By the time I reached Salida in the mid-afternoon of the third day, my butt was talking to me, and I’d already decided that I’d look up a close friend of the Georges (my sister’s family) who lived in town and often put up travelers who pass thru.  It was a great decision as I not only got a good rest, excellent home-cooked Salmon Packet meal, but realized I could purchase some “butt butter” in the cycle shop two doors down from her apartment.

I’d, once again, met two cyclists just as I entered the crux intersection to Salida.  These two 21-year-olds from California were doing the entire Great Divide route as a summer training exercise for their college cycling season.  They asked, after learning I was from Durango, if I knew any of the Fort Lewis College racers they competed against.  (FLC has a nationally known, highly competitive team).  They also encouraged me to head out with them, but fortunately I needed re-suppling and a good night’s rest.  They evidently are only averaging 70 miles a day, so I figured I might catch them, but never did.

I was continually surprised to learn, upon asking, that no one seemed to know how much weight they were carrying.  As you can see from the photo they had quite a load as well.  My base weight was 12.5 pounds – “Skin-out” total, without food and water, was 16.5 pounds.  Add in 15 pounds of consumables, of which 6.5 pounds is water and I had just over 30 pounds on the bike when fully loaded.  Fortunately my weight would go down by 2 pounds for each liter of water I drank.

One provisioning trick I learned purely by chance was to buy a foot-long Subway sandwich in the towns I passed thru and use half for dinner and the other half for my breakfast (breakfast being after about an hour early morning cycle).  The energy pick-up I got shortly after half a Buffalo Chicken special was remarkable.  And half a Subway was little more than the cost of a granola bar in the convenience stores.