86 miles ridden – 1795 feet climbed.

There are good days and bad days on these trips and as bad as the 100 miles to Twin Falls was, today’s ride was brilliant. The Snake River looked stunning as the sun rose:

Not only was it cooler – around 30C rather than 37C! – but we had a helpful and steadily increasing tailwind. This meant that the last 20 or so flat miles were covered at well over 20 mph and made up for the delays caused by Darin having four punctures – three in a single incident. 

The first long stretch was 20 miles along an absolutely straight road through scrub with nothing other than cattle and one car for us to share the space with. It was surreal to see a road literally stretching until it disappeared into heat shimmer at the foot of distant mountains. I expected to see characters from The Unforgiven or The Outlaw Josey Wales but with us there it was more like Blazing Saddles (no apology). 

As we neared the end of the road the landscape changed to huge fields with a couple crop-dusting planes and then we had the first of two sections on an Interstate (I86) which was just like I84 but quieter. With the excellent road surface and increasing tailwind we got up to a good speed.
Second SAG stop was under some trees in the town of American Falls. Heather and I waited to Darin and Murray who had been delayed by Darin’s punctures and we then sat and enjoyed a relaxed lunch under the trees, repaired Darin’s 4th puncture and then headed off on the last leg to Pocatello where we arrived about 13:45. The hotel was not ready for us so we went and had lunch while watching Italy vs Germany until around 3PM we could at last shower.

Today is day 13 of 50 and we have covered 925 miles out of 3600. We are a quarter of the way through our journey. Wow.