Departure time: 6:08am
Arrival time: 5:43pm
11.5 hour day
100*F on the road
Headwind from hell (not kidding.. we could hold anything above 15mph)
Rattlesnakes everywhere
xoxo,
JT
112 miles
Departure time: 6:08am Arrival time: 5:43pm 11.5 hour day 100*F on the road Headwind from hell (not kidding.. we could hold anything above 15mph) Rattlesnakes everywhere xoxo, JT
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Today the group woke up surprised by how cold we were compared to the boiling hot temperatures that we fell asleep to. Shortly after we had kitted up and packed the van we were treated to an amazing breakfast at the Big Sky Cafe in downtown Cut Bank (thank you to Mayor Embody for breakfast!). After we had nommed on some hearty eggs and pancakes, the team set out on Route 2 towards Rudyard in one of the fastest packs we have had to date. We were cruising at a solid 25mph for close to thirty miles before Reid had his first flat of the day. Lucky for Reid, Oliver and Jacob took care of changing his flat while Reid walked into a rattlesnake filled field to model for Jade. After Reid decided that male modeling was not his cup of tea and he was better off sticking to the bike, we continued on the road to Reid's next mishap. While flying down Route 2 Oliver and I saw a deep burnout track that we luckily managed to glide over. Unfortunately for Reid, Gabby, and Jacob, Reid fought the edge of the burnout and flipped over the handlebars taking the other two with him. Needless to say, Reid was not having very good luck today. After the three victims of Reid's crash were all wrapped up, we continued on our way. By the time lunch rolled around the team was overheated, thirsty and hungry. Thanks to our team moms for the week, Regina and Patty, we were lounging in someones back yard in no time. Back on the road, the last 30 miles were quick and we were greeted by a beautiful old Corvette on the border of Rudyard. Although hard to keep up with the fast car, we were escorted to our house for the night. Upon arriving at our hosts, the Langel’s, house, we learned that we would each be treated to a comfy bed for the night. To top it off the house was fully air conditioned which was a lifesaver after the 90 degree weather we had ridden in. Finally, to finish our day, we enjoyed dinner at the local church and chatted with some local veterans about their pasts. I think the team was reminded why we are doing this ride by seeing how excited the community was to hear what we were doing. All said and done it was a great day despite the heat and funky tires. Now it’s off to bed for our early 5 am wakeup! peace and blessins’, jamie Today’s riding from Cardston, Canada to Cutback, Montana was a different style of riding than what we’ve been used to in the Cascades and the Rockies. We’re officially out of mountainous country and into endless plains of …. of….. nothing?
I describe todays riding as different, but oh man was it fun. The flock (almost) effortlessly held a pace of 25mph and over for miles and miles and miles. This high paced riding over rolling hills in Eastern Montana gave me such a rush - the team dynamic amongst the flock was unreal. At one point Webster, my pace line buddy, looked at me and we both had giddy grins spreading from ear to ear. Moments like that remind why I love the sport of cycling so darn much. We flying across the US!!!! Right after we crossed the border back into the United States we turned the corner to be greeted by Jamie’s favorite sign; the “hill” sign that depicts a truck going down a steep slope. We all looked at each other in confusion wondering how the heck a hill can exist in the middle of flat flat flat nowhere. Then it happened. We dove down this hill where we all gained speed very quickly… so quickly that we all maxed out our speedometers absolutely flying at an arguably uncontrollable speed. I hit a max speed of 51.6mph - a personal record! At lunch, 3 farmers working and living in the colony we were near stopped by to check out our lunch stop, These guys were so friendly and interested in what we were doing. The interest was mutual as they had such interesting stories and information on what it’s like to live in the colony. They go to school through 8th grade and then they spend the rest of their lives working for the colony’s self sustaining lifestyle. We took a photo with them (significant for colony members as they’re typically not allowed to be photographed) and then hopped back on our bikes to finish up the days ride. A few miles out of Cutback we were greeted with a firetruck from the early 1900’s, a few harley riders, and a herd of cop cars to escort us into Cutbank. Riding into towns with escorts is such exhilarating VIP treatment! Cutbank has been so incredibly welcoming - we’ve met so many fascinating people. xoxo, JT sidenote: Regina Noch (Reid's mom) showed up to one of our rest stops in a baby blue 1964 Ford Fairline..... Spontaneous dream car purchase?! After a relatively short day of biking we were kindly escorted into town by two police vehicles, VFW riders on their Harley's and a fire truck. Our host, Mayor