7-24-10 Day 49: Libby, Montana to Sandpoint, Idaho: 82 miles in 6:17 hours all on Rt. 2 West to Rt 2/Rt 95 South.
I’m just rocked….totally beat to hell, completely done for the day. Well, I’ve said it when we were riding across Canada: Always expect the unexpected. And today was one such day.
Up at 5 AM and on the road at 6 AM, and I expected today to be even easier than yesterday – a little climbing, but a lot of flats along river valleys for a pretty mellow day. NOT! Got going out of Libby and did some gradual climbing on my to Troy, Montana. Now, just a slight backtracking about Libby. I really enjoyed this little mountain town. Was a shame I couldn’t hang out longer and soak up the atmosphere and do some hike in the nearby mountains. This is a totally “no frills” town. No nonsense, no junk shops, no bumper cars and giant slides and goofy golf courses. This was much bigger than East Glacier, and had a ton of character as did East Glacier. Wish I’d of had the energy to go out and scout around, but hell, I was in bed at 9 PM and sleeping way before it even got dark out. Too bad.
So anyway, started out with temp at about 49 degrees, wearing my leg warmers, and dbl long sleeve set-up I had on yesterday. I got going up these mellow climbs for a bit, taking my higher above the Kootenai River. The scenery was just fantastic as I entered a kind of gorge that the river had cut into walls through the mountain. There was on point where there was a local park called Kootenai Falls just off of the road, but the sun hadn’t even crested over the top of the peaks, so everything was in shadow. Was pretty cool to look down at the rapids, the falls, and the turbulent water several hundred feet below me. Took a few pics, but the lighting was just not there yet. So I just motored on. Round about on hour and a half in the sun finally started to illuminate the higher echelons of the mountains, and that’s when I did my first climb up towards the town of Troy. This wasn’t too bad and I made it in about 15 minutes, but man, the legs were just so lethargic, in or out of the saddle. Troy also looked like a pretty cool little town, and I salivated smelling fresh bacon and eggs cooking at a little diner along the side of the road.
I was so tempted to just stop and pig out on a big breakfast of greasy food. My 2 bananas and two yogurts were totally overshadowed by that smell wafting through the cool mountain air. It was all I could to keep the bike pointed straight ahead and keep rolling. But I plugged on. And the riding instead of being this nice flat stretch along the river was a long and endless series of power climbs. Now part of my mistake was listening to the owner of the efficiency who had told me yesterday that it was a bit of a climb up to Troy and then just soft pedaling the rest of the way. Funny how people who do not ride bikes often mistake the terrain I’m riding on by their “automobile conscious” judgments. Well, he totally didn’t perceive the moderate power climbs that undulated along the river, and then the biggie, the climb that really made my legs just suffer like a dog. Yup, he totally forgot about that one!
This pup came about 8 miles from the Idaho border and it was round about 3 miles long, and at a pitch of somewhere between 10-12%. And it felt LLLLLLOOOOOOOONNNNNNGGGG! I was in and out of the saddle for probably like 25-30 minutes, all in the middle ring in the easiest cog in the back. It just kept switch-backing around and around until I finally topped out with about 5 miles to the border. Then I was treated to a mild descent, not loosing anywhere near what I had gained. Nope, I was up on the top of a mountain, and I was there to stay for a good bit of time. I finally came to mile marker #1 on Rt 2, the last mile in Montana. I was so jazzed that I stopped and took a pic of mile marker #1, and kind of shouted out “Love ya Montana, but gotta go!” And I pedaled on into Idaho. Nothing really changed. I was still up on the mountain on a single lane road out in the middle of nowhere.
And this is where the riding just got downright gnarly, what with these long, gradual swales I had to go up and down. It was like non-stop, just a series of rolling up and down, what nary a chance to get into a rhythm. Nope, shift down two gears and pedal slightly down, and then shift up 2-3 gears and get out of the saddle and get over the top, again, and again, and again. Just felt my already tired legs totally getting the hammered, getting thoroughly tenderized by the rollers. This is where I realized that today was going to be a LONG, hard day. The scenery was just wonderful, so I tried to concentrate on that, and stop occasionally to take pics. But I’ll tell you, when the legs are like pillars of concrete, the mind just cannot fully get away from the pain.
I did notice that I was kind of riding away and out of the higher mountains and into an area that was more of foothills and plateau. I ended up stopping just short of Bonners Ferry, about 51 miles in, at a mega gas station/restaurant. Had to get off of the bike. Had to get some food in me. There was no “riding through” this one today. It was going to be a bit of a battle on the physical side. I stumbled in and sat down in the restaurant, noting one of the waitresses bringing out an order of biscuits and gravy. So when my waitress told me about the biscuits and gravy special, I was there. That and a cup of coffee and all the ice water I could drink down. I must have wolfed down the 4 biscuits and gravy in like 5 minutes. Sucked down several waters and a coffee and then back on the bike again.
