Daily Summary

Multiple Seasons In A Day

Today was a nice and short 64 mile ride. Of course, as you can see in the screen shot of the profile, it was yet another 50 miles of uphill. (I am seeing a pattern in riding this area) But, again not too steep.

The day started clear and sunny. By the second rest stop at mile 32, I took off my arm covers, switched to my warm weather gloves, and went from my winter leg warmers to some medium knee warmers. I left the cold weather stuff in the van instead of in my pockets.

Naturally, as soon as we got on the other side of the mountain around mile 36, the temperature dropped a ton, the wind got strong again, and then it rained on us for a while. Then it sleeted on us for a while. Nothing like riding in a cold sleet with clothes on meant for nothing like that! I can’t repeat here some of my comments at the time. Summer in this part of the country means snow and sleet every couple of days it seems…

But, the rain stopped by the time we got to the top of the mountain and then we enjoyed the descent to town. Of course, I put back on my colder weather gear again at lunch since it was in the van.

The Sights And Ride

The route today was low traffic. Much of the route was on a “frontage road” paralleling I-90 and some train tracks. Mainly local traffic and very rural (except for the pass through Bozeman), so it was nice. In the middle, we went up and over the mountain on a very quiet road where only a few cars past us in the hour and a half we were on it. That made riding up the steepest part in the sleet better because we didn’t have to worry about cars.

The first picture shows the sun and view as I started. A little while later, I rode through Manhattan. It was a bit smaller than Manhattan, NY.

The next picture shows all the clouds over the mountains we were approaching. Scattered thunderstorms were projected in a wide swath and I was feeling angst seeing it.

The Bozeman airport photo isn’t that good but the runway is right down the center of the picture. I just didn’t have an angle to get it better. The reason I include this is because it was a big milestone for me. Coming in, I had Bozeman as the likely place I’d have to fly home from if my leg didn’t hold up. There hadn’t been a major commercial airport for a week or more. So riding past and still going felt great! Unfortunately, another person had to fly home due to his back acting up. He is hoping to get treated and join us again later.

The next picture is the direction we’re going in general. The cut thru was where they blasted through a lot of rock to get a road from one side to the other. Notice it seems sunny and nice in that photo. A short time later, I wasn’t smiling so much with the rain and sleet and temperature drop I mentioned earlier.

At lunch, we had a good view of the other side of the mountains and you can see the snow caps at top. After lunch, the winds were up to 30+ mph gusts, but almost right at our backs after the first 2 miles. We could see the storms ahead with rain falling and hoped we could miss it. We went as fast as we could down the mountain and finished with rain visible close across 270 degrees of the sky. It started raining about 200 yards from the hotel. So, we just made it!

The Food

Breakfast was eggs, cereal, and a banana. Lunch was a very windy and fast sandwich, chips, and potato salad at the top of the mountain. It wasn’t a pleasant place to hang out for long with the weather and we wanted to try to beat the rain. So, we moved on quickly.

At lunch we realized that a person in front of us hadn’t come through and that the person right behind us didn’t come in. The guide had to go track the two of them down. It ends up they missed a turn and were 10 miles off course a ways back. With no cell service in most of the area, it could have been bad if he hadn’t found them. They were lucky that there was really only one wrong turn they could have made since there weren’t many roads up there.

At dinner we hit a local steak house. I topped off the day with a cup of buffalo chili, a filet mignon, and creamed spinach. The service was so slow that we skipped dessert there and hit Dairy Queen for a sundae to end the day.