Start: 8:00 AM

Finish: 1:15 PM

Saddle Time: 4:02

Ascent: 726 feet

Descent:  1,018 feet

Miles: 48 miles

Total Miles: 1,100

Highlight: First hour of the day was cool with good road conditions.

Lowlight: Again, headwind for about 30 miles. 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 called for a short fide into Lewistown, only 48 miles which I should easily cover in 4 hours with stops for photos and such so I took my time getting moving in the morning. For breakfast I had the two of the frozen tamales I bought yesterday along with yogurt and fruit.  I packed the remaining two more tamales in my clothes for lunch or maybe breakfast tomorrow, if they stay cold.

While eating at the saloon last night I overheard a guy talking with the bartender, saying how he was called to a bad accident outside of town involving “a bus full of hippies, a bunch of young kids”.  He was complaining how passing cars were honking at him and flipping him off as he tried to help.  I thought just like home but people around here seem so nice, so we really are not all that different.  While leaving town in the morning I could see the scene of the accident, skid marks everywhere and signs of the pavement being torn up, maybe the bus rolled over.

The first hour or so of the ride was pleasant, cool temperatures and good road conditions.  I’m on the same road as yesterday so I don’t know why I find the ride more enjoyable, maybe I started with a realistic expectation of what to expect regarding traffic.  

I had a good ride for about an hour, then the relentless headwind started.  Headwinds are super demoralizing.  In this case I was on a -1.5% grade where I should have been casually pedaling and doing about 15mph but now I was peddling steady to maintain 12mph.  The winds were coming out of the southeast and I was heading east so it could be worse like if I was heading south.  Then the road turned south, full on headwind so my speed dropped to 10mph.  I pulled into the little town of Hobson for some rest from the wind and maybe a quick second breakfast.  The road crossed over railroad tracks with a couple very old grain elevators in ruins.  Like all the towns along the way it was a place to gather grain and ship it of via the railroad.  The local market was open so I grabbed a gatorade and muffin.  While eating my muffin I walked around Central Ave which has the usual businesses of a small town like the market, post office and library.  A wide grassy divider separates the two lanes of non existent traffic.

I made my way back out to the highway to find my nice shoulder was cut in half and previous chip seal had only covered half the shoulder leaving an edge I can’t ride on so I was forced to either ride in the lane and risk getting hit or on the one foot of rideable shoulder and risk falling off the edge.  I bounced around between the two depending on traffic in my mirror.  Really couldn’t imagine doing this ride without a mirror. If there’s one piece of equipment I highly recommend on a bike it’s a mirror.  I will never ride on a road without one again. 

I entered a construction zone with stop lights and single lane, alternating traffic with a pilot car.  They seem to be replacing and widening the existing road.  The alternating traffic not only slows the cars down traffic comes in quick spurts of cars, then nothing for a long time making for a much more enjoyable ride.

 In the middle of the construction zone was a market I’d seen on my map, Big Sky Market.  I just had a muffin but this place sounded interesting so I went in to check it out.  It was fantastic!  Everything you would expect in a supermarket plus a lot of dried and canned food and other local goods.  Apparently it’s run by a local Amish family which you can tell by their dress.  I’ve seen a lot of that out here and my assumption is Amish because it’s what I know so I had to look it up, don’t want to dump everyone in my Amish bucket. Apparently there is a substantial Amish community in parts of Montana, along with Hutterites, a similar ethnoreligious branch of anabaptist like the Amish and Mennonites.

Past the construction zone I made my way to new road with a really wide shoulder and super smooth surface.  The wind also let up for a time as I made my way into Lewistown.  I planned on staying at a local “B&B Motel” but it was full.  They were chip sealing the roads around the area so road crews had moved in to a lot of the motel space which had me worried about tonight and the coming days.  I found room down the road at a cheap ass motel, well it wasn’t exactly cheap at $75 but it was ass.  Actually not that bad it is a dump but hopefully the bed doesn’t have bedbugs.  It’s fine for tonight and the brewery is just down the road.  I headed there and the laundromat in the late afternoon, then returned to the brewery for dinner.

Decision now about what next.  The town of Jordan sits 76 miles from Winnett to the west and 67 miles from Circle to the east with almost nothing else on either side.  Winnett is only 55 miles from me so that’s the next logical stop but there is an interesting B&B 30 miles past Winnett, only $40/night plus $15 for steak dinner.  Sounds like a good way to meet locals and maybe other cyclist but will make for a long day tomorrow.  The weather forecast is for more headwind tomorrow so it’s probably best I save the longer day for the following day and stay in Winnett tomorrow.  I was able to book a place in Winnett and Jordan so the next two days are set.  Tomorrow is getting up to 98 degrees so I want to be done early anyway.