Wyoming = Windy

 Today was one of the toughest days I have had on the bike since the Dalton Highway.  The Wyoming winds proved to be as punishing as anything I have seen yet.  Normally not that big of a deal, just plug what miles you can and call it a day.  However, Wyoming also provides beautiful wide-open spaces.  The problem, with wide-open spaces comes large distances between places.  I had stopped just outside of Lander yesterday, about 30 miles short of where I had intended to be, but with winds pounding me and a nice campground the temptation to stop for the day won out. 

So I woke up looking at a little over a hundred miles to Rawlins, with the full knowledge that there was nothing in between.  The cross for a majority of the morning, not great but better than a head wind, later on however, the road turned south towards Rawlins and the wind began to pound me.  Forty five miles from Muddy Gap Junction to Rawlins, it wasn’t a direct headwind but enough that it felt like riding in glue, not a lot of fun.  Oh yeah, I almost forgot I also crossed the Continental Divide twice more (9 & 10), I guess I should have looked at the map a little closer.   

I have decided that I would rather climb than deal with wind.  At least with a mountain you know that the end is somewhere up there, wind on the other hand, never stops.  It just beats on you all day.  Going to try to make it to Laramie in the morning, but if its windy again it may be a short day.

9-23

81.76 miles

19.4 mph average

44.8 mph max

4:11:58 ride time

9-24

108.7 miles

15.8 mph average

39.7 mph max

6:50:35 ride time