Start: 8:00 AM

Finish: 1:28 PM

Saddle Time: 4:02

Ascent: 1,128 feet

Descent:  1,376 feet

Miles: 53 miles

Total Miles: 921

Highlight: Cool, quiet morning ride with great scenery.

Lowlight: Nothing to complain about, just another earlier than desired finish for the day.

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.

Fantastic ride this morning, one of the best of the tour to date.  The temperature was cool, scenery was pleasantly different from the last couple weeks, and the road was lightly traveled.

I had another short day planned, just 53 miles and the weather has been getting better so I didn’t want to get started very early just to land in town with a lot of time to burn.  I took advantage of the excellent internet at the Super 8 and worked on some blogs and instagram.  

It’s been while since I’ve stayed at a Super 8.  Their breakfast was surprisingly good, no freshly cooked food but they had frozen breakfast sandwiches, burritos and other such things along with the usual toast, waffles, cereal, yogurt deal you get with a hotel continental breakfast. The room was clean and in good condition.  I slept well.

The first part of todays ride headed due south to Valier, about 30 miles away.  The wind was out of the east today, so much for my “the winds blow east on this side of the divide” thought.  No problem since I’m head mostly south.  I had couple easterly turns towards Valier but not bad. Can’t complain after yesterdays tailwind.  

The road was typical Montana, two lanes, no shoulder but the lack of traffic made it a non issue.  I was making good time on this road.  It wasn’t flat but there were only a few hills where I had to get into head down climbing mode.  Mostly gently rolling hills.   You can see from my ascent/descent above it was much and pretty much a wash.  

What little traffic there was seemed to be farmers heading from one place to another, in no hurry so not traveling at 70mph. Very friendly people.  I had a few wave to me and one guy stopped while I was taking pictures and asked if I had broken down.

Still very much in wheat country with wheat everywhere and a smattering of silos here and there.  Sounds very boring but it’s not.  The colors where what it’s all about.  The deep greens of the growing wheat contrasting with the straw colored fallowed fields along with fields of yellow from some kind of crop.  I stopped a lot to take pictures but found it hard to capture what I was seeing in just the camera frame.

I made it to Valier about 11:00 which included a lot of stopping for photos.  The array of silos outside of town attests to this areas focus on farming.  The town is small, about 500 people and I’ll bet all working in farming or related jobs.  Stopped at the Cenex station for a Gatorade and taquitos, had a big breakfast but needed a little something.  These Cenex stations have a lot of food options unfortunately all of the fast food variety from things such as my Tao Bell like taquito to wrapped burgers to various frozen sandwiches and foods.  For better or worse Cenex will likely be lunch or mid day snack in the coming weeks. At least I can cool off and refill my water.

While in Valier I called ahead to the Super 8 in Conrad but they were full so a call to the Northgate Motel, the only other motel in town, landed me a room for $60/night.

Headed due east to meet up with interstate 15 south which I will parallel all the way to Conrad tonight and Great Falls tomorrow. Made it to Conrad about 1:30.  The weather still wasn’t all that bad at about 84 degrees, I would like to have put in another 10-20 miles but there were no options for places to stay. 

The motel is clearly old but my room was perfectly fine, clean and comfortable.  Way better than sleeping in a tent in this heat.  The temperature rose to about 90 around 6:00.  The town has a population of about 2,500 with a small downtown, a few restaurants and a supermarket.  I strapped one empty bag to my bike and headed to the supermarket.  I planned on doing the same as last night, but this time for lunch, dinner, and breakfast tomorrow.  Good thing because a couple restaurants I passed were closed for the weekend.  A couple pieces of fried chicken and fries for lunch, Mongolian Beef for dinner, along with a bag of salad, large cup of mixed fruit, bananas, single slice of coconut cream pie, a ham sandwich for breakfast tomorrow and of course beer (not for breakfast).  I was set, 3 good meals for $30.

Tomorrow is a better distance day, about 65 miles to Great Falls.  Booked a Travelodge there for $60, again a no brainer for me.  It gets difficult after Great Falls.  I’ll be looking at doing either distances that are too short or going to the next town which is too long.  I think I will play it by ear, see how the winds are blowing and my body feels, wait until noon or so to decide how far I want to go.  If I can’t get accommodations, worse case I can camp at the town park.