60 miles today.  The landscape is rolling and the road good (for a long way there was a very wide shoulder to ride on) so we made good time.

As we pulled into Shelby for lunch we checked the local weather (our intent was to move on to Chester – another 40 miles or so) and found there was a weather advisory for thunderstorms and hail. So, given that and the fatigue from yesterday, we decided to stop here and checked into the Comfort Inn – inexpensive, great and free wi fi (our crutch and hotel decider), guest laundry … The works. The maw of the stom appears to have missed Shelby but there is rain and thunder rolling around.

We followed a bit of the Lewis and Clark trail (Highway 2) and passed the town of Meriweather and the Lewis High School. The first part of the ride was through the Blackfeet Reservation then Rte. 2 just slides on due East. It is great to make mileage heading east after all the north and south squiggles we’ve been making since we left Washington.

About yesterday’s ride on the Road to the Sun:  As I may have mentioned in the short post about it, the ride from Lake McDonald to Logan pass is the equivalent of a category 1 climb in the Tour de France (the guide book said it’s the equivalent of the stage up Les Deux-Alpes. (I repeated a description I heard that the climb to Logan pass was equal to L’Alpe d’Huez but that climb is in fact Hors Categorie – even harder). Yesterday there were a lot of drivers taking advantage of the pass’s opening so the last few miles were a little busy – there’s no shoulder on the windy two lane road but the road surface appears to be new.

Winding ever upward, the road truly is, as our Warm Showers host Chuck said, the most beautiful bike ride we’ve ever seen – dense forest gives way to rocky vistas of 8 and 9 thousand feet peaks some still with snow. As we reached the top the wind picked up and it got quite cold but we had been aiming for the Visitors’ Center to warm up and prepare for the long downhill.  Of course, the center was not yet open and I guess we looked pitiful enough because a very nice couple (Mike and Barb from Seattle – also cyclists) invited us into their camper for some much needed heat and some hot cider. Again, the kindness of strangers – a lesson to us all.

The downhill was indeed freezing – I stuffed a tee shirt under my jacket just to insulate my core – and we made quite a few stops just to keep from shivering. As I mentioned yesterday our route to Browning was taxing and on a day when we needed a lot of TLC at the end of the day, our hotel let us down by not offering the wi fi offered in their sign nor having hot enough water for showers, plus the room was freezing when we got there and took a while to warm up. Our dinner was a gourmand’s treat at Chez Subway and we quickly walked back and jumped right into bed.

We did get a free breakfast out of the deal and made PB and Nutella sandwiches for later.

By the way, if you click on any of the small photos you can see it in large size.