7/27 to Whitefish, Montana
There was doubt in the air as we cycled more quiet back roads in through the Swan river valley. We were rolling off the final 200 miles of the ride, but did we have what it takes to do it in two days? Since entering Montana the terrain and our pace has been cranked up a notch as we anticipate exhaustion to settle in. Thus far we have been able to keep just out of exhaustion’s reach. As always, we played it by ear, waiting to ‘see how we feel’ and see how the terrain, weather and all other variables are cast. Of course, we always feel about the same. 40-50 miles dissappear easily, then our bottoms get sore but our legs and minds are ready to ride until or past sunset. So it was today: the backup plan was to stay with Tom Arnone at 75 miles but instead we rolled in to Whitefish at 97 miles–nice and late.
We thoroughly enjoyed today’s 50 miles of quiet, smooth, soft, car-free backroads. I can’t say enough about them, really. This is definitely bear country, so we do ride with a cautious eye (ear, actually), but if anything this only makes you more aware of yourself and your surroundings. The fact that there is a bit of danger coming around a downhill corner is a part of doing this ride. I’d much rather go down fighting with a bear than run over by a pick-me-up truck pulling a horse trailer. I think the likelihood of the latter is much higher than the former.
We made a brief foray into the Mission Mountains, climbing to near 5000 right above Swan Lake. A few steep pitches (N-S riders told us it was a “honk” of a hill), but nothing too serious. From the top of this climb we rolled out a huge downhill into the town of Ferndale (which we renamed Fernando) where we began an extended session of Tarmack rolling. But first we had a few miles of GDMBR “piece of crap” dirt road to suffer through. I am actually, after 2300 miles, finally, and I’m sorry to admit it, starting to almost tolerate the paved sections. The worst moments of the trip are spent on the piece of crap roads, getting dusted by truck after truck and swerving around trying to find the washboard-free sweet spot on the road.
Our pavement took us througn the town of Swan River where we stopped to scarf massive quantities of junk–ice cream, candy bars, whatever suited our fancy. Outside a couple of the locals asked about our trip and could not believe we had ridden from Mexico. They were two of the most excitible people we have met. They told us we should write a book, call the newspaper, have a party, etc. Perhaps not, but their enthusiasm helped us put it together to roll out 40 more miles before nightfall.
In the middle of those 40 we were fortunate to take a break at Tom Arnone’s house. He’s listed on the map as someone who offers water and a cabin to GDMBR cyclists. We had heard that he was a serious cyclist and just an interesting guy to talk to. This rumor turned out to be true; we stayed a bit too long talking to him. He makes his own frames including a tandem that he is going for master’s nationl champion on. The first thing he did was offer us cold water, which was exactly what we needed. It was too bad that we couldn’t stay with him that night, but we really needed to move on to Whitefish in order to lay seige to the last section of the GDMBR. 110 miles for the final day sounded a bit more reasonable than 130. The evening was beautiful and we were feeling good, so we just kept pedaling through the rural Montana country. I could really get used to these flat roads lined with trees; the trees are insurance against headwinds. We still had a bit wind in our faces when heading north in the few treeless areas, but for the most part it was a pleasant cycle all the way in to Whitefish.
We arrived around 9:45 with just enough time to order in a cheese bread/pizza order at Stageline Pizza. The woman at the motel told us it was close–three blocks, but we ended up walking about a mile before we even saw the pizza place. It was getting very late for a long walk, but we broke it up by eating our food at a table on the way back. We couldn’t really figure out Whitefish. Tourists? Locals? Outdoors? Where are all these people going? Glacier?
We hit Dairy Queen on the way back for even more indulgence. We had to get the calories in somehow and ice cream was about the only thing we could successfully eat more of. We went to sleep quite tired, but I was charged and ready to go. I could barely sleep. Anticipation. Excitement. Nervous energy, but mostly just energy. This is it–the final push to Canada. Can we do it or will exhaustion finally rear its head and pull us down with it? Is it wise to trade our camping gear in favor of speed? If something goes wrong (and very little has thus far) we will not longer have the option of camping on the side of the road. We pretty much have to make it to the end. Failure is not an option.
97 miles, 6700 feet of climbing
7/28 to Roosville and Fin
Up very early despite not setting an alarm, I quickly swung into action. My body was begging to lay in bed for hours, but the energy got the best of me–I couldn’t handle even lying with my eyes open. I just had to get up and start going. I moved Paula’s rear rack onto my bike, went through our gear to decide what to take and made several trips to the free breakfast downstairs. A hour later Paula started to stir and joined in on the preparations.
It was quite the project to switch gears in the middle of a trip. Suddenly we didn’t have the big bob full of gear (and with a wheel that barely rolls) that we could rely on should anything go wrong. But we were able to reduce things to a moderate ditty bag full of clothes and a camelbak full of other gear. We passed on the water filter, figuring we could make it to Eureka (90 miles) without recharging our supplies.
