Day 10

I arrived to camp in Avon, Montana euphoric. The ride today had it all: physical challenges, the need for stamina and towards the end of the ride an absolutely gorgeous payout.

We left the University of Montana campus fairly late at 7:45am. Although the weather forecast we received last night was for nice weather: sunshine, 70 degrees, and a light westerly wind. When we got up, however, it was pretty nippy and drizzling rain.

After getting out of Missoula (a town of about 100k inhabitants), we started climbing. Meanwhile the rain had become a down right downpour. Water seemed to come from everywhere: from below from my tires, from above from the clouds and from the side as the spray from passing trucks. It was pretty miserable, even more so because I wasn't really dressed for the occasion, without a thick under layer. To make things worse, I had my first flat tire of the ride (one of 24 flats among 32 riders today; the wet weather makes flats more likely). 

Still, the scenery became more and more awesome, with the sky dark and haunted above the deep green of pine forests. Again we followed a river through deep valleys between pine-covered mountains. Still the river again became smaller. Seven days ago, we followed the Columbia river, a massive river that flows directly into the Pacific. After going along smaller and smaller rivers over the past days, today we followed the Blackfoot River - towards the end of the day a mere stream. That makes sense; we're getting closer and closer to the Continental Divide!

My response to the cold, rain and lack of proper clothing was to ride fast and avoid stopping for rest. In doing so, I actually had one of the best days riding to date. Riding alone, I decided to skip the lunch break to avoid cooling down in wet clothing. It was great to push and push up a slow incline. In the still dark and gray weather, the high altitude plain looked endless and profoundly beautiful.

After mile 50 or so, slowly some blue spots appeared in the sky. At one point, a little spot of sunshine glided over the road about 50 meters in front of me. The weather was moving east with me as I was riding. After a couple of minutes of hot pursuit, I basked in the fun rays of the day - so nice and warm.

At mile 85, I had been riding alone for about 65 miles and I was beginning to get quite tired. I stopped, ate some cookies and drank my last water. It helped, but I was till pretty exhausted. Finally, helped by a tail wind that whipped around the peaks, I reached the end of the valley. When I came to the next valley, the payout for a long day of biking came: I sailed down a long, gradual decent and took in a breath-taking panorama of green pastures, some smaller pine trees and snowcapped mountains. I heard nothing but the rubber of my tires hitting the road and my derailleur ticking softly. It was stunning.

The descent was topped only the pie I had at mile 96 ;-). More on that from Lucija.

By Lucija:

Montana is beautiful.  Again, I had a wonderful biking day.  It rained the first half, but I was dressed right and enjoyed it.  The rest of the day was nice and cool.  I  have learned to love the rain and cold weather, since I seem to tolerate them much better than the heat.

Although the ride itself turned out to be another 100 miler, my goal for the day was mile 96, the "Avon Cafe" - it was the first restaurant we saw all day, and it served wonderful homemade pies.  After 96 miles of riding, five of us chowed down our pies in no time!

Photos:

Montana Landscape

Hungry bikers eating tasty pie!