Bike Odyssey 2014 – Day 41 (June 26) – The thunderstorms catch up at last

Set out towards the Bighorn Mountains, on our last ascent/descent stage of the Rockies (sad to think our trip is so nearly over) full of fears that it would repeat the rigors of the infamous Beartooth Pass, which took such a toll on legs and arms with hour after hour of braking, plus the vertiginous drops. The kind of biking my bike was designed to steer clear of. A pair of bikers we met in Cody rode the Beartooth the day after us and rode it in driving snow; again we’d been extremely lucky to ride it in sunshine. According to locals it’s been the worst weather in these parts for 30 years. Happily the Bighorn’s Granite Pass is a pass that could have been designed for Road King riders – even at 9000 feet there are straightaways you can ride at 70, and much of the climb is swooping curves instead of the needle-tight bends of the Beartooth. And the landscape is superb. Joe rated it our best riding day so far. I’d chosen well, it turned out: farther south there’s a much more strenuous crossing of the Bighorn on Route 16. Our route 14 was drilled through rock as ancient as can be, Pre-Cambrian on the way up (signs told us), Devonian on the way down, plus Pennsylvanian (a mere 250 million years old), Triassic and Permian. It was magnificent. After the descent (twisty enough!), a cafe in Dayton, Wyoming, offered us ‘hand-fried’ eggs (as opposed to…?) and we could scarcely resist.

But the weather had the last laugh. The rain came, we retreated to our tents on the very pleasant Buffalo, Wyoming campsite, and then the loudest electrical storm I’ve ever known (some Mediterranean storms of my childhood are the closest) zeroed in on us. I didn’t know it, but Joe sensibly took to the campsite buildings and watched TV. My tent, which had stood firm under the Blue Ridge Mountains downpour, couldn’t manage the four inches of rain (filled our bowls left on the nearby table) dumped on us within minutes, and when I reached for my leather jacket as warmth for the night I found it (and the contents of its pockets) completely soaked through and had to expel it from the tent (4 foot wide – nowhere to put it). Luckily the night was warm and my one unsoaked garment, a shirt, sufficed. Inside the tent it sounded like all hell had been let loose directly at us like Jove’s thunderbolts (‘more sight-outrunning were not,’ says Ariel of his tempest) and the wind lifted my tent and moved it around, toying with it. Inside my floating sleeping bag was the one dry place inside the tent and I did the traditional thing and turned over and went to sleep. At some point Joe’s voice broke through my dreams, from outside my tent, to ask if I was all right. I’ve never known a kindlier or more solicitous friend.

The morning has broken not exactly bright but with that calm that is Nature’s wordless nearest-thing-to-an apology for an unbridled fit of rage. The air is clear, and Joe says there’s a drier in the campsite buildings. Meanwhile the blessed fellow is cooking up bacon and eggs. It feels good to have survived last night – several holidaymakers in giant RVs have paused to enquire, as they rumbled past, as to how we managed in the storm. We are of course one of the the only two sets of campers on the site; there are never more than two. ‘Camping’ is all RVs today, in America. My right leg not good, but it’ll soon get a rest from biking. Shame this ever has to end! Joe has just taken my rainsoaked clothes to the campsite drier. Now on, via Gillette, where Harley Davidson have reserved their last set of front brake pads for Joe’s bike, to South Dakota.