Skip to main content

 

Day 6

             Libby, MT to Whitefish, MT

 

50 miles / 3,700 feet of elevation / shortened day due to mechanicals and necessary bike shop stop

 

Today’s shortened route took us up and over a beautiful mountain course bounded by a lake to our left (for the entire day!) and a mountain wall to our right.  We traversed over gently rolling and sometimes fairly steep hills with long rollouts afterwards.  We had fantastic road conditions and very few, perhaps 12, cars / trucks passed us during this entire day’s ride.  Near perfect day in the saddle with beautiful scenery all around us.



From time to time the tranquility of today’s ride, in sharp contrast to yesterday’s “white knuckler,” was integrated by one of us pointing off the road to deer and wild turkeys.  Some of both allowed us to get quite close before they bounded or flocked away from us. 

 

Later in the day we visited a local bike shop in Whitefish, MT, Great Northern Cycle & Ski, where we were treated with great service and smiles all around.  Great Northern service center fixed Joe’s derailer issues, tuned my cassette shifting and gave Bob’s bike a thorough onceover. 

 

We dropped our bikes off at 1:00 p.m. and went for lunch at Piggyback BBQ.  When you find yourself in Whitefish, a delightful, vibrant town with a strong tourist market, and if you are a barbeque fan, you must go to Piggyback BBQ.  We each had different barbeque plates and all were excellent.  Today’s late lunch was too much and too good, so we decided to skip dinner!

All in all, a near perfect riding day on day 6.


Popular posts from this blog

Day 8   East Glacier to Shelby, MT   85 miles / 2,800 feet of elevation   Montana is the “new Texas” from RAA I, we are in Montana for 5-6 days out of 18.   Growing up in Alaska, my “lower 48” geography is a bit off, I truly had no idea Montana was this large of a state!   However, happy to be in Montana; the roads and shoulders are good, the drivers courteous and share the road willingly.   We have had some trouble with hotel accommodations as the state is not well populated and some towns don’t have hotels for us, so we end up shuttling at the end of the day and beginning of our days.   This shuttling is a very slight inconvenience for the beautiful surroundings we are cycling in. We enjoyed wide open roads with good cycling all day long.  Montana’s “Big Sky” was a treat throughout the day. Again, we tried to show you this aspect of Montana in some of our photos but our photos just don’t seem to do the real thing justice – at times w...
Read more
  Day 10   Stanford to Lewistown, MT 95 miles (completed only 30 after “serious mechanical”) / wind – 25 mph gusts; side and tail winds   Today’s ride was jinxed from the start.   First we had a “game day reroute” due to sun issues (directly in the driver’s eyes) and no shoulder.   We rerouted and drove about 30 minutes away to a less traveled highway.   We knew we would have high cross and tail winds (but clear skies!) but the new highway registered far fewer cars and trucks so we were game. At about 1,000 feet into day 10, while I was changing into lower gears, my derailleur jumped the track and got caught in my rear spokes and disintegrated.   Joe was right behind me and yelled out, “Your derailleur just exploded and shredded your frame.”   Thankfully the bike’s frame was not shredded but the derailleur had ripped completely off the frame!     Not too undaunted, we stopped and I switched to the “back-up bike,” my 10 year...
Read more