Even though it was
dark out by the time I left, it wasn't a big deal as I was biking on
a bike path for quite a ways that parallel highway 93. After a ways the path ended when road construction began. Unlike on the east coast where construction is usually done on one half of a road, shunting traffic into two narrow lanes of traffic on one 'normal' lane, out west they seem to like to work on the whole road at once. For several miles the entire major highway was torn up and was just hard packed dirt and gravel. Same thing with the bike path but worse so I ended up biking on the road for the most part.
I passed through the town of Hamilton, MT along the way where I stopped at Taco Johns, a fast food chain that I haven't seen on the East coast. It was pretty decent. I rode along some really wide neighborhood roads parallel to the main street (where I saw that cool graffiti art) until I made it through town where I rejoined 93 heading south for a brief ways before taking a Google Maps designated turn off onto a paved road that shortly turned into a gravel road.
Although frustratingly slow and built into the hills along the side of the valley (so having elevation changes as compared to the flat highway), it did provide some good photo opportunities and a break from highway riding (even though the shoulder was wide and it was fairly low traffic).
Before the major climb of the day, Lost Pass between Montana and Idaho, I stopped at a historical sign on the side of the road discussing big horn sheep that mentioned that they are located in the area and if you are lucky, you might see them along side of the highway. 'Yeah, sure,' I thought. However, a few miles down the road alongside the road, sure enough I saw a few males and a bunch of ewes and possibly some offspring. I didn't get to see any massive headbutting, but it was still a pretty neat experience.
The climb up Lost Pass was pretty tough. Over 5 miles of climbing to an eventual elevation of 7014'. I climbed almost all of it out of the saddle in my little ring up front (30 tooth), and my 30 and 32 in the back. At the base of the climb it was in the low 50s and I was wearing a short sleeve shirt and no gloves or balaclava. In the hour it took me to get the top, it dropped to right below freezing so before the descent I bundled up with my gloves, heavy weight JL Rowing shirt, and rain pants and jacket. However, my hands were still freezing on the descent and I stopped several times to warm them up.
When I finally got to the base of the descent there was still a good one to two percent grade heading down so I figured I'd add some quick mileage to the end of the day and try to find a good spot to spend the night. As darkness was falling, I came across a church just past the small 'town' of North Fork, ID which, although closed, had a nice set back porch with an awning and a power outlet (but no wifi) so I set up here (again, avoiding the need to set up my tent).
Even though it was
dark out by the time I left, it wasn't a big deal as I was biking on
a bike path for quite a ways that parallel highway 93. After a ways the path ended when road construction began. Unlike on the east coast where construction is usually done on one half of a road, shunting traffic into two narrow lanes of traffic on one 'normal' lane, out west they seem to like to work on the whole road at once. For several miles the entire major highway was torn up and was just hard packed dirt and gravel. Same thing with the bike path but worse so I ended up biking on the road for the most part.
Although frustratingly slow and built into the hills along the side of the valley (so having elevation changes as compared to the flat highway), it did provide some good photo opportunities and a break from highway riding (even though the shoulder was wide and it was fairly low traffic).
Before the major climb of the day, Lost Pass between Montana and Idaho, I stopped at a historical sign on the side of the road discussing big horn sheep that mentioned that they are located in the area and if you are lucky, you might see them along side of the highway. 'Yeah, sure,' I thought. However, a few miles down the road alongside the road, sure enough I saw a few males and a bunch of ewes and possibly some offspring. I didn't get to see any massive headbutting, but it was still a pretty neat experience.
The climb up Lost Pass was pretty tough. Over 5 miles of climbing to an eventual elevation of 7014'. I climbed almost all of it out of the saddle in my little ring up front (30 tooth), and my 30 and 32 in the back. At the base of the climb it was in the low 50s and I was wearing a short sleeve shirt and no gloves or balaclava. In the hour it took me to get the top, it dropped to right below freezing so before the descent I bundled up with my gloves, heavy weight JL Rowing shirt, and rain pants and jacket. However, my hands were still freezing on the descent and I stopped several times to warm them up.
When I finally got to the base of the descent there was still a good one to two percent grade heading down so I figured I'd add some quick mileage to the end of the day and try to find a good spot to spend the night. As darkness was falling, I came across a church just past the small 'town' of North Fork, ID which, although closed, had a nice set back porch with an awning and a power outlet (but no wifi) so I set up here (again, avoiding the need to set up my tent).
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