Start: 7:45 AM
Finish: 3:07 PM
Saddle Time: 5:30
Ascent: 2,165 feet
Descent: 1,188 feet
Miles: 65 miles
Total Miles: 1,052
Highlight: Riding out of Great Falls along the Missouri River on a rail trail.
Lowlight: The last 15 miles from Geyser to Stanford. The forecasted tailwind was a headwind. Plodded along at 10mph.
Cyclemeter: Follow this link to see the data I’m collecting with the cyclemeter app. You can see gps information, speed, elevation, distance, cadence and heart rate. Better viewed on a computer where it’s easier to play around with the graphs.
Today was more of a put in the miles type of day, neither good nor bad. The ride was not flat as you see above . With over 2,000 feet of climbing I gained about 1,000 feet in elevation. None of the climbs were all that long or steep, most were just gradual 2%-4% grade, adds up over time both in elevation and wear on your legs.
The weather today was great, overcast skies and temperatures that never rose about the mid 70’s. I don’t think I’ve seen this kind of weather since day 1. This is what I expected on the Northern Tier, not high 90’s.
I was in no rush getting going this morning, knowing the weather will cooperate I didn’t feel the need to finish up early. I prefer ending my day around 3:00 if possible, not too early where I have a lot of time to kill but early enough where I can explore the local area a bit and have some down time.
The ride started by following a rail trail along the northern end of Great Falls, passing Black Eagle Damn built back in the 1920’s. Just below the damn is one in a series of waterfalls giving the city it’s name. Of course Lewis and Clark ventured through here, being the first white people to see the area. An interpretive center resides in the area with more information about their journey. You do see Lewis and Clark this and that all over these parts.
The first five miles took me a good hour with all my stopping to look and take pictures. Eventually I was dumped out onto Highway 87. I was glad to see the highway was wide and initially concrete so great to ride on. Once a ways out of town the concrete disappeared and I was back to chip seal. Traffic was regular but the shoulder was wide.
The route turned off 87 towards the town of Belt, descending through a narrow gorge made by Belt Creek. It’s a small town with a population of about 500, originally had the first coal mine in Montana supplying fuel to Fort Benton. I noticed they have a brewery in town but way to early for that, instead I stopped at the local Cenex station for a second breakfast of gatorade and a gas station burrito. It’s fuel.
I continued on following the creek which provided different scenery than the wheat farms I’ve seen the past few days. Eventually I made my way back to 87 which I will follow for the rest of the day. Looking at the map this morning I expect 87 to be lightly traveled because there’s nothing out here but a few small towns. I expected most of the traffic to be further south on Interstate 94 but the road turned out quite busy with a lot of RV and campers, maybe locals heading home after the holiday weekend. The road was in good shape but it’s hard to enjoy the ride when cars whiz past and 70mph. Most drivers were good, had a few honks of encouragement and only one honk of “get off the road”. It was from a local towing a trailer of hay.
I made it to Stanford about 3:00 and met up with a west bound cyclist who with his brother in law started in Maine back in early May. They’ve been doing about 50 miles/day and are 2 months and 3,000 miles into their trip. We chatted for a while a bit later as I was heading to dinner. Always good to met up with other cyclists.
Tonights digs are the Sundown Motel which turned out to be a great little place, highly recommended if you are ever in these parts. For only $55 I got a very basic room in an old motel but it was clean and had a lot of nice touches like a fridge, microwave, hot water kettle, comfortable bed and a couple power strips so you don’t have to dig behind furniture to find the one available outlet in the room. They have a couple picnic tables out front with a fire pit. So much better than the $300 room I had in Glacier, still can’t get over that.
I wandered into town looking for the supermarket to get a late lunch and grab food for tomorrow morning. The market was small but again I was pleasantly surprised, the place was well stocked with everything you need and more. I grabbed some yogurt, bananas and a package of frozen tamales for lunch and breakfast. Great little town of maybe 500 people.
Later I had dinner and the Waterhole Saloon, another nice local place that served me up a fantastic sirloin steak. Maybe I’m hungry or the steak just tastes better here, certainly the way they lightly season with salt and pepper and grilling properly adds to the flavor.
