West Yellowstone to Old Faithful by bike (Day 6)

So when I started planning my epic adventure across the west I had decided that I wanted to do some road biking.  My Dad suggested that I ride from West Yellowstone to Old Faithful.  Seeing as it was only 30 miles, I though what the heck, why not.  I convinced my Mom and Hayley to join me on this epic ride through the park and they joined me, though a little reluctantly at first.  Originally, the plan was to be on our way to West Yellowstone by 8:30am so that we could be on the road by 9:30am but in true Gallion fashion, we ended up running a little late.  We finally got everything and everyone loaded into the car at approximately 9:30am.  Dad and Hannah were going to act as our road crew throughout the trip (and thank god they did, more to come on that later) so they drove us to just inside the park where we unloaded the bikes and got on the road at approximately 11am.

Mom led most of the way to set the pace and the park was absolutely beautiful.  I snapped a few pictures along the way of the beauty that is Yellowstone Park.

We made it to Madison Junction, halfway on our journey with no incidents to speak of.  We stopped long enough to shed a few layers and take a halfway picture.

Unfortunately, the best laid plans of mice and men often do not go as planned.  As we began to ascend one of the hills on the road I road up front to pull the group up the hill and then disaster struck.  I blew a tire and we had no cell service.  I got out my patch kit to fix my tube because of course we didn't stop at the bike shop as planned before we started our ride to pick up some extra tubes.  We found the hole and got the patch on and it appeared to be holding.

Dad and Hannah drove up as I was finishing the patch and planned to ride on.  Dad said that he would go to the next turn out and wait to see if the patch would hold.  Unfortunately, the patch did not hold and it looked like my journey would be over.  I rode up over the ridge on my soon to be very flat tire and walked down to meet the group at the turnout.  Mom was determined to finish the ride as was I so Dad drove me back to West Yellowstone where I was able to get a new tire and tube in record time.  We drove back and met the group and were back on the road about 2 hours after the infamous flat.

As we started back out on our trip the wind had picked up and unfortunately we were riding straight into it making the ride miserable to get going again.  We finally reached the geyser basin and knew that we were getting close to Old Faithful.  But alas, one of us would not finish the ride into Old Faithful.  Approximately 3 miles out from Old Faithful, Hayley had to call the ride a bust.  Her quads had cramped up and she was not going to make it up another hill.  She told me to finish out the ride and send out the road crew to come and get her.

I caught up to Mom and told her what had happened and road ahead to Old Faithful to find Dad and Hannah.  I though that I saw them leaving as I was pulling into the parking lot but I couldn't be sure.  I road up to the Visitors Center, the geyser and the general store with no luck on finding them.  Mom finally reached Old Faithful as well and then we set out to try to get a hold of them - which is harder than it sounds due to the lack of cell phone coverage in the majority of the park.  We eventually got a hold of them and they were already there to pick Hayley up.

Mom and I took our finishers selfie as we waited for the rest of them to get back to Old Faithful.  Everyone eventually made it to Old Faithful about 6 hours after we started, which with all considered is not bad.

We then finished loading the bikes and headed back out to West Yellowstone for dinner at the Slippery Otter Pub.  It was burgers all around for the riders and crew as well as some well deserved beverages!