We woke up in the morning and got ready, heading out with Dom for the day.... We had risen much later than his typical 6am start so he had been editing more Instagram content while we slumbered on. It started thundering and raining a bit while we were still sleeping but Ziven had smartly tucked away my socks and pants in my top rack bag the night before so my clothes were nice and dry in the morning. We all started in our rain jackets and colder weather gear but the storm moved away behind us and it quickly began to get warmer. After about an hour of rolling hills, we reached the summit for the day and descended into a huge valley, excited for the rest of the day being net downhill. Rock formations appeared out of the plains on either side as we zoomed downhill and the landscape became more pastoral as it flattened out and turned westward. Hopping from pavement patch to pavement patch, we stopped along a small creek for a longer snack break, Dom devouring 3 or so boiled eggs in one sitting after eating 4 for breakfast and more during the morning’s ride. We trundled along the flat farmland and stopped for a quick dip in a nice river by a historic monument marker. Dom filmed a “cold plunge” for his instagram reels while Ziven and I loped around in the water, not wanting to get our bike shorts wet out of consideration for our butts and saddle sores. We dried off quickly in the heat and I scarfed down a snack to avoid bonking as we narrowed in on Boulder, Wyoming.

Approaching the tiny tiny town, the roads and farmland were almost identical to a pre-development Jay Road in Boulder, Colorado minus the Flatirons. Feeling weirdly at home in this place I’d never been, we eventually pulled into “town” which consisted of a tiny post office, a bar/gas station, and the motel that Dom was staying at with his girlfriend, who would drive up from Jackson Hole that night. Disappointed that he had already booked the motel room despite having ample time and fresh legs to go the last 8 miles into the much nicer, bigger and more interesting Pinedale, Dom put on a brave face and said he would survive a few hours alone in Boulder. Ziven and I stocked up on lemonade and mega rice crispy treats and rushed to get started towards Pinedale before the rain caught up with us again. As we pulled out onto the last section on the shoulder of the main highway, we started getting pelted with rain and hail pellets. Stopping to pull on rain jackets, we decided to try to go faster despite the vicious headwind so we could get out of the rain as soon as possible.

In a fateful move, Ziven removed his hearing aids to avoid any water damage. To take advantage of Ziven riding in front of me and blocking the wind, I pulled up close behind and was drafting quite well for a few miles. However, the smooth albeit wet sailing did not last. I clipped Ziven’s back tire with my front and, feeling a disturbance in his wheel and thinking that the tent poles had fallen down (a not uncommon occurrence that required quick stopping to avoid the poles getting stuck in his spokes), Ziven braked. Hard. Being an inch or so off his back wheel, I tried to swerve, hit his back pannier with my front wheel, and jackknifed in the middle of the lane. Somehow, I twisted and hit both my knees on the ground incredibly hard. Stunned but realizing I was in the middle of the highway, I tried to hobble and scamper at the same time, lifting my bike and dragging it to the shoulder before collapsing, holding my knees and crying while traffic zoomed past. Shocked by the incredible pain in my knees and unable to stop crying from that and the near miss with death by pickup truck, I sat on the shoulder while Ziven propped me up, trying to be helpful and saying that I should take an Ibuprofen while I was sobbing incoherently. Eventually pulling myself together, we pushed off again and soon a lovely bike path appeared on the side of the highway and we were able to get a little bit off the highway. Blood flowed freely from my knees, attracting mosquitos when Ziven stopped to comfort me, still hyperventilating and crying about being almost squashed. After an agonizing mile or so I did end up taking that Ibuprofen and poor Ziven was forced to go 5 miles an hour with me on a flat bike path at the end of a very short day due to my broken knees (or that’s what they felt like anyway).

Those 8 miles from Boulder to Pinedale took quite a while, suffice to say. We routed through town to our Warmshowers, a beautiful house with its own pond and a garage overflowing with hundreds of bikes, and a huge glamping tent in the front lawn with prayer flags. We stashed our panniers and bottles on their porch and I threw on my leggings to hide the worst of the bleeding knees. The stiffness was really setting in on my knees and I had trouble managing the three inch step up to their porch without grimacing and hobbling around like an invalid.

We then dropped Ziven’s bike off at the local bike shop which was overwhelmed with pushy Tour racers wanting their steeds fixed up (rightfully so, the time we were in Pinedale was when the top 20 or so racers were filtering through town). The bike shop stop was rather important, as we had not addressed the tire blisters from earlier in the Great Basin. The bike mechanic said Ziven definitely also needed a new chain and probably cassette in addition to a new tire, so we went to a coffee shop around the corner to wait out the 4 hour window they had quoted.

The coffee shop, Pine, was touted as the best in Wyoming based on a sign we saw miles outside of town but, maybe unwisely, I had ordered a thai iced tea. It was the worst thing I may have ever drank. Bitter, watery, and not sweet at all, it was a barely orange drink with huge amounts of ice in it that was undoubtedly mixed from an organic thai tea powder that had zero respect for what thai tea is supposed to taste like. Ziven got a mocha and was similarly dissatisfied with the grainy coffee and bitter chocolate. We took advantage of their adequate wifi for about an hour before going to the grocery store down the street, where I was told I looked very pensive and brooding by an old lady as I sat guarding Poppy (sans my phone which was dead) and Ziven went inside the store. No doubt she would have commented if I was on my phone. You can never please the boomers. We returned to the downtown shops for food and, citing a sign I had seen advertising mini donuts, we went around the corner from the coffee shop to another store selling ice cream, which Ziven got, and mini donuts, of which I purchased a half dozen. It appears that all signs in and around Pinedale, WY should not be trusted because the mini donuts that appeared were nothing short of ridiculous. As thin as fettuccine, the tiny tiny tiny donuts were barely a mouthful and honestly were just comical. Ziven helpfully offered up his ice cream to quell the disappointment and I got a caramel latte to soften the blow that the thai ice tea had made on my delicate state of mind.

We then returned to the bike shop, where Ziven’s bike sat in the exact same spot and we started fearing it would not be finished that night. Ziven asked if he could just use their pump to install the tire himself to avoid adding to their workload and they agreed. We set up our sealant and new tire under an overhang as it started to dribble and were observed by Collin the Brit and Kitson, our Canadian Fat Tire friend as we set and inflated the tire. Ziven of course has a slightly fragile ego (why else do you think we did the whole f0ckin trip) and so the bike mechanic's honest doubt towards seating a tubeless tire by hand did not serve to gain him more business. After some huffing and puffing, Ziven was wildly light headed, but with a new tire seated and ready to rumble. We also bought a chain and Ziven replaced that, thinking that he could test ride the bike home and if the cassette was too worn for a new chain we could go in the morning and get a new cassette. We then packed up, tried to pay for everything at the bike shop for quite a while, much to the anger of Collin who had given the bike shop his bike that morning for a new tire and was mad that Ziven was preventing the mechanic from finishing the long overdue job. We pedaled back to the Warmshowers, where it turned out that Dave and Collin and Kitson were staying as well! Ziven tried to listen closely to his cassette but we were unable to determine if it needed replacing. We met the owners and their three dogs and took a tour of their lovely house. We got started on laundry and showers while they made an extravagant smoked pork roast feast with bread, salad, vegetables, rice, and more! The dinner was very social and took a while, so it was almost 10:30 by the time we helped wash up and headed out to our accommodation, which ended up being the glamping tent in the lawn with a queen bed, lamps, power, fans, and excellent vibes. We had a little bit of phone time and then zonked!