Utah, they had all said the same thing, it sucks.  Today we would be going into Utah, I was sceptical to say the least as I had found Colorado hard enough and Utah was meant to be harder.

The last 30 miles were long rolling hills, after a while they get very tedious and to make matters worse, as we crossed the border it started to rain and get very windy making things even slower and more painful.  It was the most miserable border picture I had taken but really didnt care as Utah hadnt given us the best of starts.

Took shelter in a restaurant and had an early dinner.  It was a great restaurant and had the most amazing Raspberry lemonade.  Christian yet again ordered a meal without looking at the price and literally ‘paid the price’ as his bill was huge.  He didnt get over it for a few days, all I would need to say is ’40 dollars’ and he would get angry!

Due to the last few days and knowing we had some tough days ahead of us we decided to make tomorrow a rest day.  The next town was 20 miles away so we would go there early tomorrow and have the rest of the day free.

It was raining heavily again so we got another motel room, camping was the last thing I wanted to be doing.

6th August, Last of the Rocky’s – 87 miles

Woke up at the Shine’s to find the washing waiting outside for us.  Like I said in the last post I like clean laundry, and the Shine’s smelt amazing, the best of the trip so far.  Mind you with a name like Shine they had to really.

We had breakfast with Scott before he went to work and he gave us some energy bars to snack on during the day.  One of the bars was called a Luna bar and meant for women only.  I was keen to see what effect it would have on me but would have to wait till later in the day.

Today would see us doing the last of the Rocky mountain hill climbs.  One pass was 10,000ft the other about 9000ft.  Both were really really hard and took a lot of grunting to get up.  At one point I was overtaken by a 68 year old man on a bike, how demorilising, his bike wasnt loaded up though. 

Around miday I had my Luna bar.  As I was eating it I wondered whether in a few hours I would start having mood swings and complain about my breasts being sore and maybe even have a bit of a hissy fit, what with all the oestrogen I was chewying on.  However this didnt happen so maybe the Luna bar wasnt only for women after all!

About half way up the second mountain I came to a bit of a wall.  Without a doubt it was the second hardest day of all and it was a massive struggle to get to the top.  But once at the top it was a massive relief and I celebrated with a brownie I had saved. 

All that was left for the day was a 15 mile downhill to a place called Rico.  Even though I didnt have to pedal at all I felt completly empty and was worried about how my legs might feel tomorrow.

The only choice of accomodation was a hotel.  It was a lovely old building and we both thought it must be an old mansion of some kind.  Instead we found out it was an old brothel – must have been an expensive one.  Went to bed later than meant to but ‘River Monsters’ was on TV and its my new favourite and couldnt force myself to miss it!

5th August, The Shine’s – 66 miles

Looking at the maps last night we noticed another cyclists only lodging in a city called Montrose.  All of the others so far had been great sp we set this as the target for the day.

After the brutal climb yesturday my legs were feeling pretty exhasted and even though the hills were more rolling my energy levels were sapping.

Towards the end of the day there was one last 4 mile climb which turned out to be better than first thought and the inevitable downhill was one of the best yet.  It was 12 miles and not super steep so didnt need to use the brakes.  This made it a great cruise and I put in the iPod and had a great time singing along to Badly Drawn Boy.

The cyclists only lodging was at a families house; Scott and Jenny Shine.  As we had finished the day slightly early at about 2 o’clock, we knew we couldnt go to see our hosts until half 7.  This left us a few hours  to rest.  We did the usual of going to the public librabry to use the internet.  Christian then had a slow puncture so I sat around whiles he fixed that. 

Montrose was a big city so we had high hopes of finsing a Chinese buffet.  Being the lucky boys we are we found one and had a feast of the usual.  All Chinese buffets across America have exactly the same stuff, and its all good.

It still wasnt half 7 by the time we finished so we had a look around the main street.  It just so happened that there was a music and local goods fair going on so had a wander round there.  Most of the music was country style and performed by old people but it was still fun to watch and the locals were loving it!

We found the Shine’s house and for the first time it was a young couple that were the hosts.  A few years ago Scott and Jenny had done a bike tour of themselves, doing 5000 miles on a tandem!  Like us they had had some funny experinces along the way so we had a lot to chat about.  We slept in their garage which saved us putting up the tents and we got to do a wash which pleased me as I was becoming very anal about doing laundry regularily!