Day 13, Saturday, July 12.
St. Mary, MT (Glacier) to Rundyard, MT
Daily Mileage: 153.49 miles
Total Mileage: 1,068.0 miles
Daily Time on Bike: 8:12 hours
Average Speed: 18.6 mph
Maximum Speed: 44.8 mph
Today we started riding around 8AM. Right off the bat, we ran into four other cross-country cyclists at the gate to the K.O.A. They all started in Anacortes, WA on July 1st and now are headed to various points along the East coast. We also talked with two additional cross-country riders over breakfast. They started as solo riders, but now have joined forces. The younger of the two quit his job in Seattle, sold his furniture and is moving back to Massachusetts. The older man took 6-8 weeks off of work to do the trip.
We finished our breakfast outside of the grocery store, which is still at 4,000 feet above sea level (no wonder it was so cold last night—the wind was so intense it sounded like the ocean outside of the tent). After rolling out of the grocery store parking lot we immediately hit a large hill. I was really depressed at this because everyone had said that once you come off the mountains it's flat. Well the hill took us a while, but eventually we made it to the top. What we saw nearly made me cry—blue skies and the flat plains of America—now this was heaven! Little did I know that we still had several more miles left to travel before we hit level ground, but the last couple of hills were a great deal of fun with smooth pavement and a bunch of turns. When we reached Kiona, the road flattened and the huge wind we had battled for the past day was now at our backs. The tailwind was incredible and we were really flying. Then we hit Browning.
The town of Browning just happened to be having a big parade when we rolled in. The sag wagon for the other two cyclists we saw this morning was waiting in the stopped traffic, which gave us a chance to talk with him. He is from Ann Arbor, MI and the other guy is from Detroit. This sagger (the guy who drives the support vehicle) was the father of one of the guys and man, did he make it easy for them. He cooked, made reservations for the campgrounds, set up camp, and was pretty much their butler—needless to say we were a bit jealous. Once we made it through Browning we hit two patches of gravel—on a U.S. highway! We had to get off our bikes when we hit the gravel and walk them through it to spare us any future pain with compounded bike problems. Once we made it through Browning and turned onto U.S. 2 it was more incredible biking than any I've ever done in my entire life. To spare a lot of details, I'll just say we were cruising well about 30 mph for long periods of time (again with our bikes fully loaded). We were spinning so fast we had to quit pedaling, even after maxing out all of our gears. We were having such a great day on the bikes that we decided to shoot for a double century today (200 miles), but missed it by 50 miles.
The scenery is incredible! After being in the mountains for two weeks, flat land as far as the one can see is an amazing sight. (A tailwind makes it really nice as well.) As we made our last twenty-mile push of the day into Rundyard, I flatted about 14 miles out; however, it was a beautiful place for a flat tire though. I must say that we had flat tires in some of the most beautiful places this country has (at least on the route that we were biking). As the sun set it was turning the few clouds pink against an otherwise clear blue sky. The middle of Montana is an amazing place. It's as though you're standing on the top of the world and everything slopes down away from you. Montana's license plates say "Big Sky Country," and they're not lying. I always thought the sky to be big everywhere, but in Montana, it's the biggest anywhere around.
The last six miles of our day went quickly. It was getting dark and we were getting tired. We set up our camp in the town park for free. One catch—plenty of mosquitoes. We ran the quick set-up drill, locking our bikes close to the entrance and putting the rainfly on them as a security measure. We piled in and here we are.
Today was a great day—a beautiful blue sky, nice smooth and flat road, huge tailwind, and no need to turn around into it.
(Photo: David biking past the final mountains out West.)
Daily Mileage: 153.49 miles
Total Mileage: 1,068.0 miles
Daily Time on Bike: 8:12 hours
Average Speed: 18.6 mph
Maximum Speed: 44.8 mph
Today we started riding around 8AM. Right off the bat, we ran into four other cross-country cyclists at the gate to the K.O.A. They all started in Anacortes, WA on July 1st and now are headed to various points along the East coast. We also talked with two additional cross-country riders over breakfast. They started as solo riders, but now have joined forces. The younger of the two quit his job in Seattle, sold his furniture and is moving back to Massachusetts. The older man took 6-8 weeks off of work to do the trip.
We finished our breakfast outside of the grocery store, which is still at 4,000 feet above sea level (no wonder it was so cold last night—the wind was so intense it sounded like the ocean outside of the tent). After rolling out of the grocery store parking lot we immediately hit a large hill. I was really depressed at this because everyone had said that once you come off the mountains it's flat. Well the hill took us a while, but eventually we made it to the top. What we saw nearly made me cry—blue skies and the flat plains of America—now this was heaven! Little did I know that we still had several more miles left to travel before we hit level ground, but the last couple of hills were a great deal of fun with smooth pavement and a bunch of turns. When we reached Kiona, the road flattened and the huge wind we had battled for the past day was now at our backs. The tailwind was incredible and we were really flying. Then we hit Browning.
The town of Browning just happened to be having a big parade when we rolled in. The sag wagon for the other two cyclists we saw this morning was waiting in the stopped traffic, which gave us a chance to talk with him. He is from Ann Arbor, MI and the other guy is from Detroit. This sagger (the guy who drives the support vehicle) was the father of one of the guys and man, did he make it easy for them. He cooked, made reservations for the campgrounds, set up camp, and was pretty much their butler—needless to say we were a bit jealous. Once we made it through Browning we hit two patches of gravel—on a U.S. highway! We had to get off our bikes when we hit the gravel and walk them through it to spare us any future pain with compounded bike problems. Once we made it through Browning and turned onto U.S. 2 it was more incredible biking than any I've ever done in my entire life. To spare a lot of details, I'll just say we were cruising well about 30 mph for long periods of time (again with our bikes fully loaded). We were spinning so fast we had to quit pedaling, even after maxing out all of our gears. We were having such a great day on the bikes that we decided to shoot for a double century today (200 miles), but missed it by 50 miles.
The scenery is incredible! After being in the mountains for two weeks, flat land as far as the one can see is an amazing sight. (A tailwind makes it really nice as well.) As we made our last twenty-mile push of the day into Rundyard, I flatted about 14 miles out; however, it was a beautiful place for a flat tire though. I must say that we had flat tires in some of the most beautiful places this country has (at least on the route that we were biking). As the sun set it was turning the few clouds pink against an otherwise clear blue sky. The middle of Montana is an amazing place. It's as though you're standing on the top of the world and everything slopes down away from you. Montana's license plates say "Big Sky Country," and they're not lying. I always thought the sky to be big everywhere, but in Montana, it's the biggest anywhere around.
The last six miles of our day went quickly. It was getting dark and we were getting tired. We set up our camp in the town park for free. One catch—plenty of mosquitoes. We ran the quick set-up drill, locking our bikes close to the entrance and putting the rainfly on them as a security measure. We piled in and here we are.
Today was a great day—a beautiful blue sky, nice smooth and flat road, huge tailwind, and no need to turn around into it.
(Photo: David biking past the final mountains out West.)
