With each day we spend in Wyoming, we’re more and more convinced that whoever created the state hit a red button that said “randomize terrain” and left it all as is. We started today in a stunning canyon that was truly one of the most gorgeous stretches of the ride so far, and ended it on the interstate in a desert. We had another bit of a teamwork exercise as we hit a stretch of bonus gravel that was so “bonus” we were forced to shuttle for a small portion of today’s trip. However, as always, we arrived at our stayover safe and sound, had time to hit Walmart and do some laundry, and even learn a dance routine.

Ride Overview

Mileage: 55.3

Elevation: 2,165’

Ride Dedication: Debbie Sherman, Izzy’s mom’s best friend

Points of Interest: Wind River Canyon, Boysen State Park, Wyoming Heritage Trail, Main St. Dance 

Quote of the day

Tales of the Trail

Today’s morning activity, brought to us by Lucas, was particularly creative — human cup pong! We split into teams of eight, and Claudia and Dylan took turns throwing popcorn into the mouths of members of the team who were seated in a triangle formation. Dylan took home the win, after many moments of extremely intense popcorn-throwing. We recognize the food-themed competitions have become a bit of a theme over the past few days — when you’re over halfway through your summer living together, you have to keep things interesting somehow.

We rolled out with a quick stop at McDonalds for two groups (we’re learning to really appreciate their cheap breakfast deals in the McDonalds app #notasponsor). After some small warm-up hills, we journeyed into the breathtaking Wind River Canyon, a beautiful range of cliffs running along Wyoming’s Wind River. We had a roughly 15 mile stretch of riding through the canyon, where we stopped for many pictures and opportunities to ogle at the huge sights around us. We did take note of the telephone lines and towers that run through the nature, which felt out of place, but served as a reminder of the rest of the world around us. 

The landscape changed almost immediately as we rolled out of our first rest stop and found ourselves surrounded by mostly flat desert-land. The lack of trees in Wyoming is still something we’re processing a bit, as well as the fact that huge mountain formations are usually visible and looming in the distance. We enjoyed a shorter stretch of some rolling hills and found some neat items on the side of the road, including a tie-dyed pick bucket hat for Neal (that will be washed thoroughly before being worn, of course). 

The final stretch of the day brought all the excitement. Many members of the team were looking forward to this portion of the ride, as our GPS informed us we would be on a bike trail — the term “bike trail,” however, can be used somewhat loosely in rural Wyoming. We genuinely don’t hate coming across bonus gravel on our rides (some of our teammates actually look forward to it! Shout out to Logan and his gravel-ish tires), but our “bike trail” today came in the form of uncomfortably deep sand and annoyingly large rocks. After struggling through at a very slow pace for three miles, we realized it would likely take up to four more hours to plow through the sandy gravel road for 19 total miles. We chose to shuttle in our beloved SAV (forever our savior) to a safe point on the fairly unpopulated Wyoming interstate to ride the rest of the route to our stayover, and were incredibly efficient in the process. It’s great to see how far we’ve come in shuttling our team efficiently — two trips and no bikes or humans left behind!

Our stayover tonight is one of our favorites of the trip so far: a dance studio! A huge thank you to Main St. Dance for hosting us and providing an amazing dinner. This is a note to any future I4K riders: the odds that you spend the night in a room with a disco ball is low, but never zero!!! After a shorter day, we were able to take our time showering at the local fire station, doing laundry at a nearby laundromat, and stocking up on everything and anything we may need for our upcoming camping days at Walmart. Olivia, Lucas, Neal, Maaike, and Riddhima were so inspired by the stayover that we learned some of the choreography to the iconic “Boss Ladies” number from “Dance Moms” (since I’m unfortunately unable to find the recording of our final progress right now, you’ll just have to watch the clip from the show and imagine us doing it just as perfectly). We have a slightly longer day to Dubois tomorrow, where we’ll enjoy one last night inside — and one last journal :( — before we camp for a few nights straight in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. Expect fabulous pictures and more amazing adventures to come.

Cyclist’s Corner

Today’s Rider: Tommy Gulumian

How are you feeling today?

I’m feeling pretty good! There were a lot of cool stops, places to just pull off and take a look at. And even when things hit the fan kind of, when we were in the middle of a desert, that was an exciting point, I would say. It was a little frustrating because the path was hard to bike on, but I thought that was kind of fun.

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

I would say the time we went canning. I did a lot of volunteering at games, me and Kavin had set up a table on the quad – which was not very effective! – but that was a time when we met up and I hadn’t talked to like Emma and Maaike as much before that, so I feel like it was good bonding and just a lot of fun. It was Dad’s Weekend when we went canning, so it was just kinda funny seeing how chaotic that was around the bars. So I’d say that would probably be one of my more memorable ones. 

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

I think of people from home, I think of my family, I think of people in my life that have been impacted by cancer… In my mind I like to think about how in past years over the summer me and my friends would go on a lot of Illinois bike paths. It would be a place where I could just unwind and just talk with my friends, and so I kind of think about that – how I’m in new places, I’m with a group that was new before the school year, and I just think this is a very special, unique event. Like actually, during this ride, I was talking to Kavin… we’d bet, “how much money do you think somebody from our high school has been in this area?” 

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

I don’t have a fanny pack or anything. I just love how the uniform has the three back pockets! Like the amount of times I think about where I’m putting what and I’m just like, “my phone will be safe in the middle one.” I do keep a phone holder on my bike, so that is what my secondary thing is, but I don’t really have anything on me apart from what’s needed. So, I’d say it’s either the three pockets in the back or my holder.

What’s your rest stop routine?

The first thing I do is… I love flavoring my water! And so it’s just like, I always get my water bottles empty and it can make it taste like fruit punch now. I’ll have like Neal or Jack go like, “we gotta do pushups!” So I’m like, “oh, well, we’re doing that now!” Yeah, I’d say it’s just pulling off, getting a little bit of a breather – I don’t know why, but I don’t really have an appetite when I’m biking, so I don’t really look for snacks as much. But yeah, just making my water bottles taste good and also doing pushups.

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

I think if this was an earlier point in the ride, I’d definitely say it’d be somewhere in Oregon because I know we’re gonna see Redwoods and that is a bucket list thing. I will say though, I know that the next coming rest day is Grand Tetons and we have a very small group that’s trying to do a lot of hiking on the day. If you asked me two or three weeks ago, I would’ve been like, “why am I using energy on a rest day?” But now I’m like, “this is a first time thing for I4K!” In my mind I’m thinking, “this is insane, but also, we’re biking across the country – so we’re insane!” 

Anything else you want to talk about?

As we’re going futher into the ride, I hear a lot of people going, “we should watch this movie, we should do this,” and so part of me is just really looking forward to the rest days coming apart from the Tetons – like when we’re in civilization again. I’m looking forward to having a little more team time like that, like that just sounds like it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

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