7/4-Happy Two-Fiddy!

I got a text from my youngest son this morning. He was standing with the governor of Massachusetts in a Life is Good t-shirt that said “Two-Fiddy”. I thought it was the perfect title for this year’s 4th of July post. 

Today was my longest distance so far at 81 miles! I left Bozeman about 6:45 after a good breakfast at the Super 8. I was concerned about the route because the route I was able to download was different from the Bikepacking.com route. I messaged Crowell Herrick, the guy who did the majority of the Montana routing, and asked if it mattered which way I went. He said the Bikepacking.com route was better. I figured, for the part that was different, I would have to stop periodically and check the route on my phone. But, I didn’t! The route I was running on my Garmin was the right route! Maybe it was updated?

On the Kelly’s Canyon Rd which was the correct route!

Crowell told me there would be a rippin’ descent after climbing up Kelly’s Canyon. 

There was this on the way up. Lewis and Clark camped here on their way back to St Louis. 

Boy howdy, was he right!!! It was an awesome descent! There was a woman out walking at the bottom. I had to stop and tell her how much fun that was!

Then I was on to Bridger Rd, but not for too long. When I turned off, it was the beginning of a succession of shortish climbs. There was not much distance in between each climb.

Little lines of snow across the tops

Cranes

Today’s deer photo (I saw another one, but didn’t get a photo…one a day is enough)

 I stopped for a sugar break just before another climb. This guy pulled up. 

This is Boone. He was in quite the get up! I saw him again later as he was climbing back up Bozeman Pass from the other side. 

I finally got to a decent downhill section that took me back to an I-90 frontage road. 

Down!

A little school!

At the turn onto the frontage road. This is the only way I want to see a grizzly!

Now I had another not too long of a climb up to Bozeman Pass. A bunch of roadie cyclists went by. They just went to the top and turned around (unlike Boone, who went down the other side, then climbed back up. The roadies were wimps!). I stopped partway up to take a photo of this freight train chugging up the Pass. 

It was a really long train of tanker cars, but only one engine. No wonder it was going so slow!

At the top, I could see a Bozeman Pass sign over on I-90. 

Woo Hoo!

Now I had a most awesome downhill. The descent from the Pass was waaaay longer than the climb, like miles longer! It was awesome! I basically went down all the way to where I turned to go into Livingston. 

In Livingston, I stopped at the travel center and got my chocolate milk and a Bai coconut drink, and a Boston Cream Pie. Refueled, I headed through Livingston. It was a cute town. Would have been cool to stay there, but I needed to do more than 35 miles.

Main Street Livingston

The next part of the route was Convict Grade. I k ew it would be gravel/dirt because Crowell had told me it was in good shape. I usually think of a “grade” as a climb, but this wasn’t. It followed along the Yellowstone River. 

River and road

This was unusual…an ambulance went by, lights and sirens. I never did see where it went, but there were some houses later. 

There was actually a fair amount of traffic until I got to a more “primitive” gravel road. I had three more climbs on the gravel. 

A bit more chunky gravel

I walked this bit as the rocks were pretty loose

A pano of the top of the last climb-Big Sky Montana!

The descent wasn’t too bad. I was mostly able to find a fairly good line. I also had a pretty awesome tailwind. I returned to pavement at Hunters Hot Springs. 

New pavement!

There were two of these massive log entrance things. 

I had been without any shade for a long time. Not too long before I crossed over the Yellowstone River, I stopped in a bit of shade for another small snack. Then I headed to another frontage road. 

Crossing the Yellowstone River 

The frontage road took me into Big Timber (I would not describe the town as having much “big timber”). I stopped at another travel center (Town Pump). These places are great. They have everything! There was a Super 8 next door. I wanted to make sure the KOA had tent sites left before I left the town because it was 10 miles out of town. If not, I would stay at the Super 8. They had two tent sites left, so after eating, I headed out for the last 10 miles. 

There’s got to be a KOA out there somewhere!

