Dave rides his bike to school

 

Above: There sure are a lot of nice buttes in Montana.

 

Above: It’s all downhill from here.  Isn’t it?  [it sure doesn’t feel like it]

 

Above: Kenny, supreme badarse.  He’s literally racing from Canada to Mexico, along the Rocky Mountains on mountain bike trails.  Besides the fact that he’s intentionally riding up and down mountains the whole way, he also doesn’t have the luxury of mini-marts and gas stations along the way for supplies, like I do. 

Thursday, 6/29 7pm
Location: Simms, MT

Coordinates:
didn’t get a reading

Today’s mileage: about 60
Tomorrow’s destination: Great Falls (short day)

As I was leaving my campsite today, a guy on a bike named Kenny stopped me to ask if the bathrooms were clean.  He was riding a fancy full-suspension mountain bike, complete with downhill tires and disk brakes, with a hiking backpack strapped to his back.  Immediately, I realized that he must be doing the Great Divide route. 

The Great Divide bicycle trail starts at the U.S./Canada border near Whitefish, MT, and follows the Rocky Mountains south to the U.S./Mexico border.  It basically traces the Continental Divide across the U.S.  The route is roughly 75% unpaved, and the majority of it passes through back country.  Supposedly, it’s the longest offroad bicycle trail in the world.

In other words, you have to be one tough/crazy SOB to do the Great Divide Trail.  Getting back to Kenny, it turns out that he’s doing the Great Divide Race.  As the name implies, the Great Divide Race is simply a race from the beginning to the end of the Great Divide Trail.  The cut-off time for racers is 25 days.  Allow me to repeat that: 25 frickin’ days!  Kenny said that the top competitors average 120 miles per day, on the dirt trails over the Rocky Mountains!  Unreal.  Previously, I figured that the Race Across America (San Diego to New York non-stop) was the most insane bike race I’d ever heard of.  Now I think the Great Divide Race takes the cake.  Well, Kenny was a friendly fellow who happily informed me that he was placed dead-last.  Regardless, he’s still averaging more miles on dirt trails than I do on paved roads.    

At around noon, I crossed the Continental Divide myself, heading east.  Whenever I anticipate something being really difficult, like crossing Roger’s Pass over the Continental Divide, it ends up being somewhat anticlimatic.  On the other hand, whenever I anticipate something being really easy, like coasting down from Roger’s Pass, I end up being equally mistaken.  Somehow descending from 5600 ft ended up being more difficult than climbing up to 5600 ft.  The maps just show a gradual descent, but in reality, it was almost as hilly as Northern California.  I didn’t go as far today as yesterday, but I’m almost as tired.  The temperature got into the mid-90’s today, so I think I’m just having trouble keeping properly hydrated in this heat.  Water and Gatorade aren’t doing the trick.

My maps showed a place to camp out in Simms, but unfortunately, the tenter campsites have been replaced by a mobile home.  As a result, I’m spending the night camped out in the grass next to the only gas station in town.  As the gas station doesn’t have a shower, tomorrow I’ll be going on four days without a shower. 

 

Musings and Observations:
1) The drink of choice in this corner of the country appears to be “red beer”.  Actually, even back in Oregon, I noticed a lot of people ordering this peculiar libation.  The preferred method of concocting a “red beer” is to pour a pint of Bud Light about 3/4 full, and then top it off with Clamato, which looks something like V8. If Clamato isn’t handy, sometimes tomato juice is used.  It sounds pretty nasty to me, but I’ll have to give one a try, purely for the cultural experience, of course.
2) As I head farther east, the local accent is slowly changing.  In the last two days, I have detected a Midwestern or Canadian tint to the Western drawl.  Perhaps I just ran into a few transplants, but I’m pretty certain that I heard “don’t ya know” in a fashion that only someone from Fargo or Minnesota should attempt.    
3) Following up on #1, red beer tastes pretty much how I expected.  No big surprise there.  Bleh. 
4) My alcohol tolerance is zilch.  I can aready feel the said red beer.
5) Two red beers taste better than one.

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Friday, June 30th, 2006 at 7:16 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.