7-18-10 Day 43: Havre, Montana to Shelby, Montana: 103 miles in 6:25 hours all on Rt. 2 West.
Once again every once in a while Mother Nature throws me a bone on this ride. Today that bone was the femur! Yup, wind out of the northeast at 10-15 mph.
But first just a little flashing back. I reall had a great time visiting with Ken and Kim in Havre yesterday. Wish we could have spent just a bit more time hanging out, but I had to keep moving west and they had to head back north to Edmonton. We’ll definitely be hanging out again. Now Havre is the biggest place I’d been to since Williston, ND, and that was like five days before. Nothing but this little towns in between the two. So when I arrived in Havre it was like a culture shock to me – a city! And the thing that I was the most taken aback with were the pick-up trucks. Now this is Montana, and I guess this is where men are really men and trucks are really trucks. The pick-ups in Havre are on a massive dose of steroids. I mean these things are just totally laid out and beefy. They must be dropping 40, 50, 60+ G’s on these machines. Their almost all diesel, and they are just loaded with power, so much that when they get going these things just whine like hell. They sound as loud as freaking Harley Motorcycles. They’re usually on lifts and just decked with these massive exhaust systems.
So while I was waiting for Ken and Kim to show at the Havre RV place I was just sitting and watching these trucks go up and down the strip. It was like they were all on parade, like roosters in a chicken coop just strutting and showing their stuff. The light would turn green and these monsters would accelerate and damned near lift the front end off of the street they were so freaking powerful. And it was all makes and models of American trucks. No one brand stood out. Anyway, I think Havre should be nicknamed Pick-up Truck World.
Last night I was just flaming tired, and must have hit the hay at about 9 PM, only putting in about an hour of work on the computer before I had to crash. I decided I’d just sleep a bit later because I had a 60-mile ride to do today, and I was not going to get up and be on the road before 5 AM. Needed an extra hour of sleep. So I got up this morn at 5 AM rather than 4. Looked out the wind at the trees – and the leaves were a blowing! Which way I wasn’t sure, but they were blowing. Forced down a bagel and a half with PBJ and that was it. I just cannot really chow bigtime in the morn. Almost had to force the stuff down. From here on in, I’m going to get yogurt and fruit. That’s much easier to get down at 4 and 5 AM. It’s like when I’m up that early in the morn, I have zero appetite. Usually eat around 8 or 9, so this 4 and 5 stuff has got my system goofed up.
Got on the road at app. 5:45 AM. No PR today! And when I cycled out on to Rt 2…….wind out of the northeast, a bloody cross tailwind! Now that’s a good way to start the day when you’re riding east to west. So I was thinking that instead of spending like 6 hours to go 60 miles to Chester, it may take me like 4 or 5 – an easy day for sure. And the wind was moderate, providing a good push. But today, even the wind with me would push me up all these super duper long gradual false flats. On the flats I could go a solid 14-15 mph with my gear. But on these false flats, I’d sink down to 12-13, maybe 14 mph. A couple times I looked at my tires thinking that maybe I was flatting because the pedaling was so damned hard – with the cross tailwind!
Now Ken had told me that I was pedaling up all through eastern Montana as I was heading west to the mts. And that makes sense. It’s like from the Mississippi River to the Rockies of Colorado, you’re actually climbing ever so slowly until you get to Denver and you’ve gained several thousand feet in elevation. Same thing here. Except I bloody well felt it each and every mile. I could see traffic just coming up over a horizon line or disappearing over a horizon line, and then I’d get up to that point and see that the road ever so subtly stair steps up again for another couple of miles. Well, it would do this for 5-8 miles at a crack. So I could not get a really good rhythm going with that cross tailwind.
Yea, I know, bitch, bitch, bitch. Never perfect. And that’s true. So I just tried to enjoy what I was given and that was that. Would have loved FLAT, FLAT, but it was FALSE FLAT and I had the wind at my back for once. So life was good, despite my displeasure with this king of all false flats roadway. Early in my start I had the road all to myself for the first hour or two. And being a Sunday, even when 9 AM rolled around the traffic was still pretty light. The berm would go for 6 feet wide with a rumble strip to this ridiculous 3 foot berm with the rumble strip on the right side. Who was the Eisenstein Engineer who thought that one up?