I arrived about 4:15 or so. This place is indeed quite full, but they did have two tent sites (I only need one, of course). As I was riding to my site, a guy at another tent site on a bike called out to me. I had heard there was an Asian guy doing the route (well, he’s sort of doing it). His name is Tuan (or Twan). He rode from Livingston today. 

I feel remarkably good for having ridden 81 miles! There was a lot of downhill, but there was also a fair amount of dirt/gravel. Haven’t looked to see where I’ll go tomorrow. Hopefully not another 80 miles! Also, there’s no fireworks allowed in the park, so should be a quiet night. 

7/3- All But 8 With Brian, and Meeting a Follower

Brian and I had decided to ride together today. He was feeling okay after his crash. One of the bike issues was bent rails on his saddle. He was still able to get his Ortlieb seat bag to attach to the rails. 

Almost ready to go 

Brian was incredibly kind to go my pace. I could tell he was having an easy time. But he seemed okay with it. 

This morning before we left, we saw a flock of pelicans. Then on the road I saw this buck and later these cranes. 

We rode quite steady until Three Forks. 

Williams Bridge

We found a coffee shop in Three Forks. There was a dude sitting across from us asking Brian all the annoying questions about Canada. Brian was very patient, but I could see he was starting to annoy him too. While we were eating, another cyclist came in. It was Ben. He has been reading my blog everyday for info on the route ahead. He’ll be spending two days in Bozeman, so he’ll be behind me again, until he catches me. 

Ben and bike

Brian did a little saddle adjustment at the cafe in Three Forks. It was slowly going nose up. 

As we were riding out of Three Forks, I noticed my Garmin said the route was ending in 2.9 miles. I wondered if this would happen. I downloaded the routes Dana created. Instead of all of Segment 2 in one route, he made two routes in smaller chunks. Apparently, part two of Cutthroat was not on my Garmin. I had the route on my phone, but Brian also had most of today’s route on his Coros Dura. I just followed him. 

We were on a really bumpy bike path. Brian hit a particularly bad bump, and it totally tilted his saddle back. We stopped to fix it. 

His route was taking him to his Warmshowers host in Belgrade. Where our routes diverged, I just decided to stay on the Frontage Rd with Brian to Belgrade. We had a celebratory lunch (for his finishing his ride) at a cafe in Belgrade. I was able to get the second part of Cutthroat on to my Garmin. I was off route, but all I needed to do was ride the Frontage Rd into Bozeman. 

Brian and I said our goodbyes. It was nice having a riding partner today. I hope he continues to have awesome adventures with his kids. 

As I headed toward Bozeman on the very busy frontage road, I was reconsidering my plan to go to a campground off route. This being 4th of July weekend, I thought there was a pretty good chance the campground was full. So I looked up a Super 8. There was one just a mile away. I also needed to do full scale laundry. 

Luke, at the front desk, upgraded me to a King room because it was on the ground floor. Same price as the Queen at $105. That’s my cheapest hotel yet!

I asked an employee if they had any rags I could use to wipe down Wanda. He gave me a whole pile. I saved out one to exchange my greasy chain cleaning rag. Wanda now doesn’t have chunks of mud on her anymore!

Not fully clean, but better!

There’s a Mexican restaurant next door. Me thinks that will be dinner after my laundry is done. 

7/2-A Most Excellent Day!

Today was the first day back on the Brooks saddle. I did stop once to adjust it when I realized my knees were brushing up against my feed bags. But, otherwise, it was great! At the end of 53 miles, my butt felt like it had been feeling at 20 miles on the other saddle. 

I had a little funny routing thing as I was leaving the KOA. Turns out, I could have just gone out the back of the campground right to the trail. Instead, I did a circuitous route. 

There’s where I was camping. 

The trail

I was on this trail until it ended at a park, then it was road to an alley. When Garmin says left on Alley, you never quite know what that’s going to be. In this case, it was actually an alley!

I hope people didn’t mind I was cruising by the back of their houses. 

