RAA II

Day 9

Shelby to Brady, MT

100 miles / 3,500 feet of elevation

When we left just outside of Shelby this morning it was 42° along with a stiff breeze – we were freezing as we rolled out on day 9. We were however treated to a wide open “access road” next to the highway, with very few cars / trucks for the first 2.5 hours of our ride. We saw more Turkeys across the wheat fields and simply enjoyed the rolling landscape all around us.

After about 2.5 hours on the roads next to the highway, we had to go up onto the highway shoulder, but today we had a 4’ shoulder and concrete highway. This highway riding, even though the cars / trucks around us were going 70(+) mph, we felt like we were riding on a track! Our speed (with a slight tailwind) were between 22-24 mph! This pace assisted with a short, just less than 100 mile day and allowed us to undertake some late day bike maintenance.

Before ending our day though, we traveled along the Missouri River, through Great Falls and Belt, MT. In Great Falls we got on a fantastic bike trail for about 10(+) miles. This bike trail is great and if you find yourself in Great Falls with nothing to do, grab a bike and take a ride on their trail. While on the trail Bob and Joe spied a skate / bike park and had to try it out – this, while in the middle of a 100 mile ride!

After 20 or so miles we traversed through the town of Belt – this was a truly magical detour through a wonderful Americana small town and was well worth the 1,000 feet or so of elevation loss / gain to go through Belt.

Later in the day, after leaving Belt, we encountered multiple “hay trucks” on a highway with a small shoulder and guard rails – a tricky combination! After experiencing several “hay truck encounters” (see photo) we reassessed and called it a day on this stretch of highway.

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...

Day 2 Ross Dam Overlook to Okanogan Pre day-2 discussion; Bob email to Joe and I: “Surprise, our total elevation gain is over 8,000 feet, our estimated elevation gain was 1,600 feet off! 2,500 feet in 10 miles between miles 70-80. Super steep! Oh, and FYI, Wednesday is close to 9,000 elevation gain, not the 7,000 we had charted …” Joe’s response, “Good to know Bob.” 105 miles; over 8,000 feet of elevation gain! Tough, tough day in the saddle; this was one of the top 20 hardest centuries we have ridden and among the top 10 most beautiful. Stunning vistas, truly a magnificent highway (Hwy. 20; which closes for about 4-5 months a year due to 20(+) foot snowfalls! We encountered some smoke from long away forest fires and we saw tremendous damage from recent forest fires in the Okanogan National Forest. Very sad, this forest will not likely come back in our lifetime. We had beautiful, well-maintained roads, with lit...

Day 13 Wibaux, MT to Dickinson, ND 93.3 miles / three different venues / 4,300 feet of elevation and all at an afternoon temperature of 98° (yesterday’s start was 36° / todays finish was 98°! Today’s ride was an eclectic trip with three different venues beginning with Steve Miska’s childhood ranch area, then to Theodore Roosevelt National Park (Medora) and to complete, we rode on frontage roads going into Dickinson. All three venues delivered for one of the best rides in either RAA I or RAA II – a great day! We began riding in Wibaux, MT, where Steve spent his adolescence summers working on his family’s ranch. From Wibaux we rode across the Montana / North Dakota boarder to Beach, ND where Steve was born. Steve dropped us off, put a new “state sticker” on the van’s back window and then went to see his family’s ranch / farmland. (Some of the area we rode through early today is part of General Custer’s Trial before Little Big Horn.)...