Pedaling Pilgrim Blog Home

Apologies to those that were expecting a morning blog read. I literally fell asleep with the phone in my hand. I luckily didn’t delete the whole post, but I had to clean up a lot of gibberish that I wrote half asleep.

Yesterday it was 49 degrees as we made coffee and packed up the steeds. At risk of tarnishing our fortunes: we were blessed with another clear day, zero smoke, cool morning that turned to a warm afternoon. Awaiting our breakfast at window seats in front of the prison, the guys had a game of cribbage on the Montana-shaped board – Lecy experienced the first skunking.

On paper when planning this adventure, I expected yesterday to be our hardest day of the journey, and today to be the second hardest. In retrospect it seems odd to plan the two hardest days back-to-back, but I figured by this time we should be in shape and prepared for the worst, and maybe we’d limp into our day off in Bozeman. But this morning, we were relatively relaxed as our planned 7am departure turned into 8:15; we didn’t express it out loud, but the majority sentiment was that the day would not be nearly as hard as imagined.

No matter how the day looks on paper, it always comes with surprises. Yesterday we sang the praises of Ride with GPS; though still superior to all other options we’ve tried, we discovered it’s not flawless. We found ourselves crawling under barbed wire and pushing the bikes along a railroad track to keep on the “frontage road”.

Though mostly these surprises now come as a comical uplift, sometimes there’s still some serious disappointment. We knew today we had to travel 5-10 miles on unpaved roads, but there’s such a variety in “unpaved” that we’d appreciate some better classification. For 1/2 mile today we rattled on washboard that made us audibly express ourselves just to hear the da-da-da-da-da-da-da effect of our vocalizations.

After the various early day surprises, especially some tougher than expected climbs, we were ready for Lecy’s daily slushie fix in Butte. It was 11:30, we’d traveled 35 miles, and we were 10 miles away from our 4.5 mile climb up to Pipestone Pass.

We were worried about Pipestone Pass; this would be the highest elevation in our entire journey. But, we finished it in about 50 minutes non-stop rather than the hour plus with a rest break we had planned. We also didn’t worry about the weight of our payload as we carried our lunch of watermelon, dill pickles and PBJ makings in addition to other snacks.

A relaxing lunch at the pass, where I had my share of watermelon. As my family knows, I don’t care for watermelon, but strenuous challenges like this has a way of breaking you in surprising ways. I now again eat watermelon (but I’m not ready for a raspberry, more so now after my poor experience with his close cousin Mr. Huckleberry).

After lunch and photo ops we were on our way for 20 miles of downhill ride. As usual, in the afternoon someone gets a figurative punch in the face; today we shared that abuse as the increased wind gusted in our faces the whole way to our camp in Cardwell. We were on track for 2:15 arrival, which changed to 3:30 as we struggled against Mother Nature. Though it was nice to blame our later than expected completion on something other than our poor decisions.

I had a chance to talk with my daughter Sarah today; she knows both of my pilgrim partners a bit, so I feel she can conjecture what things are like out here. I told her day in and out, Geeto probably has the best attitude. He attributes that to: 1) Being the 60-year-old elder statesmen, he wasn’t sure how he would fare physically compared to us, and 2) he wasn’t sure how his poison ivy handicap would affect him. Now alleviated from his dual anxieties, he’s more relaxed and confident about how this will continue, and that allows his brain to stay on a positive track.

All of us are getting stronger; it’s inevitable when pressing yourself on a bike for 5-10 hours each day. Sarah asked if I’ve noticed the body transformation yet. I know my legs are getting thicker, and I think I’m losing a little in the midsection. It is an odd feeling in something like this how you can see transformation over a few day’s time.

After a lot of retrospective research I determined we’ve traveled 1,020 miles. Somehow we crossed the 1,000 mile mark without any fanfare: 7 miles after cresting Pipestone Pass around 2:00 PM Mountain Time, we were coasting down Hwy 2 at 39 mph and mile 1,000 zipped by on dry, smooth, sumptuous blacktop. It’s a big milestone, though the Pedaling Pilgrims are ones typically more forward-looking and less celebratory in our achievements. But, we did have several games of cribbage at the campground bar and are feeling accomplished heading into a relatively short day and a day off.

Tomorrow is a simple 61 miles with no major challenges. Then a day off with the Jerdee’s in Big Sky (Immanuel families may recall the Jerdee’s: daughters Anna and Sarah went to school there in the early 2000’s).

Again, I’m going to give you two songs for the day. The first a little obvious, but after reaching the highest point we’ll see on our journey, this song has obviously lyrical link: Spinning Wheel

The second song… we had a great conversation with Ben, who was raised in the Amish tradition in Lancaster County PA. He’s moved to Cardwell where he’s building a log home on 30 acres. He was at the General Store where he saw us relaxing after our ride. He came over to because “this looks like adventure, and I wanted to investigate.” He was impressed and envious, and he said, “when I’m your age, I hope I can do something like this.” We don’t know how old he thought we are, but we took this as a compliment and enjoyed the respect he paid. Thanks Ben. I don’t know if the Amish tradition allows Spotify… Dream of a Day