Today was a day of highs and lows. I've been doing a lot of thinking. It's day 10, and now the mental game is getting tough. Mornings are especially hard. I miss the people back home something fierce, and all the fun things I know they are doing. I especially miss Andrea, of course.
I'm also realizing that I never really intended to ride the divide alone. It's just that no-one else was able to ride it with me, so I took what I could get. The clock ticks on a ride this difficult, so I'm out here now rather than in an unknown number of year. But, I'd much prefer to be out here with my buddy. I don't think I'll do any more solo tours after this that are longer than a week or two. Doing it with friends is so much more fun, I'd even do this one again with a buddy.
If you recall yesterday went pretty good, but the day before that, the ride into Butte, was a death march. On paper, today should have been easy. 50 paved miles (yes, paved, this part went through a crazy beautiful Montana scenic byway and there was no other way though).
But it wasn't easy. It was killer. It didn't help that it was my third day of headwinds, and today they were strong. It also included a 2,000 foot, 23 mile grind of a climb right away, and it was cold. I really wasn't having a good time. I'm annoyed that at elevation the air is harder to breath, but no-less as strong as a headwind.
But eventually it was a downhill, and the wind shifted (thank goodness), and it warmed up, and I got to Bannack (a ghost town!) at 3pm with only 4 hours on bike for 50 miles. So, despite feeling dead, with dead legs, I had a more standard touring experience.
So that got me thinking about why this is so hard - one, it's not on pavement. On pavement I can pump my tires up to a whopping 40 PSI and it becomes just a normal bike tour. Off pavement I have to ride sooo much more. 6-7 hours on bike, and getting into town after 6 or 7 pm often. That's just not that fun. It's also something like double the damn climbing of most tours.
Also, I like riding from town to town. I've realized that I like to explore towns and the people in them. Going from campsite to campsite doesn't have the same charm, even if the terrain is beautiful. After awhile all that looks the same, and I crave novelty. Humans provide novelty more than anything else does.
However, this does have it's benefits. I really enjoy not having cars around, and the riding is pretty fun. I'm just going to do my best to be done by 3 or 4pm every day, which might mean adjusting my mileages. That will be difficult if I want to catch RAGBRAI, however.
Today is a good example of why I like being done early. I'm camped at Bannack, a gold mine ghost town. It used to be the capitol of Montana Territory back in the 1800s, but was pretty much abandoned by WW2. Most of the buildings date back to the 1800s.
You can walk all around it, and into buildings, and some buildings have been restored. I spotted a piano and played for a good long while, that felt very good. All in all I hung out there for about 3 hours. It was a great afternoon. After an afternoon of screwing off, I wandered back to camp at the same time that I had been finishing on other days. Ridiculous.
I also think that maybe I need a rest day. This trip is, significantly, harder physically that any of my other tours. Tomorrow I'm scheduled for 80 miles and a big pass into Lima, with a likely strong sidewind through dry country. There is a campground about halfway at a lake I may stop at instead, I guess we'll see tomorrow. I have a few leeway days in my schedule, and just enough food for an extra day (if I'm careful- there are no resupplies our here.)
For now though, I'm going to bed at a decent time! That should help.
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