About 8 miles outside of Chester those false flats all culminated in a super long gradual descent into town. I was doing like 26 mph for 5 miles at least and then I popped into Chester. Made it there in 4 hours on the nose. Now prior to Chester I was mulling over the idea of going for the green and shooting for Shelby – another 41 miles west. That would give me over 100 miles for the day. Mentally and physically I just wanted to crash in Chester, but with that rare cross tailwind, I really felt that I had to take advantage of it. I mean that could be the difference between riding those 41 miles at 14-15 mph today, or waiting until tomorrow and take a chance of having the wind out of the west again and grinding me down to a mere 10-11 mph. So I had decided that I’d get to Chester and see if the wind was still holding as a cross tail. If it was I just had to keep the train rolling.
My average for getting to Chester was an amazing 14.8 mph. Much to my surprise what with the gazillion miles of false flat climbing involved. Yup, I was going on to Shelby. Hell, it was only 9:45 AM when I arrived. I felt duty bound to keep riding. So I hit a little grocery and got a fountain coke and ice and a couple of breakfast burritos. Munched down in about 15 minutes and then was back on the bike. And the good thing was that the wind had picked up. And once I was rolling I was amazed to be doing 17-22 mph on some pretty long stretches. This……..was glorious! Just kept telling myself that I was almost out of the Great Plains. Time for the mountains. Time for a change. Time to get er done and make it to Seattle.
The wind just got more and more kick to it and I as just flying. Bad thing was that I went over like 3 different patches of broken glass. I’d swear at the top of my lungs, then pull my right foot out of the pedal, slide it down in back of the front tire and let it rub off any shards of broken glass. For the rear tire, well had to do an old roadie trick that can be painfull if done wrong…..I lightly held my hand against the front of the rear tire to knock off any shards of glass. If you hold your hand back there too hard, and if a piece of glass is stuck in the tire – ouch! Got to have light hands when you do this. Now as far as I can tell no glass had penetrated the two bike tires. Couldn’t tell if the yak had any shards in it.
And then those blooming false flats started in on me again, some seemingly going on for 5-8 miles, just stepping up and up and up. But I could keep a steady 17-18 mph on these now that the wind had picked up. No complaints. And I even toyed with the idea of getting super greedy and going for Cut Bank, another 24 miles west of Shelby. But really, I was pretty tired, and I pretty much dismissed the idea the closer I got to Shelby. All along the way I was being passed by these massively long freight trains and one Amtrack train. The RR parallels Rt 2 amost to the tee. Sometimes you’re just 10-100 yrds away from the tracks, and you can actually feel the breeze from the trains speeding by. Very cool indeed.
Now I had figured on getting into Shelby at around 2 PM, but with the wind picking up, shoot I arrived in the city at 12:30 PM, knocking out 103 miles in 6:25 hours! Shelby is another one of those Plains cities where it’s just smack dab out in the middle of no where. There is a super big freight train yard here as there was in Havre. That and a gazillion trucks at this massive Travel Center. There’s a town center and then there’s the strip where there’s the Travel Center. You see Shelby is located at the intersection of Rt 2 and I-15, so this is a major gassing up/lodging point in Montana. I got a nice little cheapie efficiency and was good as gold what with a Subway just a short walk away. Got my room and hit the Subway asap for my 2 footlongs. I just love the way the workers at Subway look at me as I’m ordering and then consuming 2 footlongs in their establishment – all in the course of about 20 minutes. I mean I tear into a footer and consume it in record time.
So…….I just love getting in a good long day and then being able to shut it down before 1 PM. That was today – done with a century by 12:30 PM. That way I have tons of time to eat, work, do laundry, nap, work, eat, drink bear, nap, eat, work, drink beer and skype. Yup, life on the road! So I’m 71 miles from the East Glacier National Park entrance. Not bad huh? So my strategy is this: let’s see what Mother Nature has in store for me. If it’s just gnarly headwind, I could opt out and just ride to Cut Bank, 23 miles away, and just where I’m supposed to be tomorrow according to my latest schedule. Today’s ride put me a half day ahead. If it’s a good day tomorrow, I could opt to ride those 71 miles to East Glacier and make that the day, putting me a full day ahead of schedule.
No comments:
Post a Comment