What a disappointing day. I’m thoroughly disappointed in myself for today. I could have done so many things better today. So many things differently. Overall it was a discouraging, disappointing day. I kept telling myself I could make it up down the line, but a setback like this is hard to recover from. This is the point where I got caught by other racers that I was trying to outrun, and this is where I lost a sub 20 day finish.
Right away the day started off slow. I was slow to get going, I even stopped to eat the hotel breakfast. Then I backtracked up to the grocery store to get supplies, which was a mistake. I did see Steve Moatt at the store, which was a nice surprise. He had some pretty bad knee swelling and issues during the first few days of the race, and had stopped in Butte to try and recover. He had been there for two days already. Thankfully he would go on to finish the race, and I’d see him again in the coming days.
After my slow resupply I got back on trail and ended up catching up with (the NZ) riding a single speed. I had talked to him briefly last night as I was pushing a toward Butte. We chatted briefly, but I really wanted to try and make up for my slow morning, so I pushed on. It was very cold this morning, and the clouds were looking suspiciously like it might rain, or even snow with as cold as it was.
I started up the climb out of Butte, one that I remembered being sort of difficult. Today it didn’t seem too bad. It was cold and windy, and it looked like a storm was on its way in.
Coming down the other side of the climb it hadn’t started raining yet, but it was very windy and still very cold. I was heading toward Fleecer ridge, and now it really looked like rain was coming. I ducked under the interstate overpass for a while to try and stay out of the weather and eat something, but there was no wind block there. I was now quite cold and knew I needed to keep moving or find somewhere out of the weather to stay. I chose to push on to Fleecer.
On the way up the climb toward Fleecer it started snowing. Running low on water, and just wanting to stop for a minute, I pulled into a campground part way up the climb. I chatted with a guy who was filling up some large water containers and putting them in his truck, but I started cooling down so I started back up the climb. I don’t recall much of the ride up, just that I wanted to keep my head down and get it done.
The top of Fleecer, before the infamous downhill section, is pretty tough as well. Back in 2013 we had to push up this last hill, and today was no different. My bike was lighter and I was in better shape, but there was snow on top, and being as steep as it is, I don’t think I could have ridden up anyway. It was slow going, navigating the snow and mud. As I climbed I kept thinking about the absurdity of what I was doing. Here I am, in the middle of nowhere, miles from anyone, in the cold pushing my bike up a hill. For whatever reason this section felt like the most isolated place I had been to this point on the ride.
Finally up and starting down the other side, I decided to walk down the hill again. I’ve heard stories of people riding down, but you really don’t have much control and have to hope that everything goes exactly right on the way down. As it was my wheels would lock up and start skidding if I pulled on the brakes just a little too much. Thankfully there’s just a short section to go down and I was back on the trail. I remember this decent being one of my favorites, and for a while it lived up to my memory. What I hadn’t planed on was the rain and hail that started as I was almost to Wise River.
It was already cold, and the rain and wind made it almost unbearable. I was getting pelted with hail and sideways rain, just trying to push to Wise River so I could duck into the little restaurant and warm up.
I finally made it the Wise River mercantile and met a guy from NZ that was there also waiting out the storm. He was in pretty bad shape with bad saddle sores and would later scratch from the race after pushing up to the top of the next pass. We chatted for a while while I tried to warm up. It was my intent to continue on, after all I had a great day yesterday and I finally felt like I was back on track and making progress. But the more we talked and the more it kept raining and staying cold I decided to grab one of the last rooms above the restaurant and stay. It was a disappointment to only make it this far today, but as I sat in my room watching the rain and hail come down I was glad I was under a roof and not out in the open on top of a mountain pass during all of this. I decided that I would get up very early the next morning to try and make up for the very short day.
