Thursday 19 August

The Team left The Occidental Hotel  in Buffalo at circa 7am and headed for brekkie at a local cafe.

It was a normal enough day in the saddle. We stayed along the I-90 for all of it as there was no backroad alternative. The terrain was up and down like the rest of Wyoming but there always seems to be more ups than downs! There were no towns along the way for us to stop and have a break so we simply powered on through the 70 miles like pedalling maniacs. With 20km to go I punctured just as the lads had crested a hill in front of me so having fixed that I was riding solo for the last hour which was tough.

We stayed at the Settle Inn which was a big spacious hotel. We got the added bonus of having a free dinner because of a manager’s special or something – we were too busy munching on hotdogs to find out the real reason for the free grub.

That evening we went to the cinema to see Inception and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Why those films you ask? Well there was little other choice seeing as the cinema only had two screens. After the films we took a drive around Gillette to see the town. Upon stopping into a bar (for 5 waters of course), a certain member of the Team who is partial to a night out here and there, realised he had forgotten his ID as proof of age. Being sticklers for the rules, we were sent packing by security, and headed home for an early night. The steam is still clearing from the head of that certain member of the Team.

Wednesday 18 August

The cyclists were up early again today in an effort to beat the sweltering heat that hits us in the middle part of the day – between 12pm and 6pm. We were on the road for 8am and headed straight for a backroad that avoids the Interstate.

We took the Big Horn Highway out of Sheradin which passes through metropolises like Banner (population 40) and Story (best name ever). There was hardly any traffic on the road so it was a lovely ride. The only downside, ironically, was the lack of downhills. We seemed to be climbing steadily for the entire first part of the day without the reward of cruising downhill. On one climb, we passed two cyclists out for a spin going the opposite way. We waved but didn’t exchange words. Later that day we got an email from Patrick, one of those cyclists, who had tracked our website down, and offered us a free coffee in Starbucks in Gillette as he was the manager there. Thanks Patrick!

The countryside was beautiful though, and it was lovely to get off the Interstate and into the peace and quiet. We were lucky to see some more deer running along side us at the roadside, and an antelope scarpering into the bushes. Antelopes are apparently so common that they out-number humans in Buffalo.

After covering 40miles by 11:30am, we arrived in Buffalo (our destination for the day) at the same time as the support team. We grabbed a nice lunch at a cafe before continuing on the road to get in some extra miles to make the coming days a little easier. We pushed out an extra 20miles over some VERY hilly terrain in heat that peaked at 98.9F – about 36C. Needless to say in heat like that our water starts to taste like its coming out of a hot water bottle. Yummy.

We met up with Rob and Donal at the end of our extra miles and they drove us back to Buffalo where we checked into the brilliant Occidental Hotel. The hotel is like a time warp back to the Wild West days. It has had some famous people stay the night including Teddy Rosevelt, Butch Cassidy and Calamity Jane.

After showers, we grabbed food including Bison burgers in the hotel’s restaurant. Unfortunately the restaurant’s frier was broken so our ‘side’ was a packet of crisps (in the packet) thrown into some coleslaw. Genius solution!

That evening Mark, Rob and myself drove back to Sheridan to pick up copies of a newspaper interview we had given the previous day. It is a brilliant piece and the publicity that articles like this bring to our journey is a real reward for our effort on the road.