Sunday, July 10, 2011

You can't always get what you want. This is not one of those times.

It's crazy how quickly situations change. Last night, I illegally slept on the floor of a laundromat in a town with 30 people and no cell phone service. Tonight, I have my own room in a palatial Montana ranch and the company of a truly awesome guy. It's days like today that make days like yesterday okay. But more on that later. I want to start at the beginning.

My plan for the day was to ride from Wisdom, MT to Hamilton, MT, about 75 miles. As I was leaving, what two hoodlums show up but Matt and Jessie. They stopped in town to get breakfast, but we promised to meet up in Hamilton later and I went on my way.

The temperature this morning was colder than I've ever ridden in. The thermostat when I was having breakfast said 38 degrees at 6 AM. So Dad, I need you to mail me my gloves. It eventually warmed up later in the evening, just before I made the worst mistake of my life.

The Adventure Cycling Association, which designs the maps that I'm currently using, sometimes includes alternate scenic routes. Today, instead of the standard 7.5 mile climb up to Lost Creek Pass, I opted for the more rugged 9 mile "road" to Gibbons Pass.

The word "road" is in quotation marks because it was not a road. It would maybe pass as a goat path that somebody cleared once in 1607. A path for demon goats who've done bad things and need to be punished.

The ride up to the pass was relatively fine. Mostly dirt and gravel, I made do. There was a fork in the road that my map provided no instruction on. I went left because right was uphill and my laziness paid off.

But, my God, descending the 12 miles from the peak to the main road was inhumane. It was as if Satan himself had laid out the fist-sized rocks to cause maximum death. There was also a convenient, treacherous 200-foot fall to the left.

Throughout the descent, I clutched the brake until my hand was rubbed raw. Then I clutched some more. My back muscles ached from the amount of focus I was putting into navigating. It sucked.

Anyway, I got back on the main road and rolled into the town of Sula, MT. Matt and Jessie, who smartly took the normal route, arrived not too long after me. A cyclist and resident of Hamilton named Joe stopped to chat with us. After we got to know each other, he invites us to his ranch for the night. Matt and Jessie already had hosts for the night planned, but I took Joe up on his offer.

The rest of the ride was fine. There was a bull riding festival in Darby that I wanted to see, but it cost $15 and I didn't have time.

Joe picked me up when I got into Hamilton and we got to chatting some more. He's insanely cool. I'm going to butcher his job title, but he works as a post-doctoral fellow in the National Institute of Health's Department of Virology. He spends his days researching and interacting with viruses like ebola and several others I can't spell. How awesome is that?!

Even better: Joe is a climber! I've missed climbing so much since I left OSU. We agreed to go bouldering for a couple of hours tomorrow so I'm going to delay my ride to Missoula and have myself a good time.

I'm off to bed for now. I'll have climbing pictures and stuff up tomorrow. Nighty night.
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