Bannack, MT to Upper Red Rock Lake, MT
Mileage: 222.1 km (138 mi)
Riding Time: 17 h 48 m
Standing: 13th place
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| Day 7 Map |
Tom and I woke up at about the same time and packed things
up. He was out of the gate a bit faster
than me. I didn’t expect to see him
again since he is a way faster rider than me. It was a bit cold especially putting on all
the wet clothes from the night before. I
was happy to start riding to warm up.
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| Early morning start into the wide open spaces toward Bannack Road |
Tom spoke about the infamous Bannack Road mud. In all of my research I still forgot where
the worst mud was supposed to be. Turns
out this stretch was one of them. I saw
Tom in the distance. You could see
pretty far in these sections. He had
stopped at a cattle guard for some reason so I caught up. I saw that he stopped because of the
mud. I didn’t notice because I was
keeping my speed up and with the single speed the mud didn’t affect my gearing
at all. I kept on pedalling and the mud
didn’t really slow me down. Keep going
straight and don’t stop! I passed Jose
pushing his bike through the sage bushes on the side of the road. He looked at me with his mouth open and asked,
“How can you ride through this?” “I
don’t know” I said as I rode by. I kept
going glad I was making some distance on some strong riders.
I kept riding trying to keep a decent pace and then the
sleepiness crept in again. Nodding off
and swerving. Jose eventually caught up
and we rode together for a while. It was
nice chatting with someone to keep the sleep monster at bay. Jose seemed surprised that my bike was 50lbs
in a “that’s heavy” sort of way. I
thought I was doing pretty well with a steel single speed, but it sounds like
there are a lot of really light kits out there.
At one stretch we were riding into a headwind. I tucked into my aerobars and looked down for
a second. Before I knew it I had
collided with Jose! He had stopped and
since I wasn’t looking I rode right into him.
My hands were on the aerobars so I couldn’t even grab my brakes. I felt terrible! No injuries and our bikes were okay, but I
felt really bad about that for a long time.
I must pay more attention to where I was going!
We kept riding together leapfrogging as our paces would
vary. Eventually we hit more sticky
mud. This time I couldn’t power through
it. The slower you went the more mud
would stick to your tires. Tom caught up
with us and powered though the mud we were walking through. I learned that if you keep your speed up the
centrifugal force would fling the mud off of your tires. It only took one slow spot though to start
the accumulation.
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| Sticky Bannack mud |
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| More Bannack mud |
Jose and I walked, cleaned off mud, and walked some
more. I gradually pulled away from Jose
and reached the top of a small summit. I
thought finally the mud is over.
Nope.
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| Top of the Bannack Road |
I started flying down the descent with mud flying off all
over the place. Once I got to the bottom
of the hill, more mud. Now it was mixed
with cow poo. A herd of cows had just
gone through and the road was pockmarked with hoof holes in the sticky
mud. After one spot of pushing, I went
to get back on the bike. Right as I was
about to put my foot on the pedal, I noticed the pedal housing had come
unthreaded from the spindle. I fell over
avoiding stepping on the half disassembled pedal. Close one!
If I was to step on that, it probably would have ruined my pedal. I got out my multi tool, cleaned off the
threads and put the pedal back together.
The fix worked well because it didn’t give me any issues the rest of the
trip.
I kept riding along talking to the cows and avoiding manure
land mines. I was still blown away by
the wide open spaces. I thought it was
funny how the cows would stare at me until the last minute then jerk away into
a clumsy gallop.
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| More wide open spaces before Lima |
The wind started to pick up.
I rode into the wind trying to keep a steady pace and continuing to
eat. The road led into a canyon where
the winds would funnel through and gust like crazy. There were times I thought I was going to get
blown over. I kept pushing along until
the highway leading to Lima. I stopped
at a garbage dump and waved at a truck that was dumping some trash. Rode steady pushing into the wind on the
frontage road toward Lima. I remembered
my coach Joel’s advice about setting micro goals. The ride along the road was boring so I
started telling myself just get to that stand of trees. After that, just get to the red barn, and so
on. Before I knew it, I was at
Lima. Thanks Joel! I saw another bike at the restaurant at the
entrance to town. I headed to the gas
station to resupply and clean up. I had
a hot dog and Gatorade and called Kristin.
Another invaluable morale boost. I was feeling a bit worn out
after the mud and wind, but felt renewed on the way out of Lima. Jose arrived as I was leaving along with Tom,
David, and I think some other riders. I
continued on toward Lakeview.
After the nice break and hot dog at the gas station, I rode
up toward the Lima Reservoir. David
Stowe passed me and Tom was way ahead, but I didn’t mind. The
strong wind I was fighting much of the day was either at the side or the back
so the riding was nice.
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| Road stretching out of Lima |
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| On the way up to the reservoir |
The view coming up to the reservoir was awesome with the
light glinting off the water. The sun
began to set and the huge view was hard to describe. So big and beautiful! The riding was smooth, I felt good and it was
an awesome sunset.
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| Sunset around the reservoir |
Rolling into Lakeview I passed David Stowe. It looked like
he was setting up camp. I continued on
because I wanted to stop at the Red Rock Lake campground about 5 miles out of
Lakeview. I pulled in to the campsite
when it was dark and I set up my bivy.
Pavel arrived shortly after me. I
found out the next morning Tom was already there. That was a cold night, but I still slept very
well. I had a warmer sleeping bag, at about -10C rating, compared to many on
the route and I was glad I had it that night.
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