As the team journalists, we love making the morning activity about the journals. This time, Riddhima had everyone on the team write one sentence each for the introductory paragraph to Day 41. The results were predictably questionable. Enjoy:

The beautiful and amazingly wonderful team in the van planned four scenic rest stops for us today, as our 43 mile route was short but STEEP. Our team biked biked biked up a mountain as we climbed the stairway to heaven. We did a lot of climbing. The roads were very steep, but the route was short. The route was long, but the roads weren’t steep — climbing is a mindset. We camped at Meadowlark Lake. The team competed in a very intense pie-eating contest. With the Olympics coming up, our team definitely deserves a gold medal of odd challenges and outrageous use of eating utensils… including opening our beans with heavy rocks. After a few intense rounds of Ace, a card game involving deception, the team was ready to cozy up in our tents. Lucas, Lucas. Camping together was fun, but the chills were not. 

We love our teammates, but we’re going to take it back from here. 

As you can tell, we survived our first camping day (much to everyone’s surprise)! Day 41 began with one of the most gradual and lengthy climbs of the ride. We determinedly inched up the extensive mountains of Bighorn National Forest, rewarded at the top by panoramic views of ancient rocky faces decorated with seemingly endless acres of pine and fir trees. After we set up camp, we held a pie-eating competition (keep reading to see the results of this heated battle), played cards, and made campfire hot dogs. Despite a few bouts of icy rain and the colder weather that comes with a high elevation, the team made the most of the opportunity to spend some time in nature. 

Day 42 started exactly the opposite — a complete 20 miles of the most scenic descent imaginable. We zoomed through Bighorn National Forest, descending thousands of feet in the first hour of the day. Our very chilly weather turned normal before we knew it, and we took on the rolling hills of Wyoming for the fairly standard remainder of the day. We returned to civilization in the form of Thermopolis, WY and visited its iconic hot springs after our showers. While we enjoyed our night under the stars, we’re happy to be back inside with some warmer weather up ahead.

Ride Overview, Day 41

Mileage: 43.7

Elevation: 6,665’

Ride Dedication: Melanie Ertz, a family friend of Joey’s.

Points of Interest: Bighorn National Forest

Quote(s) of the day

“We’re biking across the country! And doing a pie-eating contest every day!” - Neal, to a curious person at the campground

“You’re never guaranteed a second scoop of beans.” - Kev

Tales of the Trail

Today’s morning activity aptly prepared us for our first camping day. Logan had us act out what to do if you encounter a black bear (fight back) versus a brown bear (lie down), to which we enthusiastically obliged.

We started the ride in a haze of anticipation, whether that took the form of eagerly searching out Strava segments to beat or making your entire group solemnly pledge to bike at a sustainable pace. We’ve done 6,000’ + days of climbing before, but rarely in such a short distance. By now, though, we’ve noticed that with every tough climb comes worthwhile views and liberating descents, so we took on the challenge with the knowledge that we would make it to the end just as we have before. 

If you’re going to gain that much elevation on a bicycle, you might as well do it with some views. From the moment we felt the first bit of incline under our wheels, the quiet expansiveness of the Bighorn National Forest encompassed us. Every rest stop was a scenic outlook, offering increasingly vast slices of the landscape to us as we pedaled higher and higher. We relished the descents that followed, each one a mark of another tough section of climbing complete and a chance to feast our eyes on the terrain we had worked so hard to experience. 

The novelty of the day wasn’t over when we reached our destination, because this time we arrived at our very first campground. We bordered right on the edge of Meadowlark Lake, soothed by the sounds and shade of a nearby creek running into it. As our teammates mentioned above, we engaged in a passionate team pie-eating competition. Olaf was first, Neal was second, and Jack was third (and Kev emphasized that they would like it to be known that they were fourth)! After, we hung out and layered up to shelter from the cold weather ahead. 

The ride has the interesting effect of enveloping you in a sort of bubble. Some teammates have commented on how they haven’t been keeping up with the news as often or spent as much time on social media. Camping forced us to go truly unplugged, and it was meaningful to experience that together. We climbed an entire mountain solely on the power of our legs (although, the endless support of the van crew cannot be understated) and camped under the impartial cover of the outdoor elements. Overall, Day 41 felt uniquely self-sufficient and incredibly gratifying. 

