Day 26 – Weather rules the day!

eseidman1
Aug 22, 2016
4 min read

Date: Tuesday, 9 August 2016

Time on Bike: 3:16:55

Total Travel Time: 4:19:52

Miles Covered Today: 43.54

Total Trip Miles: 1,665.7

Average Speed: 13.2, Maximum Speed: 32.6

From: Columbia Falls, MT

To: Stryker, MT

(Uploaded on 21 Aug 2016)

We woke up at the Aero Inn in Kalispell, MT and… it is raining. Crap! I checked the weather and it seems to look like there will be a break about mid-day. We asked for a late check out. I even got a blog entry written and uploaded. Good use of my down time.

Bunny & Woz were more than happy to hang out in our hotel room. Less time in the car!

About noon we could see the cloud line roll by and suddenly… sun!

I drove Bunny through town as I was the one who went out to pick up dinner last night. We both agreed that we would like to spend more time here, but for now we needed to get back to Columbia Falls to start my cycling day. We had maybe 30 miles to travel. The mountains were still in view…

I got back to Depot Park where I left off yesterday to get on my bike. Not much of a wind to speak about this afternoon. Yes, it was already the afternoon!! A slight headwind, but little at all to worry about.

Bunny & Woz headed out to meet me for my first break in Whitefish, MT.

The route didn't exactly jive with what I had written down on my map. A car stopped. A woman bounced out. You need any help she shouted? Yup, I tell her I was looking for an unsigned 4th Ave NW with 5 sets of railroad tracks. But I was only counting 4 sets. She asked if I am looking for Edgewood Place. I looked at my map again. Yup!

She lives on Edgewood and bikes it herself. She gave me the local take on my route and headed up the road in her car. Not ten minutes later. I saw her sitting at my left turn pointing in the direction I needed to go. Aren't fellow cyclists just great?!

It was a very nice route by the way! Little if any traffic. Open roads.

And I still had the mountains to look at to the east!

I entered Whitefish, MT some 11 miles up the road. It is apparently a major rail hub!

I found Bunny & Woz at a local school in the shade. I made a quick stop and headed out as I got a really, really late start (> 2:20 PM!!!) today and I knew we were due for more rain this afternoon.

Whitefish is also a cool place. Want to come back here too!

Crossed the Whitefish River...

...just as a Trek (that bicycle manufacturer) travel van crossed the river. He grinned.

And was riding on HW 93. Terrible, terrible, terrible road! No fracking shoulder at all and cars were going 70 MPH. Why was this even on my route??

I survived the ~5 miles I need to ride on HW 93 before getting off on a side road. Much better now!

There must be a lot of money in these parts… nice houses. Even nice gates to their properties!

As you can see in the pictures above, the sky was getting darker and darker. I wanted to get to Eureka, MT today, some 35 miles up the road still. But I was starting to have my doubts with these gray skies!

I was suddenly back on HW 93 again. Freshly paved, but still not much of a shoulder. 18-wheelers are doing 70 MPH not 5 feet to my left...

I was really pushing the pace now as Bunny was waiting in Olney, MT for me. I wanted to get off this damn road and visibility wasn’t great. I turned on both my rear blinking red LED lights & my front lights. Please see me vehicles wizzing by... I am also on the road!

I made it to Olney. There was nothing there but a PO. Bunny was sitting in an empty parking lot. The PO had closed hours ago. I ducked around back to relieve myself and headed right back out. I did not know how much further I would get before the rains came.

Bunny drove up to Stryker, MT in the hopes that I could get that far before the heavens opened up. I was really riding hard. Doing 16 to 18 MPH. I hate to ride under pressure…

And… it started to rain. But I was still hoping to outrun the storm as the sky in front of me seemed lighter than what was behind me.

Then the wind started to whip me around. I knew I was minutes away from a downpour.

I saw Bunny get off the road not a quarter of a mile in front of me on a farm entrance. She had come back to save me!! I sprinted (and I do mean sprint!!) to her, loaded the bike up, got inside the car, and it started to rain.

My pushing the pace the end of the day was evident from my average speed today… 13.2 MPH!

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not opposed to riding in the rain. I do not melt in water. I have a fantastic GoreTex cycling suit. But thunder & lightning… I don’t want or need. And this was a thunderstorm moving through the area.

Bunny tells me she briefly saw three cross-country cyclists on the road heading west. I felt sorry for them and hope they found cover.

We drove the ~24 miles into Eureka to our hotel. I could see the rain clouds move across the mountains.

We checked in and at least it was not raining for me to unload.

I got hit twice in one day with bad weather today. Only cycled ~44 miles today. And tomorrow wasn’t supposed to be much better.

I had been really lucky so far with weather. But what I didn't know at the time was that this storm might have been the best thing that had happened to me this entire trip… What you say? Now that is a teaser if you have ever heard one!!!

We set up shop in our hotel room and I did laundry. Life on the road...