up, up, up then up-down, up-down

Worland to Buffalo, WY - 92 miles.

This was our longest day of riding - almost 7 hours of ride time. It started easy with 25-30 miles of simple rollers. Some were pretty tough, but not too steep. We had espresso at a town called "Ten Sleep" (called that because in previous times it took ten sleeps to travel between towns). It was fun because there were so many cyclists doing the same.

Then the climb started a few miles later. In the end we had a 25 mile climb where we gained about 5000 feet. It was not too steep - just never ending. The worst was there was fresh chip and seal (stones and tar) for six miles. At one point Chris and I were just a few hundred feet ahead of a tar truck. We pushed hard to not get stuck in the mess.

Lunch was 20 miles into the climb. That was hard as we had good cream of potato soup and chicken curry for sandwiches. However, we had a ways to go.

We got to the summit of the Big Horn pass at 9,666 feet. Both of us felt good and were ready to keep going. Actually, each of us had leg massages by the trip masseuse last night - that helped a lot in preventing leg pain today.

The descent was "varied." We went down and up for 10-15 miles. On other passes it has been downhill after the summit. Here we had rollers where we descended a quarter mile, then ascended. They were exhausting. Finally at the 80 mile point we got a sweet five mile downhill.

We stopped at a few points for good mountain photos - including flowers and lakes.

Tonight we are enjoying pizza at a restuarant in Buffalo. I am sure we will sleepwell tonight.