restless bikers

Hi!

About two minutes after our last post we jumped into Kellys car and headed towards Utah and Zion National Park. It was a 4 hour ride in her lovely Toyota Prius through an amazing landscape. When we got there we bought a Park Pass and hiked up a mountain where we rolled out our madrases and sleeping bags and slept under the bright stars. It was a rather cold night, but the fact that we didn’t have to bring tents up the mountain and could lay awake late and look at the stars made it all worth it.

The following day we hid our sleeping bags in the bushes and hiked down the mountain. We spent the day in “the narrows”, which was a river running through a gorge in the mountain. We hiked in the water with our biking shoes for about 3 hours upstream, before we had our peanut butter jelly sandwich – lunch (restless bikers are americanized), and then hiked back the same way. A really cool (and sometimes cold) experience hiking in water. After the wet hike we went back up the mountain to our sleeping bags. A barefoot hike since our shoes were still wet.

The last day we went up to Angels Landing, a view point up on a high mountain overlooking the entire national park. Christian had some blisters on his feet, so he stayed by the car, and Christofer and Kelly only made it to the ” Chicken rock”, about half a mile from the top. The only ones that made it all the way up were Jonas and Clint. (they had a death wish).

After Angels Landing we jumped in the car and went back to Tuba City where our bikes were waiting. That night we spent watching a solar eclipse, eating hot sandwiches and watching a couple of episodes of Scrubs before falling asleep. The following morning we said goodbye to Clint and Kelly and hit the road again. Hopefully we’ll see them again when we reach the east cost! Thanks for an amazing weekend guys!

After biking about 90 kilometers one of Christofers spokes broke, making the wheel become skewed. But since we had spare spokes we tried to fix it right away. Altough… Since we are amateurs we didn’t have the right tool to remove the chain cassette. Shame on us, and Christofer had to bike with a skewd wheel. After two days we made it to Blanding where we managed to get help from the lovely couple Mark and Carla who had all the right tools, and even spent a couple of hours helping us fix it. When we left we left happy. Fixed spoke, pumped tubes, filled water bottles and a boiled egg each. Thanks Mark and Carla!

Right now we are close to the border between Utah and Colorado, and soon we will get on our bikes and head towards the Rocky mountains. But already we can feel that we are on a higher altitude. Mostly because we’ve had a hell of a lot of uphill lately, but also because the air is colder, people don’t wear shorts anymore, and people actually seem thinner up here.. Maybe it got something to do with the cold air, but who knows

Now it’s time for some more uphill!

Restless bikers signing out!

Hey,

After leaving Evan at Hoover Dam we took the old route 66 up to Fork Ash where we turned north towards Grand Canyon Village. Halfway there, in Valle, we stopped for the night at a Fred Flinta loving camping spot. A nice place, but the morning after all three of us had flat tires due to some bushes with sharp thorns. A terrible start of the day, and everything happened before breakfast. The last 40 kilometres up to grand canyon went pretty quick, despite the headwind.

In Grand Canyon Village we stayed for two nights. We walked along the rim, sat at the edge dreaming, and slept and rested a lot. It was an amazing place, and not that exploited as we thought. We highly recommend you to go there!

The following day we biked 40km along the rim to Desert View where we spent a half day reading our books and just chilling. After that it was time to hit the road again. We had decided to skip highway12 in Utah due to lack of time, and instead head east directly through monument valley. The first stop was Tuba City where we stopped at a McDonald’s to fill our bellies with food and cellphones with power. At McDonald’s we met the American med-students Clint and Kelly. After a while they said they where going to Zion national park in Utah to hike and camp, and asked us if we wanted to come. Long story short, we are leaving our bikes in Tuba City to go on a two night hiking adventure in Zion!

Time to go!

Hi everyone! Right now restless bikers are enjoying lunch in the shade after a hilly morning. We’ve been cyclin on a lot of big roads the last couple of days. For example highway 93 from Hoover dam to Kingman. A road with almost no shoulder and a lot of traffic, not good! Except for willow beach where we took a swim in the Colorado river, cold but very refreshing.

On our way to Williams, where we are now, we have found out that there’s lots of signs that tell you it’s gonna be uphill. We’re gonna teach you some of them.

This sign is a classic, specially on roads with a lot of mountains around. When you see this sign you better pray it’s not to steep!

This sign you find on big roads when trucks don’t have the power to go very fast. If a truck can’t go very fast you can bet your ass a bike can’t go very fast!

This is the kind of sign you want to see! You have just succeeded in your quest to climb a long and heavy mountain road and find yourself looking at a sign that tells you “you’re the man!”. After this sign you get the reward of a nice downhill slope, that usually ends before you’re even realising you’re going downhill.

Tomorrow we arrive to the Grand Canyon and we’ve heard there’s some really steep hills there. Maybe that’s why they call it a canyon.

/restless bikers

It is with great sadness we have to inform you that restless bikers now only consist of three bikers. Evan Thomas has left the biking life to go to his girlfriend in Norway.

Evan has been missing his girlfriend for quite some time, and a few days ago he made up his mind and booked a ticket to Oslo. He came with us from Las Vegas to see the Hoover Dam two days ago, and then he headed back to Vegas by himself.

Evan will be missed, but we hope to meet him again in a near future.

//the Swedish part of restless bikers, now in Kingman.

A lot has happened since our last post but let’s take it from the beginning.

When we woke up in Barstow Christian had gotten sick probably due to his dip in the cold pool the previous day, so therefore we stayed an extra day in Barstow, a day of HBO, reading, eating and some more HBO. The next day we took the I15 up to Baker. We had been warned that the road would be hot, heavily trafficked and hilly. In reality it was only 28 Celsius, tailwind and not to much traffic, so we made it to Baker before lunch. That night we spent in the middle of the desert next to a pile of asphalt. The next day we biked up to Tecopa where we knew we could get water for our bottles. In Tecopa we rested under a tree wen three local drunk women came out from their house and offered us water, oranges and unlimited supplies of whiskey, beer and food. It turned out it was one of the women’s birthday, and restless bikers where invited. We stayed for a couple of hours and drank, ate, had the royal tour of Tecopa and checked out the girls jail. We also went for a trip in their rowing boat in their pond at their yard! Totally unexpected afternoon, but so much fun! That night we camped just outside Tecopa.

The next day was hard. Low on water, hilly and hungover. After a couple of hours we bumped into an old man selling jerky and cold drinks. We stayed there for almost an hour and pretty much emptied his stack of soda and water. That saved us that day and gave us the energy to bike to Blue Diamond where we met the owner of a gas station, and he offered us to camp behind it, an offer we accepted at once! The gas station was open 24/7, and we were its best customers during that night. We spent a couple of hours talking to a Vietnam vet. He was an artist driving around all over the US with his small caravan. Cool guy and full of ideas about how the society should work.

The next day we biked the last 20 miles into Vegas where we checked in to the hotel Stratosphere, which we had booked in beforehand. First priority was to have our first shower since 4-5 days back. We both smelled and looked like we had just been crossing a desert on bikes.

In Vegas we’ve had a really good time so far. Days spent sleeping, watching Avengers on IMAX, drinking, clubbing and more sleeping. Right now we are having breakfast at McDonald’s outside our hotel, and soon we’ll do some touristy stuff before we open a couple of beers again. Tomorrow we are heading towards Hoover Dam, and then on towards Grand Canyon.

Now the McDonald’s coffee is finished, time to go!

/Christofer, Christian, Jonas and Evan