GDMBR Day 33
Start: Steamboat Springs, CO
Finish: Steamboat Springs, CO
Miles: 0 miles
Odometer: 1,220.2 miles
Location: https://share.garmin.com/Judice
Highlights:
Steamboat Springs is known for many things, including their hot springs. Across from the motel is the Old Town Hot Springs facility so I decided on this rest day to treat myself to a soak In the hot springs. Afterwards, I sat in the sauna up in the locker room and who do I meet? Another native of my hometown Lafayette, Louisiana! Brandon is 30 years old and moved to Colorado because “the mountains called me.” I can certainly relate. It is so funny to run into someone from home. The third person in the sauna must’ve thought we were a little nuts. We started talking with Cajun accents about all things Lafayette, especially the good people and food.
In the locker room I weighed myself for the first time since I started this trip. I weighed 167 pounds. Just prior to starting the trip, I weighed 173 pounds which is pretty light for me. I spent most of my adult life around 193 pounds. It’s challenging to consume enough calories to match the calories that I burn riding the bicycle every day.
I thought I would talk a little bit about food on the trail. My food consist of four main groups: breakfast mix, lunch mix, snacks, and town food.
Breakfast mix (in a Ziploc bag): oats or muesli, whey protein, coconut milk powder, nuts and seeds, dried fruit, collagen.
Lunch mix (in a Ziploc bag): dehydrated beans, cous cous or dehydrated potato, flavor packets , olive oil (added while eating)
Snacks: protein bars, trail mix, chocolate, instant coffee
Town food: While I try to eat healthy (veggies) when I get to town, I pretty much eat whatever my body craves. It’s important for me to keep up with my protein so I’ve been seeking local grass fed beef. I’ll also down cans of sardines when I can but otherwise eat a variety of foods and lots of it.
Both the breakfast mix and the lunch mix can be eaten hot or cold. I carry both a stove and a cold soaking container. Cold soaking is when you throw dehydrated food into a container with some water and let it soak for a couple of hours until it turns into a delicious mush. It’s easier than cooking and for me who doesn’t like to stop to cook lunch, I can cold soak food for two hours before lunchtime and the food is ready when it’s time to break. I have been using a plastic ice cream container to cold soak my food. In Steamboat Springs I stopped in at the Big Agnes Factory Store to have a look around. Big Agnes makes great camping gear and I recently bought their two person Copper Spur 2-person bikepacking tent. While in the store the salesman convinced me to switch out my plastic ice cream cold soaking container for the stainless steel Vargo Bot container that doubles as a cook pot or water container. I’ve seen the titanium versions online and always wanted to test one. The Vargo is considerably bigger and heavier than the plastic container. I hate adding extra weight to my load but I just mailed home a few items, including my Apple Watch, so there’s that.
I don’t think that energy bars, including the ones with extra protein, are really all that healthy. I normally don’t eat them. I consider energy bars as fancy candy bars. So many of them are filled with processed carbohydrates and ingredients I cannot pronounce. However, I’m making a special exception because I need the easy calories. I eat at least two energy bars with at least 20 g of protein. I like the chocolate mint versions of both the Pro Bar and Cliff Bar. I also eat an awful lot of nuts and seeds, often in the context of trail mix.
Lastly, I try to keep up with my water intake as much as possible. I carry a gravity water filter system in case I need to filter water from streams or other water sources. I don’t add any extras (like sugary energy powders) into the water. I do take some electrolyte capsules because sometimes my legs get a little crampy and I wonder if it’s not an electrolyte problem.