Day 12--The Heat is On

On July 6, we left Townsend, MT at approximately 5:45 am. This was an earlier start time than normal to try to beat the impending heat of the day's century ride. It was good that we did. Very early on in the ride, we encountered a three mile stretch of road construction that was the absolute pits. That section of road was rocky, rutted, and dusty, with lots of loose gravel . The flagging crew was very nice, but were somewhat like the Keystone Cops in their execution of keeping traffic (cars and bikes) smoothly and safely moving. Between the dodging of cars and heavy equipment, this section was slow and challenging. Some of our team members slid and fell. It was not good. Fortunately there were no serious injuries and, amazingly, few broken spokes and flat tires along the way.

Shortly after leaving the construction zone, we entered green Deep Creek Canyon (lower photo). This was a pleasant respite, with some challenging, but not excruciating elevation gain--1200' in 12 miles. The last few miles were much steeper than the first few, but the beauty of the canyon helped distract me from that incessant gravitational pull. It was still quite cool into mid-morning.

We emerged from the canyon and entered into the High Range Country (top photo)--brown, dry, and hot. By lunch time we arrived at the bustling metropolis of White Sulphur Springs, MT. At 10:30 am, the temperature on a bank clock showed 92 degrees. Not a good sign of things to come. I poked my head into a local deli to grab a (you guessed it) a turkey sandwich. I asked if I could bring my bike inside to get it out of the heat. The answer was no. I started to turn around to go to the next food place when I heard an "OK." It turns out that the owner thought I wanted to bring my motorcycle inside. Once we cleared up that misunderstanding, I got a great sandwich!

The winds were very fickle today. We had headwinds, tailwinds, crosswinds, tradewinds, and woodwinds (clarinets and oboes were flying everywhere).

Leaving White Sulphur Springs, things got hotter and browner. The good news is that we had nice long downward grade (with some headwind) into Harlowton, MT for the last 40 miles, wrapping up a ride of 102.7 miles. The temperature in Harlowton was 104 degrees at 4:30pm. To beat the heat, around 40 of us set up our sleeping pads on the floor inside the Kiwanis Community Hall (about 5 folks set up tents on the HS football field). It was a memorable evening--very surreal and not much sleep.

More to come...

Marty