Ovando to Cabin Heaven

I'm six days into this tour, and strangely I sort of feels like I'm picking back up from where I left off back in 2014. Solo tours feel different.  This one is significantly harder riding though. Holy balls.  Also, I'm writing this from a sweet cabin, check it out...

There is a lot to say, so I'll try to be brief.

I slept terribly last night. I didn't go to bed until 1pm for some dumb reason, mostly due to mucking around with this blog. I also made a terrible mistake.  The tipi had cots in it. I'd never slept in a cot, I didn't know that unless you put a sleeping pad on it, you will freeze. I froze. Down sleeping bags won't insulate under you, and cots are cold! Lesson learned.

I had a good breakfast with Keith and Henning in a breakfast place in Ovando. Henning gave me all sorts of sweet elevation maps of the ride. I got out of camp late - 9:50, and it was already getting hot.

The first 12 miles or so were flat through pastoral Montana. I'm definitely in a different biome and out of the northern wilderness. What I just rode through is a combined wilderness area bigger than Yellowstone!

I them had a 6 miles or so climb that went well, followed be a fast downhill. I made it Lincoln, Mt around 1:30pm, 38 miles into the ride. There were other ups and downs too. It's never flat here.

Lincoln loves bike tourists! It's a small but right away there is a bar with signs welcoming us, a burger called the Wheel Burger, and a tent stocked with bike supplies, a work stand, tools, and home made cookies. One of the people who lives in the town's son did the race once, and now they take care of all of us!

After a burger and a beer I headed out about 1.5 hours later for another huge climb. This one was definitely the toughest of the trip so far. It was only about 5 miles, but it was straight up. Incredibly steep. And hot. It's hot now.

Eventually I made it and it was my first crossing of the continental divide! Yay, I'm in the east now! Then there was a screaming downhill that was so fast and steep that my brakes started overheating and smoking. I could smell them.  That slowed me down a bit, because I had to stop every minute or two to cool of my brakes.

During one of the stops I scared the crap out of a black bear and it ran away. I had my bells on to warn bears, and that combined with my gravel skid stop must have been suprising. I clapped and sang songs for a bit before moving on to where the bear had been.

Now here is the the best part of the day, which is saying a lot because the riding was amazing! In Ovando I saw an advertisement for a free cabin for cyclists 22 miles outside of Lincoln, which is about where I was hoping to camp. I saw a sign later in Lincoln. Then, on the top of the insane climb, was a another sign pained on a stump saying 7 miles downhill to the cabin and a bunch of water. Then, I found it!

It's not just one cabin, but two, and a tent. I caught up with three south bound riders who have the big cabin, I have my own small cabin, and two north bound riders also came in who are staying in a tent. It's amazing! The hosts are so cool and these places are posh. We're also in the middle of nowhere, so this is a pretty special slice of heaven. There are solar showers, lots of stocked food, cool art, Llamas, etc. These people are inspirational. I hope I can be as good a host to cyclists one day.

So yea, cabin. Maybe I'll get some sleep :)