I had 31 miles to get to Sandpoint, and I had to literally pry myself out of that booth for fear of getting rigor mortis if I stayed too long. Yup, that was going to be a very trying 31 miles, especially when the heat was just climbing by the minute. Now I had gained an hour by crossing the border and entering my final time zone – Pacific Standard, so in actuality I left Bonners Ferry at 9:30 AM instead of 10:30 AM for Mountain Time. But still, the temp had just started to skyrocket by then. Now riding south on Rt 2/Rt 95 I had stripped off my first jersey back before that long climb, and now I had to get ride of the long sleeved Underarmor and the leg warmers. That happened when I descended down and across a bridge over the Kootenai River and spotted another gnarly looking climb going to the south. So I put a tank top on, and rode with shorts for the first time in three days. Lucky thing I peeled when I did because I must have climbed for a solid 40 min, up a steep pitch at first, where it leveled out for about 2 miles and then went back up on a very long gradual.
Luckily my legs actually started to feel “back” what with the breakfast I’d consumed back in Bonners Ferry. So this climb was ok, long, but ok. Got to the top and started to feel a gradual increase in the wind – out of the south of course. And that made the riding much tougher, especially when the temp was just climbing as if I were in an oven. Onward. And again, it was just this endless series of rollers, gradual climbs and gradual descents, on and on and on. After another 15 miles of that my legs were right back in the hurt locker. By this time I noticed that I was really in a different type of climatic zone, one more hot and dry, where it felt as though I was in some kind of high basin with mountains way off to the east and west of me, and much lower in elevation, more like foothills than actually mountain ranges. And man, you could really tell the difference with the heat just kind of blazing away in this basin. It felt like the day we left Barney and Val in Penticton BC in the Okanagan Valley and rode to Kelowna. It was hot, windy and I was just totally spent. Ditto today.
Finally I saw a another giant gas station complex and just had to pull in for an ice cold coke. Well, no coke but I had a cherry-Pepsi fountain drink, like a 32-oz guy just chuck full of ice. Sucked it down and poured the ice into an empty water bottle and continued. Seemed like I rode for another hour just kind of hanging on, watching and waiting for some sign of Sandpoint. Finally saw a mileage sign down the road, and I was expecting the worst, thinking that maybe it would be 14-15 miles to go. But a great surprise – 8 miles. “Yup, I can do that,” I muttered to myself, “let’s take it home.” Rode into the headwind just kind of thinking about food, icewater, stopping, resting, being done.
Made it to Sandpoint about 30 minutes later. And I was just so happy to be done. That was a tough ride today, on totally lethargic, heavy legs. Got a place and then got situated and filled a bucket with ice and just sat in my room and poured ice and cold water into bottle after water bottle. Showered and then hit a Subway down 2 blocks. Did the same old thing with 2 footlongs. One of the young guys inside asked me if I was going to eat both of them, and I responded yes, that I’d just ridden 82 miles from Libby. He laughed and I told him that yesterday at the Libby Subway the girls working the deli stared at me as I was eating, like I was a bloody freak show, as I consumed 2 footlongs in like 15-20 minutes. I had told this young fellow to “load em up” because I was so bitch hungry. I literally had the hypoglycemic shakes waiting in a line that took some 30 minutes before I was up to bat.
After the Subway went straight-away to a grocery and got a six of on Oregon micro brew, a porter, and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s to feast on back at the efficiency. So that’s where I’m at now. Done with the ice cream, and still drinking ice water one bottle after another. The temp outside is now about 91 degrees, so TG I’d finished as early as I did. Tomorrow I hope to make Spokane, about 75 miles away. But it’s going to be a hot one, with the forecasted temp up to about 98, so I have to leave early and finish early.
Tentatively I’m to meet up with Barney from BC at the town of Wenatchee, Washington. He wants to ride the last several days with me to Seattle. I’m really looking forward to hooking up with him – that should be a grand way to finish this trip up. He’s looking at driving down to Monroe, Washington, and then taking his bike on a bus to meet up with me in Wenatchee. Then we’d ride up the Cascades together and down to the coast. So far it’s looking like that could happen on Tuesday, when we’d meet up that afternoon after my ride. Keeping my fingers crossed that his schedule remains as-is so that this plan is a go.
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