August 24, 2015
Day 54: Rest Day in Missoula; Visit to the Adventure Cycling Offices
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Climbing Today: 153 ft -- Total So Far; 127,865 ft
I awoke this morning to the rare pleasure of being able to enjoy a leisurely breakfast and relax in my hotel room. Harvey was enjoying lounging around as well.
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I worked on this journal, of course, to keep all you readers informed; I mean, who loves you if I don't? In the early afternoon I got dressed to ride and saddled Harvey up with all the gear (minus some food, and all the tanks were less than half full) so we could visit the Adventure Cycling Association (ACA) office. It was about 4 miles away, and involved cycling on Reserve and Broadway streets, which are probably the 2 busiest streets in Missoula. But they have bike lanes, and the travel was easy. When I arrived, the receptionist had me park Harvey in their locked courtyard along with several dozen bikes belonging to staffers. It's a pretty neat setup complete with picnic table, but mostly it's just for bike parking. Here's a partial view;
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And here's me and Harvey in the courtyard;
An ACA staffer took my photo with a polaroid and placed it on their bulletin board along with hundreds of others that had visited this year. It will remain for a year until room is needed for next year's visitors. Then I got a tour of the facility and saw the mapping department and the other departments. ACA is the largest non-profit bicycle advocacy group in the nation, with 48,000 members. Mostly what interested me were all the cool older bikes hanging on display on the walls. Here's a few;
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The last bike pictured above is one that was ridden by Ian Hibbell, perhaps the most famous adventure cyclist ever.
ACA gives free ice cream to visiting cyclists, and I had been craving my free ice cream for several hundred miles now, so I thoroughly enjoyed an ice cream sandwich. And since I'm an ACA member, they also gave me a bandana! I had thought about buying a bandana earlier to wear for smoke protection, and now I didn't have to buy one - the timing was good indeed.
Last, but not least, ACA offers to weigh the bikes of touring cyclists; that's why I had loaded Harvey up before leaving the hotel. We rigged things so he could be suspended from a spring scale, and he weighed in at 102 pounds. But that was without full tanks, or the food that I had left back at the hotel, so a good estimate is that he normally weighs at least 105 pounds and sometimes maybe a bit more. Toss in my weight with cycle clothes and helmet, and I'm propelling about 320 - 330 pounds along. So that's why the hills sometimes seem difficult; now I know!
I thanked the ACA staff and headed back to the hotel and begin preparing for tomorrow. Based on the advice of others and trying to benefit from their experience, I now carry more water than usual. It's good advice for the oftentimes long distances that must be traversed between services in the northwest. So now I carry the main tanks (3 X 24 ounce water bottles = 72 ounces),auxiliary tanks (32 ounce Gatorade bottle on the rear rack and a 16 ounce orange juice bottle in the handlebar bag = 48 ounces), and emergency reserve tanks (16 ounce orange juice bottle in each rear pannier = 32 ounces). So that's 152 ounces of fluid. I have consumed all the main tanks and auxiliary tanks before reaching a resupply point on very hot days, but never had to get into the emergency reserves. So that's how I roll these days.
Tomorrow is a new adventure, good night all...
Today's ride: 8 miles (13 km)
Total: 3,232 miles (5,201 km)
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