Ride Overview, Day 42

Mileage: 79.9

Elevation: 2,770’

Points of Interest: The Daily Bread Cafe, Pony Express Convenience Store

Quote of the day

Tales of the Trail

We woke up quite cold this morning, but thankfully completely undisturbed by bears or any other creatures that may have been in the area. Breakfast brought something brand new for the team — hold onto your hats now — bagels! Since we aren’t able to quickly acquire warm water for oatmeal in the morning — and absolutely no one is advocating to eat it cold — bagels have become a part of our I4K camping diet. We used our numb hands and fingers to devour these before packing up our tents, loading the van, and being sure to leave our campsite better than we found it.

The beginning portion of today’s ride felt almost like reparations for yesterday. The first 20 miles of our route was almost completely descending, which required much skill from the team especially on some hairpin turns on the road. Thankfully, riding early in the morning freed most of this stretch from traffic, and gave us more of the ability to stare at the gorgeous view surrounding us. This 20 mile stretch has been described by many as the most jaw-dropping of the trip so far, with the most beautiful views imaginable. Despite being freezing in the winds of the descents, we warmed up quickly as we dropped in elevation, and were able to shed our gloves when we left Bighorn National Forest at the bottom. A small reward for our riding was as our first rest stop in the form of the delicious Daily Bread Cafe (at which our entire bill was paid for by a very kind customer. If you’ve managed to find us online, thank you!!!!). 

The rest of the ride was a fairly average I4K day, as we rode just over 2,000 feet of elevation through the rolling hills of Wyoming. Our entire route today was a straight line with two turns — a turn out of the campsite, and a turn into our stayover’s parking lot. The scenery changed drastically from the beginning section of the day, as we were surrounded by hills of deserted plains with the snow capped mountains slowly fading into the distance. Saying goodbye to the mountains hasn’t been too terribly hard, as we know we’ll see them again soon — the Grand Tetons are truly just around the corner!

Our stayover in Thermopolis is close to seemingly endless fun activities for the team, as we visited the nearby hot springs to relax, as well as a mini-golf course! Dinner was kindly donated by Dylan’s grandpa in the form of Taco Bell, a campus favorite that we’re all happy to see again. We’re very glad to be back inside for another couple of nights before a multiple day stretch of camping. Until then, we’ll do our best to keep our legs fresh and our bodies as warm as possible :) 

Cyclist’s Corner

Today’s Rider: Riddhima Patllollu

How are you feeling today?

I’m feeling okay. I feel quite accomplished after the climb that we had yesterday. Today…my knee issues kind of flared up again, but I’m getting used to that, so I feel okay! I had a good day in the van with everyone, and it was really really cool to see the drastic transition from huge, forested mountains and the cold, to this arid, desert-like landscape. Overall, I have been really enjoying Wyoming. Not a place that I ever imagined I would go, but I’m glad to be here.

You’ve fundraised thousands of dollars for our cause. What has been the most impactful fundraising experience you’ve had?

Yes. On campus, I am part of this professional fraternity for my major — which is information sciences — and the frat’s called Psi Eta Mu, PHM for short. Basically, it was really cool because it was a culmination of all of my efforts from freshman year to get involved on campus. Basically I reached out to them and I was like “hey, I’m a part of this really cool organization and I know you guys do fundraisers, so I was wondering if we could like, combine our fundraiser together…” We did this really fun thing called “Pie a Member,” where we just pied people in the face! All you have to do is pay for the pie, and we just filled it with whipped cream, and just got pied in the face! And it was really awesome! It was also my first time organizing a proper fundraising event — it was really stressful, but really rewarding, and I learned a lot. It was really cool to see the efforts of both sides of my extracurricular activities show up. And we raised a lot! I think we raised 300 dollars? Honestly, for the amount of time that it took and the supplies, I think that was pretty great.

What keeps you going when it gets difficult to put in all of those miles or even to get on the bike?

