50 miles. Very pleasant riding … With one exception.

“Somedays are diamonds and some days are stones” J. Denver. Yesterday definitely was a big old, mud encrusted, worthless piece of rock and today, while not a perfect gemstone was fun biking on a cloudless day on a reasonable road. What more can one ask for?

We leave the acres of farmland and begin into a different landscape.  The sky was a much paler blue today.

We awoke and got on the road by 7, taking a state highway south east to Glendive and the Yellowstone River. It was so nice to be running the ridge of this hill system instead of crossing numerous ridges against the wind, as we did yesterday.  Early on we met two cyclists heading from Portland, OR, to Chicago and they, too, attested to yesterday being (in his words), “The worst day of cycling I have ever had!” We were corroborated! Yesterday really was horrible … It wasn’t just us.

We cycled on nearly empty roads for many miles, the wind, what little there was, from our left. We ran through a new landscape, the precursor to the Badlands we will see in North Dakota.  There were many old trestle bridges but the rail line here is weed covered and ostensibly abandoned.

Our first glimpse of the Badlands

Biking either downhill, level or slightly uphill we made very good time and were congratulating ourselves at our projected early arrival in Glendive. That was the time when Maja found she had a leak in her rear tire. There was no shoulder to retreat to so we moved as far off the road as we could and replaced the tire. That process involves unloading the bike, taking off the rear wheel, removing the old tire, finding the cause of the leak (in this case two small staple size pieces of metal probably from one of the many shattered truck retreads along side the road), installing a new tube then replacing everything.  The repair was a success and we cruised (or limped) into Glendive.

Tomorrow we head into North Dakota and we are allowed to ride on Interstate 94 since the smaller parallel roads are, for the most, dirt except for stretches of Old Highway 10.

The view of my “office”

And the road ahead. The divots next to the white line are the ubiquitous rumble strips that will definitely jar some fillings loose if you wander onto them. Our path is the shoulder between the rumble strip and the grass – for the most part. 

52 miles. Another “heroic” struggle against the wind.

We had a great plan today, to make 102 miles from Wolf Point to Glendive, putting us on the threshold of stepping into North Dakota. As is said, “no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” Today the wind was our enemy so our plan flew by the wayside after 6 hours or so of hard pedaling, we even had to pedal going downhill! We sought refuge in the little agricultural town of Circle where anti-meth posters compete with new John Deere tractors for attention on Main Street.

There is only one motel in town, the other two are boarded up, so our choice was limited. But run down as it is, the motel gets us out of the wind and even has wi-fi.

Our trek today took us south east away from the Hi Line and the BNSF railroad. We crossed the Missouri River and then the fun began. The road crosses a series of ridges that separate the Missouri drainage and the Yellowstone River so we were constantly up but very little down thus far.  The up hills lead to plateaus and then more up hills all to the background of the wind buffeting us and whistling in our ears. On coming trucks provide a passing air dam that at times can bring a cyclist almost to a halt. Trucks passing on our side give one a shocking push but then the draft can push the bicycle away or even suck the bike into the whirlwind behind the truck. So the ride was stressful!

The landscape we are riding through is of vast fields of sweet smelling clover and wheat all bright green. That hue against the cloudless blue of the Big Sky reminds me of the Tellytubby set!

Tellytubbies?

The wind direction is predicted to shift to be from the north tomorrow so we’ll have a little advantage since we will be heading east toward Glendive.

Shiny new grain storage and a tiny little church.

48 miles -flat windless miles.

After a very pleasant stay with Mary and John and he dropping us off in Glasgow we continued our trek to the east.  Today was sunny, the road mostly flat and (hallelujah!) there was no wind. For the most part the shoulder was ample so we were able to make good time all the way to Wolf Point (4 hours, average speed 12 miles per hour).

Not much to report about the day other than there was little to report on. The landscape is much the same right to left, front to back – big fields of hay, alfalfa, clover, etc. And, of course, there’s the omnipresent BNSF railroad.  As a source of entertainment, Maja has taken to counting the cars on passing trains.  The longest so far has been 137.  Since we crossed the Divide, we have been riding steadily due east and downhill toward the Missouri River but here at Wolf Point we will turn southeast. We will cross some hills tomorrow then meet up with the Yellowstone River and, on Saturday, will leave Montana and cruise into North Dakota.