Embody, was in fact the one driving the old fire truck and after our escort he graciously held a barbecue for us. Also, many locals and veterans joined our meal. One veteran in particular had an amazing story to share. Bud Olson was the navigator of a glider in World War II. On June 6th 1944, Bud was in the leading wave with his unit the 325th and before reaching Normandy their tow plane was shot down. After losing the tow plane the glider had 90 seconds to make a landing. The airplane crash landed and he was the only one to survive. In the accident Bud sustained injuries to both his back and his leg but 3 months later, having little time to recover, Bud was assigned another glider and flew a mission into Holland. Now at 93 years old Bud still feels the effects of his landing on Normandy. Although Bud suffered injuries in the war, he says that the hardest thing he has lived through, was the death of his wife two years ago. He misses her dearly. Bud is one of the few remaining veterans of World War II and this was an incredible opportunity to be able to meet him. Most of all, we are so great full for his service and for everyone else who has served. Thank you Gabby We have had a very warm welcome into Canada. Although we were a team of of 8 worn out riders rolling into Lee Creek Campground, we were quickly re-energized upon discovering the Wifi and its password. As a result, both Jade and Webby were able to post sweet pictures, and I have no doubt that the Instagram world is very grateful. After some showers (in which you had to push the button every few seconds to keep the water running), we were greeted by some very nice Canadians who were grilling burgers and hot dogs for our dinner. Mayor Maggie and Mr. Dave Smith both addressed the team. Mr. Smith provided us with a lot of interesting information on Canadian involvement in World War II and the country’s recent peace-keeping efforts. After that, we chowed down on our burgers and hot dogs. Gabby and Webby went out on a limb and tried, and enjoyed, some ketchup flavored potato chips… I also tried them and I can’t say that I enjoyed them quite as much. Mayor Maggie then gave each rider his or her own pin and water bottle with the Cardston town logo. We each also received a mini Canadian flag! Later, in a hilarious 20 minute escapade, Jamie attempted to back up the van and the trailer in a way that would allow us to drop the trailer for the night. He finally did it, but the van emerged from the adventure without a front license plate… Thankfully, front license plates are not a requirement for trips to Dairy Queen! Sorry to rush out, but seriously, I need to stop writing this and go get in a sleeping bag because I am getting eaten alive by mosquitos. Talk to y’all soon, Mary Elmore After a harried border crossing, we quickly learned that Alberta has three things:
1) an appalling amount of flies - so many that when climbing hills I looked down and my arm was covered with over 30 small black flies. Gross 2) an interesting system for road maintenance…. or a lack of a system. There are so many little holes and cracks everywhere that my forearms were throbbing at the bottom of each hill. My butt wasn’t a huge fan either. 3) number 3 trumps all of the above - the views! Oh mylanta! Riding through Alberta was absolutely incredible. The sharp rigid mountains surrounding us were absolutely incredible. Trying my hardest to hold true to some great advice I received before the trip - “try to enjoy most of it in a way that’s not through a camera lense!” After lunch, we started to leave the pretty rocky mountain area. Once it got real flat showing endless grass fields, it kind of hit me that for the next 3000(ish) miles this is reality. Here’s to 5 weeks of rolling grass fields! Reid almost got hit by a car on the highway for probably the 100th time on this trip. Someday he’ll learn to look before veering literally all the way to the yellow line. As we rolled into Cardston I noticed how freaking wide the roads are! My theory is that Canada is so big that it has so much extra land space so as a result the streets are literally a mile wide. I’m not complaining - it was a blast sailing through the wide streets! xoxo JT Lightning round: Something you learned today Jacob - on bigger roads it’s important to communicate even louder to get the message across & it’s important to not let my thought sink in the pooper because it’s so easy to get down out here Jade - cows in Alberta are easy to herd with high pitch moo sounds Webster - Canadians declared war on the Germans ten days into WWII Oliver - downhill doesn’t mean downhill Wade - Canada produced over half the vehicles for the allies during WWII Mary Elmore - I like sour mike & ikes Hi! My name is Kristin, and I am Oliver's fabulous little sister. If you were wondering why I’m named Pre-Newb, that’s because I will be attending SPS next fall and Webster says that all new third formers are newbs. As the rest day yesterday continued Jacob eventually decided I was Pre-Newb since school hasn’t started just yet. And of course, I'm not too psyched about this name but I can’t much about it.
