Figure 8 On A Bike

* Bonus Day: Rocky Mountain marathon! The alarm goes off at 3:30 AM because the goal today is to cover about 26 miles of trail, 27 including the bit through town. But all the overnight kit stays home at the KOA cabin; this is our chance to hike the whole RMNP section in one day,  getting by without securing any permits. Fueled by pâtisseries and cans of cold brew, we crossed the campground in the dark morning and whispered out of instinct, not wanting to be the roosters that brought on daytime. The highway sits empty, the emulated-old-timey covered boardwalks don't creak and groan under the weight of passing tourists. Manage to find the trailhead and start the slow and steady ascent along North Inlet Creek. The dawn gathering weakly behind low, grey clouds backlights the charred spears of tree trunks; nearly the whole valley burned in 2020. Car-sized boulders  stand naked and exposed, all the lichen and moss burned away, leaving only white granite as a testament to what it to...

* Day 0: Zero day in Dillon . The Super 8 actually has a waffle station so breakfast is "elevated". That's a word we've learned from having Food Channel on the TV for literally about 10 hours straight. Maybe we expect to absorb some calories through the airwaves. Guy Fieri doesn't take himself too seriously and makes a lot of bad puns so he's my new favorite celebrity food personality. Second breakfast at the Blue Moon Bakery is actually elevated, a delicious lox bagel heaped with cream cheese, and a couple espressos. Susan is on a hunt for new underwear but strikes out at Sierra, although I snag a bunch of food we didn't come in there for and we also leave equipped with bear spray. Next stop is US Bank, and then to REI - this is the most amenities we've seen in a town in ages. But REI only sells women's underwear online. Make a proper grocery run at City Market and stock up on enough food to avoid leaving the hotel room again. Leftover pizza and ...

* Day 0: Zero day in Pagosa Springs . Breakfast followed by errands followed by chores all permeated with slight fretting over the next section of trail. How will the snow be? What kind of mileage can we make? Weather? Elevation? Our next resupply spot is Silverton - will we really be able to hitch a ride on a 4x4 road late on a Tuesday? Turns out there's actually a "wilderness access" train stop we can use to board the Durango-Silverton line... But will we really be able to get there in time for an 11:15 AM train? Challenge accepted. We mostly eat in the hotel room, watching the budget and surprisingly inconveniently located for any compelling restaurants. Pagosa is a bit of a strange town, east and west parts separated by 4 miles of highway with a sparse assortment of businesses in between, including our hotel. There are no sidewalks on any of the streets and you're constantly a tradfic hazard as a pedestrian. The local bus helps and every ride is honestly enjoyabl...

* Day 0:  Get to Albuquerque . Despite the airports' best efforts, sitting on the tarmac 30 extra minutes in Omaha and an hour in Denver. I guess in Denver they had to tape the plane back together. And then we spent 20 extra turbulent minutes circling Albuquerque. I don't think I can take another plane this year. After the motion sickness wore off we enjoyed a birria quesadilla down the street from the Super 8 in Bernalillo . Excited to hike tomorrow... Less so for the last bus ride. Sandia Peak is pretty and there's even an aerial tram to the top. Albuquerque has a light rail all the way to Santa Fe. Are we actually in Europe? * Day 1: 5:30 alarm to catch our Lyft to the bus stop and then catch our bus to Cuba . I'm grateful I tried the hydroxyzine because I managed to catch a little more sleep on the bus and didn't even get motion sick. It's raining lightly, and is supposed to rain most of the day. Walk to the Cuban Cafe for French toast, eggs, bacon, and COF...

After having our fill of cool hexagon-rocks and the rather shabby hostel it was time to pack up and hit the road back to Belfast. A concerning short-term forecast (as opposed to the equally concerning long-term forecast) had now become a full fledged named storm - Babet - which was supposed to start hitting Northern Ireland that same day. Babet, shmabet, we thought; the weather was going to be bad all the time anyway, and we needed to catch our ferry and get a move on to potentially more rock climbing. So we started that day of biking mentally prepared for terrible conditions, and at first it seemed likely, with grey threatening skies, burly winds, and cold temperatures. Stopping at Ballintoy Harbor along the way we nearly got blown off the rocks and into the ocean. We hid from the wind in a picnic shelter, and while eating cookies reflected on how maybe it was a poor idea to visit one of the locations used as the Iron Islands for the "Game of Thrones" TV series in October...

Some nice young bros at Ballater Hostel had made us a little insecure about our priorities, asking us "Do you only do sports? Or do you ever see any castles, or do anything cultural?", so we decided it'd be worth it to spend a few days checking out the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Our timetable didn't allow us to bike all the way from Ballater to Edinburgh (nor did our fatigue), so first it was back to Aberdeen and then onto a train bound south. Applying our hard-won real-world knowledge, we decided NOT to take the entire Deeside Way back to Aberdeen , sticking to the paved roads for the parts of the bike trail that we knew would be particularly rough and hilly. However, because it's simply not allowed for us to go too long without seeing a bike mechanic, Susan's fork broke AGAIN. The same front rack that had so many problems broke another bolt - but the top one this time! At first it seemed like maybe it was better that the other bolt broke... until we...

It was finally time to move on from Lofoten and our experience on Vågakallen/Nordryggen dictated that we needed to drop the plan of climbing Stetind (Norway's national Mountain). It was a much harder grade and more elevation. So...based on how Vågakallen went we decided to not become a rescue story. In order to get off of Lofoten we either needed to bike what we had already biked or do some public bus shenanigans again. So we anxiously waited at a bus stop, asked the driver, (Wait is that the same driver that Ben was aggressively befuddled at a few weeks ago!?), and loaded the bags and away we went back to Leknes. The bus was running very behind so we assumed we would miss the connecting bus from Leknes to Moskenes, but the next one had waited for our late bus. Quick unload the bikes, the bags, reload the bikes, the bags, success we made it! This driver tried to aggressively make up the time lost and an RV clipped off one of the side mirrors along the way. A little stressfu...