DAY 16 – Sargents to Del Norte (100.4 miles)

When I wake up in the morning my left achilles is agony. This is as a result of me tensing my calf to help take pressure off my left foot injury, and the long steady climb last night was the cause. I’ve lived with this problem for many years, and can usually walk and stretch it off in a couple of days. This time however, I have about an hour.

I order breakfast in the café and while waiting I go outside and try to shim my front brake to stop it from screeching. As I’m doing this I see two tourers pass heading south. I hear one of them say, ‘It is, it is!’, or something similar, and they swing around. They have Bob trailers and I work out the tracks I’d been following for a couple of days were theirs. Aaron and Janet are out doing the GDR Colorado section, and Aaron seems really pleased to meet the GDR ‘Brits’, and had read about us on the website. I soak up my 5minutes of fame.

As I mount up my achilles is a little better after lots of stretching, but still bad. I can only hope like other GDR twinges and niggles I can ride it off in the next 50 or so miles. This turns out to be a rough day, but some awesome scenery.

There is a bit of a kick in the teeth the last few miles into Del Norte; as I think I’m in the clear to roll into town, a twisty two track winds around over the final ascent and I’m really not feeling up for it. On any other day it would be good mountain biking, but not what I needed after 95 miles. We reach town and there are no restaurants open so stock up at the gas station. It’s not the town I expected at all and I’m really disappointed. The motel owners take pity on us though and make us some good pizzas.