As we were about to leave I added some PSI to my rear tire since it was now going to have a bit more weight on it. After I took the pump off I realized that I didn’t grab any of our spare tubes (all buried at the bottom of the bob bag). I had to borrow the key for the motel’s tool shed once again to grab some tubes, but not having a spare could have been disastrous. I was nervous as we pedaled through whitefish that I was fogetting something equally as important.
But soon the focus turned to the riding. We rolled around spacious Whitefish lake, being treated to some nice views. The first climbs yielded smiles of satisfaction as we felt our bikes accelerate free of most of our gear. The difference was notable, but not exactly huge. We still had a long ride ahead of us and a fair amount of climbing. Our bikes were not going to pedal themselves to Canada simply because they now weigh 40 pounds less. But it was a very nice change, especially for me to not feel like I was driving a limo. I started the slow process of retraining my muscles and balancing systems to stand and pedal without the Bob attached to me bike. The first few standing sessions were, as expected, difficult and frightening. I’ll never get over how strange it is to expect your bike to do one thing but to receive stimuli otherwise.
We climbed from 3000 to 4000 then leveled off for quite a few miles. Then we climed to 4500 to eat lunch at upper whitefish lake. At lunch I laughed at how much the adventure cycling maps had exagerated the little hills we had just come down / gone up. I still wonder if they are purposely exagerated so that newbies on the route don’t think it’s all downhill from Red Meadow lake to Whitefish.
We continued the assault, maintaining significantly faster climbing speeds than with loads. We soon found ourselves at Red Meadow pass and the beautiful lake. Here were two riders who started just the day before. They were fresh with new energy, but already drained from the climbs. They were debating about going in to Whitefish or camping at Red Meadow. They were floored when they found out we 1) started in Mexico 2) were going to finish in 39 days and 3) were riding to Roosville the same day. They called us genetic freaks. I don’t agree with this (almost anyone could complete such a trip if they commit themselves to it), but the flattery did help us ride with a bit more steam through the rest of the day.
We needed as much steam as we could get for North Fork road, which awaited us at the bottom of a descent that was freshly laden with bear scat. I added a couple manually initiated jingles of my bell to the already incessant ringing caused by the rocky road. And it must have worked because we didn’t see any bears. Right? Hah.
Ah North Fork road. Can you say piece of crap? How about double crap? It’s hard to believe that there is something worse than a heavily washboarded road, but we found ourselves experiencing it. North Fork road is wide, dusty, and extremely rough. You can keep some decent speed but the imbedded rocks are very unforgiving. We came away feeling beat up. I had a flashback to riding the rail trail in Idaho (which crushed me into oblivion). It’s a different kind of exhaustion and it was definitely creeping in. But we pushed through it and turned off to climb to Whitefish divide on a happily less traveled road.
I loved this climb. We passed by huge rolling creeks, through beautiful burn areas and grabbed astounding views to nearly all directions, including Glacier National Park. I almost did not want the climb to end. I did want to get to the other side since we were racing the sun to Roosville, but I did not want this perfect climb and perfect day to end. I tried to live in the moment, to its fullest, but the top of the climb came after some effort and it was time to roll on. At the very top Paula found a metal “1” sign that had fallen off a marker. She took it as our trophy for the trip, placing it on her bike’s stem. We sang “we’re number one” at Whitefish divide, where we felt like the trip was essentially over. Only 30 some-odd miles of downhill and flat pavement stood between us and final success: Canada.
It pretty much went like that, though the downhill was rougher than expected and our bear bells nearly drove us insane. Once we hit the pavement we detached them for good and coasted down a long downhill from 5000 to 2500 feet. We rolled into Eureka in Euphoria–we were going to make it as planned. We checked into the Creek Side motel, through our extra gear in the room then headed out to enjoy the last 10 miles to the border.
The sun was setting the sky afire, which was a fitting end to our trip. We have enjoyed so many late evenings pedaling away as the fireworks develop all around us. Usually we are quite tired and at the end of a long haul into some town or campsite. Today was no different, except that this was the last long haul.
We coasted triumphantly down the hill to the border crossing at Roosville. At the Canadian inspection station we found no one willing to hear our story. Our bikes didn’t trigger whatever alerts the guards to come out, so we just rolled over to the Welcome sign to take a photo. “HEY! What are you doing? Get over here!” “Sorry, sir, no one came out, and we just going right back to the USA anyway.” The guard wasn’t very amused, nor was he impressed with our story. Oh well. We took a quick photo then stood in a 20 minute, 3 car line at the US border. The lady was very thorough but thankfully let us go with only a few questions and a “be careful out there.”
We took highway 93 back (more direct) since we knew that lady would keep most of the cars back at the border. Before we knew it we were back in Eureka eating victory subway sandwiches and eating ice cream.
111 miles, 7500 feet of climbing
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