Day 12 Fort Collins CO to Cheyenne WY

I stayed in Fort Collins for three nights with Al and Jane, bicyclists I
met last year. I got to visit with two other friends who live in the
area, visit the Fort Collins museum - they have a neat 100 years of
bicycling in Fort Collins exibit - and generally have a good time. Fort
Collins is a great place for bicycling and a good place to visit. I
needed some R+R for me and my bike and Al has a great bike workshop, so I
was able to improve the roundness of my front wheel and repair my bike
computer which had a broken wire.

Al and I left this morning about 8:30 planning to ride togther first to
Wellington for a second breakfast and then on to Nunn where I would head
north on US 85 and Al would head south to make a loop back to Fort
Collins. It was a cool cloudy morning unlike the sunny clear weather we
had been having, but the forecast wasn't bad. There was moderate wind
from teh south - southeast.

Our ride didn't work out quite the way we expected. Al was riding an
almost new bike that had just had its rims replaced by a Fort Collins
bike shop. About 10 miles into our ride, Al's rear tire went flat. We
were able to find the flat by listening to escaping air. The hole was on
the inside of the tube. I repaired it, but we almost immediately had
another flat. This time we reomoved the tire and took out the tube.
Oh-Oh, there were lots of cuts inthe tube from the spoke holes in the
rim - it had a bad rim strip which is one of the things I don't carry
while touring (Jim, I should have taken that Velox strip wth me..). The
tube ended up with six patches and I hope Al made it home without
needing to use the last patch in his patch kit. The store had put the
cheap rubber rim strip (the bike is a Bianchi) from the original rim and
put it on the new rim, but the new rim needed a wider rim strip and the
narrow one had slid over to the side in some places exposing the tube to
the sharp edges of the spoke holes. We were close to Wellington when all
this happened so Al rode with me to Wellington and then headed home. Not
a great start to the ride, but we did get to Wellington in time to have
good breakfast together. It took us two hours, instead of one, but
breakfast was served till 11 AM.

When we left Wellington it was nearly noon. I headed north briefly on
the I-25 frontage road (Al headed south on the frontage road on the
other side) and then turned east on Nunn Road. This starts as a good
dirt road, but changes to a paved road at the county line, in maybe two
miles. It was a great ten miles of bicycling. Cool, with a cross wind,
but beautiful prairie with a car or truck every ten minutes or so. The
road climbed for the first few miles, then was on a plateau for several
miles before descending a few miles from Nunn. It was still cloudy, but
clearing and I knew that cross wind would become a tail wind when I got
to Nunn and turned north on US 85. I really enjoyed that part of todays
ride. 

I had ridden Us 85 north to Cheyenne last summer, so I knew it was good
riding. I also knew tha tthere was a restaurant at Rockport, about
fourteen mile north of Nunn, so I didn't stop in Nunn. There is a bridge
over train tracks (no train this year) and a lot of gently rolling hills
between Nunn and Rockport. There were also beautiful field of sunflowers
mixed with grasses. Traffic was light and not problem, although there
are a few bridges with no shoulders. Good riding, but not as peaceful as
Nunn Rd. 

The Rockport restaurant is closed on Sunday and Monday and this ride was
on a Sunday. Ah well, I still stopped and has a snack sitting in the
shade. There is no shade, or much of anything else taller than grass, on
US 85 and by this time it was quite sunny. Shortly before Rockport I
noticed what appeared to be a large windfarm on the northern horizon. It
was at least thirty machine and they were huge. I first saw these
machines about ten miles from the Wyoming border. When I finally reached
them I was in Wyoming. I'm impressed - I'd guess those thirty six
machines could produce at least several megawatts of wind generated
electricity. That wind farm wasn't there last year. There are three
groups of twelve machines, each group arranged in a line and the lines
looked to be roughly SE - NE, SE-S - NE-N, and N - S.
 
Just beyond Rockport there is a really neat rock formation off to the
east. I guess it is part of the rock formations that extend east through
the Pawnee Grasslands. As US 85 approaches Wyoming, it climbs a lot -
Cheyenne is in a valley, yet it is over 1000 feet higher than Fort
Collins. This climb was a bit hot since the tail wind and my climbing
speed were similar. After you get into Wyoming you reach a plateau and
then descen into Cheyenne. It is nice descent, but Cheyenne, despite
being a city of 50000 people, isn't very exciting. If you like trains
you may enjoy Cheyenne - lots of train tracks and trains go through
here. I got to my motel, on the western edge of Cheyenne about 4 PM.
Tomorrow I ride north and a little bit north east on US 85. Right now
the wind in Cheyenne is from the south at 15 to 20 mph. I'll have a fast
ride tomorrow if that keeps up!