Anyways, today we rode the Going-To-The-Sun-Road, which for me was my first ride of the year. The road signs claimed that it was a 6% gradual grade, but personally it felt like 15%. The sights were fantastic! Even though Glacier National Park is so close to Whitefish, I still forget that such massive mountains are only a 25 mile ride away from Whitefish. Everyone started riding from Whitefish and rode the back road over Blankenship Bridge and then into West Glacier but I didn’t ride this section. I met everyone in West Glacier and started the 32 mile climb around 4 in the afternoon (the road isn’t open from 11am to 4pm). The brutal climb essentially started around 5:30pm which was about halfway through the ride. As the hill got steeper, my leg muscle energy started decreasing - quickly. The road started wrapping around the edge of the mountains which gave me the creeps since we were so high up, and Oliver kept telling me to look over the edge which definitely didn’t help. On the way up we passed two people running up the Going To The Sun Road (which made me so glad I was on a bike instead of running) and we went under the weeping wall of water (and yes, Oliver tried to show off and fell over in the water). Once my legs turned to jelly, we were approximately 1 mile from the top of Logan Pass. By the time we got to the top Reid had been at the top waiting for the “flock” for almost an hour (great time riding with you Reid). The best part of the day was definitely the 19 mile downhill, except it was freezing cold (just saying I rocked Webbys one arm sleeve on my leg and I think I pulled off the look very well - thanks Webby). Once we got to the KOA, we downed about 7 entire pizzas and went straight to bed. Today was an awesome day and made me very excited about riding across country when my time comes. Much thanks to the flock for letting me join - it was an incredible experience. Good luck with this insane adventure. Much Love, Pre Newb P.S. We all know my blog post is better than Oliver’s. Please don't make him sad about this as it can’t be easy for him when his little sister beats him all the time.
Today I reached my happy place on my bike reminding me of why I love this stuff so much. We made the big leap from Idaho to Montana today (although Montana has no signage to mark the border..) and I swear we went through a porthole from one world to the next. As soon as we were all of 3 miles into Montanaland it felt like home! When Missoula started appearing on the highway signs I had such a rush of happiness! Riding our bikes across Montana is such an amazing opportunity to really take in our surroundings and see everything the big sky state has to offer. I’m way too excited!
xoxo JT So today was what we called an easy day. No major passes, mostly flat, and best of all only 71 miles! Now I don't know if you think that is a short distance or a long one but a year ago that would have been an insurmountable feat to me. I would never have expected to bike that far but I did and it was actually a pretty great day. After a great breakfast with a few local veterans in Sandpoint Idaho we rode for 30 miles and stopped for our first snack. It was a "healthy" snack consisting of oatmeal raisin cookies, baked by our lovely veterans in Sandpoint, and some delicious Nutella. From there we carried on for another 20 miles and stopped for food again, but this time for lunch. Then on our final leg of the ride into Bull Lake MT we were met half way by two fire department vehicles that escorted us into town. As we rode through the town we were greeted by many locals welcoming us and wishing us well on the rest of our ride. Oh wait! I almost forgot the best part. As we were being escorted, the flock let me take the lead and bring us victoriously into camp. So like I said, all in all today was a pretty great day. So until next time, Gabby "G" Spurzem We stayed the night at the Beaver Lodge and were greeted in the morning by our gracious host with breakfast. After breakfast and a picture we began to make our way to Sandpoint, Idaho. Knowing that today would be our first over 100 mile day we all were hoping for lots of flat. We were not let down. We formed a great paceline into the headwind and hauled our way onto lunch stop. At lunch we received a call from our host in Sandpoint telling us that we needed to leave the Adventure Cycling route and hop onto highway 2. That it was a far superior route and had just been certified by a cycling group as the best route. It was none of the above. It was a road that was over inhabited by 18 wheel logging trucks going 60 mph two feet to our left. To say the least, it was brutal. Somehow we survived the highway with a mere 3 flat tires and rolled into the Sandpoint Athletic Club. We unpacked all our stuff and moved into the squash courts where we were to sleep. Later that night we were graciously hosted for a spaghetti dinner where we were able to connect with many veterans and to hear their stories. After a wonderful dinner we made it back to our home sweet squash court where we all received a complimentary massage then almost immediately went to sleep. We learned a few things, 1. To always follow our maps and 2. How to quickly change a flat using CO2. Oliver Today began with an up, then a magnificent down, then some hot hot weather on the flat, then another surprise up resulting in almost every single one of us bonking. The first “up” goes by the name of Sherman Pass AKA the tallest pass in Washington state. Rainy pass, Washington pass, and Loup Loup pass trained us well for Sherman pass. I felt so well-trained for climbing this pass that I actually reached