**To our audience: We AGAIN apologize for the break in our blog posts. Life happens but we WILL get all of our days published on this blog!
June 1, 2014
Our journey continues on what will be known as our longest day (distance-wise) of our entire trip. This day, we rode a century, actually, our very first century ever. We technically rode 104 miles this day, but who’s really counting?…Us..we are. It was 104 miles for goodness sake! If you didn’t think our butts needed a break after this, think again.
Our day started in West Thumb with our sights set far because all of the campsites in between were still closed due to bear season. We had no choice but to ride on through to the next town, which was Dubois, WY. Not only was this going to be a test of our physical strength, this was a huge test of our mental strength. It wasn’t enough that we knew we had more than 100 miles to reach our destination, but then taking a look at the elevation map should have been enough to make anyone want to quit and call it a day. But we are no ordinary people. We wiped our tears and trekked on.
Elevation Map: Started by Grant Village –> Ended at Dubois
Pee Break
Frozen lake
Frozen lake
We had the pleasure of meeting one person on the side of the road, and his name was Mike. Mike, the 6’5 cop. He had just retired from the force and spent some time with his dad before he made it out on this bike trip. He was putting in a lot of miles and he was going really fast. When we found out we were headed to the same destination, in two seconds flat, he had memorized the Healthnut van’s license plate in case he had a break down and needed to flag down someone familiar for help. Luckily, Mike got there safely.
We had heard good things about the area around the Grand Tetons and Jenny Lake, and the ACA maps offered an alternate route to check it out. It would have been a 33 mile one-way detour with a dead-end to Jackson, in which we would have to turn back around and go back onto our trail. It would have been a really nice, flat ride but we would have no where to sleep for the night and time was not on our side. We did get to see the Grand Tetons from a distance, though, and it was amazing. The Grand Tetons and Jenny Lake have gone on our list of places to go back to sometime in our future.
We were bundled up warm since the weather was still pretty cold with being in high altitude and with snow on the ground. As we biked, we were met with alternating bursts of sun and rain. We even tried chasing the rainbow. We had crossed the continental divide again on this route.
I caught a rainbow!
Togwotee Pass (at 9,658′ elevation) was the climb of the day. It was a really tough climb and we were falling behind schedule. I kept cramping and was so sore that I kept having to stop, roll out my legs and throwing on Salon-Pas in attempt to ease the pain. Anthony left me to catch up with Aileen in fear that I wouldn’t be able to make it in time and left me under the watch of Healthnut Papa and Mama in the case that I needed to just hop in the car and drive to the destination.
Getting to the top was really, really cold. We had to throw on more clothes knowing the descent would make us more cold. There’s no feeling like the feeling of making it to the top of a mountain and descending down a smooth slope. The rest of the ride down to Dubois was smooth sailing. And, yes, we all made it, even me.
When we reached the Trail’s End Motel, we met the lovely owner. She saw us in our cycling gear and asked us if we were the one’s riding that Togwotee pass. “Yes,” we said. She said her husband saw us biking as he drove down and was terrified for us and proceeded to ask, “Did you see those grizzly bear cubs that you biked by on the side of the road?!” “NO!” “Luckily the mother bear wasn’t there or else she definitely would have attacked you for getting that close!” PHEW! That was another close call with a grizzly bear. Luckily we didn’t see the bears or else that would have put us in a panic for sure. Tonight, we had a good night’s sleep.
Healthnuts & Handlebars 
You guys have been riding for a long time! Thanks for sharing!
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Haha! We finished in July 2014 actually but we’ve been delayed in writing our blog. I finally found time again to really sit down and work on it, that’s why it’s getting posted up late. I should have clarified the actual date of the day that I’m posting about. I just edited the page to reflect that now. This “Day 31” actually took place June 1, 2014. Thank you for reading along anyway! Stay tuned for the rest of our journey!
Congrats on your century. And it’s good to have you back! I’ve been missing your reports. But it’s not clear when day 31 was done. That’s because day 30 was done in August. Does that mean day 31 was also in August? Or was it done in January? If January, what happened in between??
Haha! Thank you Mr. Heller, for being such a dedicated follower. We’ve been delayed in writing our blog. I finally found time again to really sit down and work on it, that’s why it’s getting posted up late. I should have clarified the actual date of the day that I’m posting about. I just edited the page to reflect that now. This “Day 31” actually took place June 1, 2014. Thank you for reading along anyway! Again, I apologize for the confusing and thank you for making this clear to me so that I can fix it for future posts. Stay tuned for the rest of our journey!
-Hannah