Day 56 - Bozeman, MT

I was hoping to pull of some big days to catch Bob and his family in Missoula before they left for DC. I got up at 6am and hit the road shortly after. I stepped out into a freezing cold morning for July and put on my leg warmers and gloves for the first time since i began the trip in early may. Clouds covered the sky and a light drizzle fell. As soon as i left town a headwind kicked up slowing me to a crawl and making my hands numb from the chill. It took me close to an hour and a half to make the turn ten miles down the road.

I headed onto a dirt road and began riding up a hill. The dirt turned to gravel and the gravel turned to good size throwing stones. I kept on riding, jumping all over the road to avoid large stone piles. I passed a woman and man in a driveway who gave bewildered stares. As the grade increased it became more difficult to hand difficulty and eventually I had to get off and start walking. I got my route from google which has lead me wrong before and I decided to loose a bunch of altitude by riding back down to the people in the driveway to get a second opinion.

"This road leads way up the mountain and eventually turns into a mountain bike trail with no outlet." I was glad i cam back down.
"Did you notice a dead end sign right when you came in? There's an old man who bought up a bunch of property around here and put that sign up to confuse people into not driving through." Great! Glad i asked.

I scurried back down the hill, made the turn which was also marked as a "private road" and followed a dirt path for 3 miles until i was finally back on pavement. The road was tolerable but the headwind was not. I kept fighting for speed but getting nowhere. With about 10 miles to go I felt my steering being a bit sluggish. My front tire had gotten a flat. I the tire looked a bit compromised but was able to take a new tube. I finally started back again and after a whopping 5 hours I had ridden 30 miles to make it into Bozeman.


I had been feeling a bit off during the day an thought i might have been the chill from the cold morning or perhaps some food I ate. I was just a bit dizzy. Next thing I know I'm on the ground. I had hit a parked car with one of my bags and flew off the bike. Luckily, I did no harm to myself of the car, but took it as a sign to call it a day and spend the night in Bozeman.