Seemingly endless sea of green.

A shiny grain elevator next to the BNSF tracks. These monuments appear almost like cathedrals in the distance and usually signal the location of the next town

72 miles. Oh Aeolus, what did we do to make you angry?

As wonderful as Sunday’s ride was (104 miles with a substantial tail wind), today’s was  conversely  horrible – a constant hard wind directly in our faces the entire day! We wanted to get to Glasgow, in reality there were not any midway stops available – no hotels, B and Bs, Warm Showers, campgrounds – so we were committed. We sort of took turns with one riding ahead and the other tucked into that person’s wind shadow – drafting. Sort of, I say, since Maja did most of the leading. I took two turns but even out front, Maja is a faster cyclist so I did little to speed up the trip other than give her a few minutes breather. Drafting is efficient only if the behind person can get perilously close to the one in front with his front tire nearly touching the other’s rear tire. The system does work but the cost is 100% concentration which precludes looking around at the sights!

Almost looks like a painting we have of hayfields in France. Because of the wind we took quite a few breaks today.

We slogged on, mile after mile and reached the town of Hinsdale. Kelsey and Craig (he was last night’s host) recommended a bakery in Hinsdale that is known for its sweets and ice cream. Once we reached the town (we still had about 30 miles to go and no let up in the wind) we stopped at a quickie mart just to get some A/C, water, eat our sandwiches and get our heads out of the wind.  There we learned that because of a family emergency, the much touted bakery was closed! Of course, we said.

At that point, my eternally positive outlook on life had definitely turned to the dark side. Averaging only 7 miles an hour into that wind meant we still had 4+ hours of hard work to go. But, as is said, there’s nothing to it but to do it so off we rode. Honestly, if some Good Samaritan with a pick up had offered us a lift from there to Glasgow I would have jumped at the opportunity.

So … 4+ hours later, fighting the wind and the swirling gusts from passing trucks, we “rolled into ‘Glasgow’ feeling about half past dead” (apologies to Robbie Robertson). We had originally been in contact with a Warm Showers host who offered her living room floor but as we stopped at the edge of town to call her, Maja noticed that she had a message from Mary and John (highly recommended by Kelsey the night before) and they had a bed for us.  They breed Angus cattle and live about 6 miles outside of town on a sometimes rutted dirt road (not good for our already drained biking legs) but Mary offered to come into town and pick us up in her truck (fantastic!) and … wait for it … would fix us dinner and send us off with breakfast the next morning.  All we had to do was meet her at the local Albertson’s. Wow!  The skies were looking pretty bad so we retreated into the store for shelter, water and a few bananas.

After a bit, a woman came up behind me and without any introduction asked, “What kind of beer do you like?” Well, she had me at “beer!” It was Mary who had observed that we tired looking people in biking jersies must be her guests. Gratefully, we helped her shop a bit then loaded everything into the back of her pick up and away we went!

The storm passed us by and shortly we pulled up to their house. Mary and John had spent a hard day on the final leg of the artificial insemination process for their cows so we were, all four, a bit worse for wear. Showers, beer, snacks and good conversation helped Maja and me get back to being a little more human and Mary’s cooking did the rest.  John educated us in the process of breeding their cattle and the arcane metrics involved with picking the right bull’s genetics – a preferable low birth weight of the calves coupled with fast growth later, etc. We had a very pleasant dinner and stayed around the table swapping stories and getting to know each other.

In the morning, true to her word, Mary fixed pancakes and sausages and John drove us and our bikes back into town where we reluctantly said goodbye and got on our way.

We are newcomers to the Warm Showers movement and have not hosted yet. We plan to offer our house when we return to Paradise Valley and are learning from some very kind and generous people how to do it right!

This rock was in a roadside shelter outside of Malta. Legend has it that the Native Americans thought it looked like a sleeping buffalo. It was moved into Malta for a while then relocated to near its original location where many people give offerings to it for good luck etc. Back in the 1800s, the tribes thought that making offerings to the sleeping buffalo would bring the buffalo back to Montana (hunted into extinction) where they  had provided food, hides, and bones for tools for the tribes.