I worked my way to a short stint on MT 2. The guy at the bike shop yesterday told me to be very careful on Hwy 2. A cyclist had been killed there, being hit by a side mirror. It was just 1.1 miles, and I survived to tell the tale. Turning off the hwy onto gravel, it was a 14% grade going up toward Sagebrush Flats. Brooks or not, I was pushing. This was the middle of a 5.4 mile climb. Near Sagebrush Flats a woman in a pickup yelled that she was impressed with what I was doing, and that she liked my red “crocs” (they are Berkies, but whatever).

At the parking area, it took me a moment to figure out that the route went on some singletrack. I rode it until it went straight up. 

Fortunately, it wasn’t too long

At the top of that bit of hike-a-bike, I came to the Milwaukee Trail. Ahhh, this is the “railroad grade” the bike shop guy had been talking about. It was wonderful!

The old Milwaukee railway

Way down there is where I got off hwy 2

Through rock walls

I came to the first of three tunnels. The bike shop guy suggested I walk through the tunnel because there could be ice. 

The sign even says so. 

There wasn’t, and even with my little 300 lumen headlight, I rode it no problem. The second tunnel had more rock in it, but I just went slow.

I could see a long bridge. Sure enough, I got to ride across it. 

It was important to stay on the wood path

 The third tunnel, well, you couldn’t go through that one, so I had to hike the trail up and around the tunnel. 

Quite steep actually

One final push to the road

The road was the summit of Pipestone Pass and crossing the Continental Divide!

The only sign close to a summit sign

From there I had several miles of downhill on the hwy, then turned off for even more downhill miles on a gravel/dirt road. There were a couple of shorter climbs too, but they weren’t bad (and my butt was feeling good!).

At the top of one, I rested Wanda against some mailboxes so I could eat a snack. Of course, who should happen along…the rural mail carrier. I moved Wanda. 

The scenery on this road was very nice. 

Snow covered mountains

Check out this long downhill!!!

Down down down into the valley! The wide open valley!

I said to myself, now I just need a herd of antelope to make it a veritable home on the range! 

Ta da!

This was such an enjoyable ride! I was a little sad when the road went back to pavement. As I was riding along, I saw a couple walking their dogs. I stopped and said, “Isn’t this just an amazing day?” They agreed. They were Charlotte and David. We had a nice chat, then I continued on my way. 

I stopped awhile later in the shade at another mailbox. Yep, the rural mail carrier came there. It was a different one. I told her how she was the second one I’d seen today. She said there were three of them out today. 

I was at the start of another shortish climb. I happened to look at the climb pro, and it said it was 42/42. That means for the remainder of this route segment, there are no more climbs that initiate the climb pro. 

This segment doesn’t end until Columbus, MT!

I arrived at my only services for the day, the Cardwell RV park and convenience store. I got a hot dog and a soda. I was still feeling great, but I was hungry. Plus, I only had 7 more miles to go to Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park. The guy at the store said it was a beautiful 7 miles. He was right. 

You can see where I-90 goes. Not me!

I got to go through this canyon

The rock was pretty cool

A cave!

I arrived at the state park at 3:00. Unfortunately, the cave tours were all sold out for the day. That’s okay, I’ve been in several caves. Plus, it would have been a 3 mile steep climb to get to where the tours started. 

I’m on a H/B site in the campground. There’s even another cyclist here! His name is Brian, and he is from near Toronto. He started in Banff on the Great Divide, but he only had two weeks before he has to fly home. He will fly out of Bozeman on the 4th. We’ve had a great afternoon. Unfortunately, coming back down the road from the cave tour, he crashed. He got several scrapes, but didn’t hit his head. Bike has a few issues, but it rideable. He just has to make it one more day. We are going to ride together tomorrow.

Today, was just a variety of scenery, and the first day I felt really strong on the bike. It’s amazing how your butt rules everything! Tomorrow is Bozeman. Not sure if I’m going to camp, or hotel it…