Today is essentially a rest day. I was on the road by 8 after a nice morning with Pam and Walter, and then had a cool, relatively flat morning on pavement (maybe 7 miles of dirt) to push out 38 miles to Pinedale. I got to town by 10:30 with maybe 2 hours on bike.
The next place I could stop was 50 miles away and a bunch more pavement. Honestly, totally doable today, it's cool and mostly windless, but unfortunately I needed some time here to stock groceries for four days and charge up my batteries. It's a nice town, but I'm pretty much stuck by a power outlet in the park, and later maybe stuck by a power outlet in a brewery.
It has given me time to do bike maintenance, like adjust my brakes, etc, that I neglected on my real rest day in Coltier Bay.
So let's talk about what I'd do differently for this trip.
1) I'd have went with one of those Son Dynamo front hubs. It would have more-or-less topped off my batteries every day. I use power for these blog entries, GPS tracking, GPS navigating, etc. The four-year-old solar panel I brought is useless. It barely charges anything, and I mailed it back today. No point in carrying extra weight that doesn't work. My battery is big, but it takes a loooong time to charge up in a town, and where I likely am going to have to sleep doesn't have power, so I'm stuck. But, this charge will likely last me until Denver.
2) I'd have went with a front shock, and a small rear rack since I'd couldn't have as much weight strapped to my front fork.
Well, that's it for today's exciting blog. Pinedale is cool. It's 2k people and has a bike share, sweet. I may meet up with Pam and Walter later as well.
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