Loaded up with a breakfast of sugary-coated cereal, then resting my backside gingerly on the newly-welded Brooks saddle, I bade farewell to my sunglass-toting hosts, Jim and Barbara in Manila. It was a long climb out of Flaming Gorge; hot and interminably rolling. A climb that forever seemed to lose as much altitude as it gained, it did finally breach the 8500 foot pass forty miles later. My original plans involved a dirt road detour beyond the top but in light of my damaged perch, I dove straight back down on pavement, finishing the day with a ten mile, ten switchback descent that unravelled almost into the backstreets of Vernal.

The bike shop where I hoped to invest in a new seat was shut by the time I tracked it down on the fringes of town, so in a moment of wild abandon, I booked myself into a discounted room at the Sage Motel. Such indulgent luxury! As it happened, it was just the kind of independent motel I like. Cheap and quirky round the edges, it was run by a friendly Indonesian family, and when the back door opened, I caught a waft of Nasi Goreng.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from Vernal. But as it happened, it had just hit the big time in mountain biking circles, thanks to a magazine feature on its brand new network of trails within easy reach of town. I liked its desert heat and oddball feel; the enormous, surreal and almost cuddly dinosaurs poking their heads high into the clear blue sky, and the faded, classic Americana shop facades in the older part of town.

Two other mountain bikers had booked into the same motel, brothers Jim and Tim from Salt Lake City; Jim a keen mountain bike racer and Tim an extreme distance runner, before fatherhood took over a chunk of their lives. Over at Altitude Cycles, owner Troy’s unremitting enthusiam for the trails he’d been working on inspired me to strip down the bike and spend a ‘day off’ riding lovely, dusty singletrack out in the desert with the two brothers.

So as often the case when travelling, a turn of bad luck was far outweighed by the experiences that came from it. Breaking my saddle rails resulted in a night at Jim and Barbara’s, and an impromptu stop in Vernal. Which in turn introduced me to Jim and Tim, whose company both on and off the trails I really enjoyed. ‘It’s a good earth’, said Jim. And I agreed.

Then it was time to load up once more and head south, via the dirt roads of Baxter Pass, which would lead me me over the mountain range into Colorado.

I would have had the valley to myself but for the profusion of hunters stalking the mountains for deer and elk, garbed in full camo gear, somewhat incongruous with their day-glo orange waistcoasts and baseball caps.

All the creeks had dried up, so I flagged down pickups and asked for water. Everyone quizzed me on where I’d ridden from, and what I was doing out in the middle of the mountains alone. When I told them, they forced out whistling sounds from their mouths and shook their heads. Just to temper their perception of my madness, I often added that there was a couple on a tandem homeschooling their kid, and two brothers on a similar journey, one of whom was towing his dog in a trailer. ‘Well, I sure as hell don’t blame him for that,’ said one of the hunters, to unanimous nodding from his camo-clad friends, as if leaving a dog behind would have been far more of a surprise than the journey itself.

One couple asked me simply, ‘So what are you going to do when you get there?’ It was a question no one had put to me before. ‘Er, fly home, I guess,’ I answered, seeing in a moment of clarity how so many people must view this journey.

Pedalling into such a formidable headwind, I didn’t make it into town until dark, and luckily ended up sharing a campspot in the overpriced State Park ($20 for a tent!) with Craig, Bonnie and Dean from Canada, who’d been mountain biking in twin meccas of Fruita and Moab.

All in all, it had been a great segment of the journey. One that had been incredibly varied: from snow to mud to dust to desert to highway, with some wonderful encounters in between. Next up is the Kokopelli Trail to Moab…