TAT 2018 Post 04 07/02/18

Day 2 completed. This turned out to be a long tiring but exciting ride. We left Pocatello, UT at 06:30 am heading to pick up the TAT around American Falls 25 miles away. No motels available at American Falls therefore the 25 mile detour to Pocatello. This added that 25 miles to an already long ride to become 220 miles total. We weren’t too sure what the terrain would be on this stretch, but it turned out to be much more demanding than we expected.

The TAT from American Falls to Arco is around 100 miles of rolling hills, dual track road full of ruts, sand and occasional gravel. There is absolutely no people, buildings or civilization in these 100 miles. The scenery was great, but the amount of attention required to stay out of the ruts and deal with the other hazards wore us out so that when we met up with the support tuck at Arco, most if not all the riders just sat in the shade and tried to get their strength back. We knew we had another 100 miles to ride through the mountains and I for one would gladly have put that off for the next day. We got snacks and drinks at the gas station since there wasn’t any fast food places in Arco.

After getting gas and resting a bit we headed out for the 2^nd half of the ride into the mountains. This section was totally different with lots of mountains, switch backs and steep docents. I

I’ve included a pic of our track and the elevation change for the 220 miles. You will notice that all the steep terrain was on this 2^nd half of the ride. We went over Bear Creek pass at 7500 feet and though that would be the highest for the day; wrong. We then climbed a second mountain pass (no name) that topped pout at 9000 feet. The wind was chilly and blowing a gale at the top. Considering we started todays ride around 4500 feet you can understand it was an interesting ride.

I took lots of pictures and have posted a few so you get a taste of what the overall ride included.

Some key events:

I’m in trail position 6 on a narrow dual-track with foliage right up to the trail when a big animal (looked like a badger) ran out of the weeds right in front of my bike. I could see the look on his/her face and it was as surprised as I was. I slammed on my brakes and it dodged my front tire and ran into the weeds on the other side of the trail. Close call.

A short time later we were passing some wet lands and I look over to my left and there was a Moose standing in the water. 100 feet later I see another larger one in the brush. I’ve seen Moose next to the road in Alaska and Canada, but this is the first time for the lower 48.

Lots of cows in the free-range areas and one almost got Jason. At another time a bull was right in front of the cattle guard we needed to use and wasn’t really worried about letting us pass. Finally, it slowly walked away so we could get buy.

Rode through the Craters of the Moon park so captured some pics of the large lava flow. Impressive.

We had a couple of water crossings but nothing significant except Woodrow managed to get his bike across the water ok then sank it up to the axle in a mud filled rut in the road just past the water.

We have a 155-mile day tomorrow through the mountains and expect more of what we saw today. We end at Boise tomorrow and hope the ride is relatively easy, so we can get a needed rest. So far Idaho has been a beautiful place to ride with lots of different terrain.

We did have our first bike dropped at the water crossing. Matty was fooling around in the grass and got into some very wet, muddy spots and the bike was just laid down in the grass. It took both Matty and Woodrow pushing to get it back on the trail.

Enjoy the Pics.

Ride Safe!