Day 2 - On The Road
Today I started my ride! I unfortunately got a late start as I had issues with building the bike again and needed to make trips to Walmart. Also I was tired and slept till 8am. However I got on the road later and Montana is one of the prettiest places on earth in my opinion. However it has lots of mountains blocking everything, and it peaked at 94° with no shade. About 16 miles into my ride I'm at a stop light and an older gentleman pulls up next to me and says, “there's a cafe a mile up the road on the left, pull over there”
This man didn't give me his name, did not smile, and did not say what he wanted. But I'm adventurous so I pulled over a mile ahead. He got out of his car and said, “I saw you touring and thought maybe you would like a break. Want to grab a coffee?” Turns out Mike is a seasoned bike tourer having done some amazing domestic and international bike trips, and also had lived his whole life here in MT. So we chatted, getting to know each other and he asked my route and if I had questions. I had many and Mike gave me a lot of advice. We changed my routes a little to avoid some fences I wouldn't be able to cross and he gave me some recommendations about my campgrounds for the night. Specifically that it's not the best and maybe consider somewhere else. We chatted for 40 minutes before I realized the time and I got ready to go.
I filled my water bottles and got riding again. At this point I'm on the streets, basically the frontage roads next to the highway. And something to know about MT towns, they are almost all in valleys or basins. Which means leaving town means climbing those mountains. So while my road was not incredibly steep (avg 6% grade) it did not end. I was melting in the sun running out of water, and still had 25 miles to go. It was getting later in the day, I was bonking, so I made the decision to bail on the day and get a cab. I did not want day 1 to be the one that ended in failure. And based on Mikes suggestion I skipped over that campground and went to my next stop in Butte! And this helped mentally because Butte was a motel day. This also helped me get back on schedule, as technically I was a day behind what I planned.
I saw lots of small birds and beautiful landscapes from near a highway but not much else. Today was a tough but fun day, and I'm glad I skipped ahead. I'm thankful that I met Mike and I'm looking forward to getting a donut in the morning.