a new level of boredom on my bike today. After about 10 miles of climbing at an undeniable pace of 7mph, Reid and I started singing to each other. Once that got boring I started playing around with ways I can pinpoint specific abdominal muscles depending on where I place my hands on my bars - yay anatomy. The other side of Sherman pass was a whole new story. Jacob and I took off in a 2 man draft absolutely sailing. We absolutely nailed our drafting strategy on this descent. Switching lead every 30 seconds or so we held a solid 38-40mph for at least 5-10 miles - it was awesome. At some point we were wheelin so hard I swear I took out at least 2 monarch butterflies every odd numbered mile. Once the descent calmed down a bit Webster, Oliver, Jacob, and I fell into the rhythm of a killer pace line. The pace line brought us to water stop 1 where we enjoyed the luxury of a clean gas station bathroom. Funny how much we’re learning to appreciate civilization and clean bathrooms. We all learned a valuable lesson today… That being said, it was 100% my fault. I was leading the flock down a pretty rural road around Kettle Falls looking for a turn. I got like half way passed an unmarked turn and realized that was the turn I needed so without thinking I last minute took a sharp turn which resulted in the following 8 riders half wheeling each other and then 2 people on the ground. I learned a lesson, and I don’t think any of us will fail the turn communication game for the rest of the trip. Valuable lesson learned? Yepp. After lunch we experienced 20 of the hottest miles yet. This is when Webster officially become world’s worst DJ. I swear this kid played elevator music from the 1800’s and called it “classics”. This one track dragged on for over 9 minutes. Rather than the music pumping us up to power through these final miles as it should, it literally drained the energy from me through my ears. The surprise “up” was discovered at the final water stop where we realized it was actually 11 miles until we got the campground. We all started to bonk a bit… or a lot a bit at this point. Webster took off incessantly talking to himself, Jamie trailed off with some Steve Aoki track, and I found some freak burst of energy to push to the top. We rolled up to Beaver Lodge just outside of Colville, WA to a beautiful lake. We all immediately dove in to the mountain water and felt so so much better. The cabins at Beaver Lodge are so homey! They gracefully agreed to host us for breakfast tomorrow morning early early before we take off for our first century ride. Whoot whoot, let’s go flock!! xoxo, JT Shoutouts:
Day 4 started with waking up at 6:00 A.M., repacking all the tents, and getting breakfast which is all becoming more and more mechanical as we get into our morning rhythm. As a team we all scarfed down about 2 dozen eggs, and a box of sausages before we began our 78 mile ride. The ride turned out to be quite deceptive, we all thought the first 30 miles would be easy, a strong head wind and a flat tire on my end would disagree. Eventually, the headwind died down, but the ride did not decrease in difficulty. As the wind stopped pushing us back, gravity soon took its place as we began our 35 mile and 2400 foot assent. It was tough but the 12 miles of downhill soared by as we were greeted by fellow cyclists into the lovely town of Republic. It was a great day, and after 3 days of mountains and climbing everyone is looking forward to a day off. - Reid ("Wade") I think the sunrise, followed quickly by alarm clocks, came a little bit too early for all of our sore legs, backs, and butts (and everything else). This morning seems to have been the coldest one we have had so far, so packing up our wet tents was a slow, soggy, painstaking process. (Visual: Jade bobbing her arms up and down like a penguin (kinda), completely seriously, trying to warm up her arms and hands.) Thankfully, we had some delicious pancakes waiting for us for breakfast.
After we had eaten breakfast, we put on as many biking layers as we could find. I, for example, was wearing a base layer, a biking jersey, arm warmers, leg warmers, two jackets, and full fingered gloves. Was I still cold? Absolutely! Seriously though, all of that made today sound terrible. It really wasn’t. Today has been pretty good!! A lot of our ride was downhill, and that was fantastic. It was a relief to be able to move on our bikes without pedaling! We did have one big climb today, but we had all the skills needed to tackle it after yesterday’s climbs. Apparently we have a good amount of climbing to look forward to tomorrow…. We’ll keep y’all posted. At the end of today’s ride we pulled into a very cute town called Okanogan. Most of the team jumped (or slid into) the river! The mayor and the town put together a delicious dinner for us! They were probably surprised by how much we ate… We’ve all worked up BIG appetites. Webby represented the team and gave a brief speech with a flawless explanation of our trip and the mission of Ride 2 Recovery (I hope he sees this so I can get brownie points). We’re camping in a park in Okanogan tonight, and thankfully there are showers here. Since we didn’t have showers last night, we were quite a smelly bunch by the time we finally arrived. I think all of the parents are glad that we’ve cleaned up! The showers may be great, but the mosquitos are not so great. If you see lots of red bumps all over us in pictures soon, you’ll know why. Too many cyclists, too little bug spray! Follow @spscyclists2015 on Instagram and stay classy, everyone. Lots of love (and Advil?), Mary Elmore |
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