This question is interesting, because I think there’s two types of ways it gets difficult for me. One is just like, the unavoidable “I can’t bike through this,” injury sort of thing, where I don’t still get on the bike because I know my body, and I know that I shouldn’t keep going if I want to survive the entire length of the ride. But then there’s the other kind of like mental aspect where it’s like, “ugh, I don’t want to bike today.” And I think I’ll speak to that part. Of course, I think about the cause, first and foremost. But when you’re like, in the midst of a climb, or you’re looking at a really tough elevation map or mileage, sometimes that kind of floats away and doesn’t become your main focus. I don’t know, I think I just take it day by day, rest stop by rest stop. And also the team just helps immeasurably, because it’s incredibly inspiring — especially to go back to the cause, to see the people with amazing, really direct and touching reasons to do this ride, to see those people get up and still bike every day. The act of collectively biking, collectively pedaling is really inspiring to me, and I would say that is a big part of what keeps me going.

Do you have a favorite accessory to wear with your ride uniform?

Maaike gave me these amazing — I don’t know where she found it — but she gave me this amazing “Lego Movie 2” sticker sheet back in Champaign. I don’t know if this counts as an accessory, because it’s on my bike and my helmet. I have a Lego Batman sticker on my bike, and I have a Emmett sticker on my helmet, and they both make me very very happy. As for accessories that I actively put on, I don’t really have any except sun sleeves I guess? But flowers, I love to put flowers on my bike. Flowers are a big thing because you just find them, and it’s like taking a piece of the scenery with you… I feel like it just makes everyone else happy. Just seeing flowers bob around on my bike. It’s really nice… It’s especially fun to give other people flowers to put on their bike. 

What’s your rest stop routine?

I don’t really have a rest stop routine! I kind of just do stuff… Sometimes, I just reflect. I kind of love being in the West, because our rest stops are a lot more random, middle-of-nowhere situation, but that means I can just go off to a little corner and just reflect. It’s just really chill. Obviously I eat snacks. I’ve been really really grateful for all the snack donations we’ve been getting, because that was very unforeseen, but I appreciate it so so much because we’re super spoiled. Some days I’m just like “oh, let me just have this fresh-baked cookie to fuel me,” instead of a really depressing — but still delicious — bar or something like that. That’s just so cool that someone made that for us, and it still continues to fuel us throughout all these rides. But yeah, same answer as everyone else — water, bathroom, blah blah blah. It differs every day. If there’s a café, I’ll go, if there’s postcards, I’ll buy them. Also, shout out to Claudia and the van crew, because without them we literally would not have rest stops. If we did, our rest stops would just be boring, like what would we even do? 

In the remaining portion of the ride, where are you looking forward to visiting the most?

The entire state of Washington. I don’t know if it’s because I used to really like “Twilight” as a kid — I now like “Twilight” ironically, let the record know that — I don’t know…the nature of Washington has always held a really quite beauty to me, and I’m really looking forward to Mount Rainier specifically. I think that that’s my kind of nature. Because I really appreciate the West, this sort of nature where it’s like desert-y and rocky — and I don’t know if that’s what Mount Rainier is like, but I think I prefer green, lush, dark forest kind of situation. I’m really looking forward to that. I might get to see my brother there too.

Anything else you want to talk about?

On the Fourth of July, we played this song called “God Bless the USA” a lot, and I think it was a little bit of a joke, but I thought about it and I thought about this country, and I’ve just been blown away by the amount of natural beauty this place has, and how incredibly grateful I am that I get to experience it this way… Because my god it is beautiful. And I just want to re-emphasize the climbing that we did yesterday, because it’s one thing to drive up a mountain — it’s still beautiful, but it’s one thing to agonizingly slowly pedal your way up a mountain and nearly die at the top of it. But still make it! It’s just the little moments of that, like Kev making their snowman out of the little snow that we found, or breaking off some rocks from the summit and seeing people climb all over. I just think this is a really unique way to experience everything, and I’m really glad and grateful to be here with everyone.

(A reminder that any unfamiliar terms can be found in our handy I4K dictionary.)