Kiki Bikes Across America

Archive for July 29th, 2009

Wednesday, July 29th – Darby, MT to Missoula, MT

So I forced myself to wake up early this morning since I wanted to get to Missoula as soon as possible to enjoy half a rest day and see some of the town. I woke up at 6:30 and rolled out about 7am after packing up and leaving a note for the ladies who got us a motel room. I then ran across to the gas station and picked up some calories (donuts and some electrolytes) for the 17 mile ride to Hamilton. I forced myself to ride fast, keeping a pace of 16-20mph and an average of about 17mph when I arrived to Hamilton. I had sent Craig a text message seeing if he had left Hamilton already or if he was still there and wanted to ride to Missoula together since Chase was still sleeping and getting up slowly. I was a bit more motivated to get to Missoula earlier rather than later. So Craig and I wound up riding the 40+ miles to Missoula together.

The ride went pretty well – it was flat for the most part with an ever so slight downhill grade, but barely noticeable for the most part. We ran into a couple other touring cyclists, Barbara and Matthias, two Germans from Hamburg who started in Richmond and are ending their tour in California. We chatted for a bit and I was able to practice some German which was nice and then we continued on our way to Missoula. The last 17 miles or so were pretty slow and not exactly fun. I was really in a bit of pain at this point with my shoulder and back and was frustrated that the pain was coming back. I also hated the last 6 miles of the ride since it was even more slow and we had to ride on the shoulder of highway 93 which was absolutely no fun at all.

But finally we made it to Missoula – just over 4 hours of riding time with an average around 14.5 mph, I think. So it was a pertty fast-paced 72 miles or so by the end of the day, and we arrived by 1pm or so, so we had the whole afternoon to do whatever.

Did a quickie Walmart run and restocked on a few items – bagels, peanut butter crackers, soap, shampoo, that sorta junk. Then we were off to find the Adventure Cycling Association headquarters/office in Missoula. The ACA creates the maps that we use for biking across the country and we arrived to the office where we were greeted with ice cream, soda, candy, and a free membership if we didn’t already have one, so that’s exciting. I should be getting the magazines now which’ll be awesome:)

Once at the ACA headquarters, I started to look for a plcae for the three of us to sleep (preferrably indoors and not having to deal with tents and such). I started by looking up hosts on WarmShowers.org (an organization for cyclists who are traveling and looking for people to stay with – a hospitality group but for cyclists only). I called several people and left messages, but never heard back from any of them. Then about my 6th call, someone picked up and said “the answer is yes” before I could even tell him about us and ask if he was available. So that was really cool and Craig and I rode up to Brent’s place in the Rattlesnake area of Missoula. We were greeted outside and then chatted a bit, did some laundry, and then Brent and Craig rode down into the city and I waited for Chase to show up and unwind a bit before we then headed downtown to grab some food.

We wound up getting pitas from The Pita Pit, which was amazing! Afterwards, Craig met us at The Big Dipper for ice cream and I had a Little Dipper (Maple Walnut ice cream + hot fudge + whip cream + nuts + a cherry on top. It was delicious! After ice cream we just headed on back to Brent’s to sleep for the night.

Tuesday, July 28th – Jackson, MT to Darby, MT

Wow – today was a rough one. We got up at 7:30am, went across the street to get real food for breakfast — I had a breakfast burrito, hash browns, and toast – it was decent, but not great. The place just opened and they’re working on getting the kinks out, so no real complaints. It was normal food and was decent in taste, just not super warm or hot. Craig came over shortly after we sat down and had breakfast with us as well – he camped out back behind the lodge in a camping area they had there.  He also gave us his leftover dinner last night when he saw us at the lodge frozen and cold from the ride, so that was really nice and we were very appreciative since nothing was open at 10:15pm. We got on the road about 10:15am this morning since breakfast took a while (a little delay on the cafe, but no biggie). The riding was pretty easy, but for some reason I wasn’t feeling it. I just couldn’t get in the groove to ride like I had been the past few days with a really good and fast pace. Shortly after starting, I wound up with a horrible pain in my rib and it stuck with me for the remainder of the day. I also started to have back pain again – probably because I did two passes and 106 miles yesterday and didn’t think to put the back brace on again. I have been riding without it for maybe 5-6 days now which has been great. I have had very little pain at all, and then I started to feel some pain/soreness today. I think it’ll probably go away soon – I’m just going to continue stretching and taking the vitamin pill things. Craig again left us in the dust as he rode on – he’s a much faster paced rider and also is carrying a lot less weight on his bike (to his advantage). Chase and I were a bit slow and not really in the groove today, but continued on anyway. We did the Gibbons Pass (which was an alternate route to the usual). It was gravel for 8 miles to the top of the pass and 12 miles down on the other side and apparently cut off 4 miles from the main road. We decided to give it a go – and boy was that a bad idea. The scenery was much more pleasant and beautiful, but the gravel in places was really course and loose, so it was a pain to ride on. The ride up to the top wasn’t so bad and took about 45-50 minutes, but the ride down was horrendous. The road was not easy at all – lots of rocks, lots of loose gravel, and it was steep, so there was a lot of breaking involved. 50 miles into the ride today and I wound up with my second flat of the entire ride across the country. I was a bit bummed, especially since I didn’t want to deal with fixing a flat in the heat (it was now sunny and hot out). I fixed the flat after one tube’s valved was broken upon pumping it up, so had to  use my last new tube.

I got my second flat coming down the dirt/gravel road into Sula, Montana

Finally, down the mountain and into Sula, Montana and it was already 6pm. We had spent 3 hours climbing 8 miles and going down 12 miles of gravel – it was pathetic and annoying. So we got ice cream (Snickers ice cream bars) at the convenience store (the one and only thing in Sula, and that was closing 1 minute after we arrived)! We refueled in an attempt to make it to Hamilton for the night. That would then leave us with 50 or so miles to Missoula for tomorrow.

Unfortunately, Hamilton was still 33 miles away and 16 miles after we stopped and got ice cream it started storming horribly. The winds picked up really fast and before we knew it, we were being blown all over the road and sand and dirt was flying into our eyes. The rain was coming as well – it was a nasty storm and we had 2 miles to go before reaching the town of Darby. We got there and found a place to take cover out from the rain. We then found out the entire town was out of power from the storm, so the restaurants couldn’t serve anything. I got out my cooking stuff and decided to make pasta on the sidewalk outside of the community center. It was tasty and Chase also made pasta. While we were out there on the sidewalk, two ladies walk past and chat briefly asking if we had a place to stay tonight. We told them know and they mentioned they were staying at the motel down the street and that they may still have rooms available. Chase and I get back to cooking and eating and then the two women come back in the car and tell us that there’s a room waiting for us back at then motel and it’s been paid for. It was incredible – how nice of them to get a room for us and pay for it. Apparently, they told the motel owners that they have kids similar in age to us and thought about if their kids were in this sort of situation, what they’d do. So they went ahead and bought us a room for the night, which was the most amazing thing anyone’s done for us on this trip thus far. So we came to the motel and the power was still out, but just about when we got into the room, the power came back on! It was awesome. Got a shower and cleaned up and now updating the website with all the blog updates from the past week.

I’ll add photos into the blog entries later when I have more time, but for now, text will have to do.  I did add more photos to the picasa web albums though, so you can check those out.