Eureka - Whitefish, MT: Back to the busy highway riding. Bleh. - Near Paradise after 30 years of marriage

July 21, 2016

Eureka - Whitefish, MT: Back to the busy highway riding. Bleh.

We should have appreciated Canada more. What's a little rain when you get wonderfully wide shoulders to ride? Yesterday, the instant we crossed into the USA at Roosville, the 3-4' shoulder disappeared, replaced with perhaps 6". It was a wake up call.

Back to this morning. Jim and Oren went to Subway for breakfast at 7:30. I had oatmeal in the room. Jacinto ate leftovers for breakfast. He did declare the pasta salad from several days ago as past it's prime. The muffin left over from Canmore was still good. I think that takes him down to last night's leftovers - chicken, beef, and pork from the BBQ restaurant. That's rather 'foody' food for breakfast, IMO. Oatmeal and milk is good. I get more calories on the road drinking Spiz meal replacement. 500 calories a bottle. For those who are interested (no one but me) - I had three baggies of Spiz to start and had used the last scoop when Jim brought me five baggies full in Barriere. I've been carefully watching my inventory. We have three riding days left and I have one full baggie of Spiz. There will be a little left over. Whew.

We were all ready to leave about the same time, 8:30ish. Oren took 93 the entire ride. The rest of us took the only diversion road available, Tobacco Road. This day is mostly a repeat for us, but we will be seeing things going a different direction. I distinctly remember the smile inducing downhill into Eureka from Tobacco Road. It is now going to be grimace inducing. What a way to start the day. Ah, well. Our legs are used to climbing.

It seemed like just another day riding on the backroad. We've had a number of back roads and low traffic roads over the past few weeks with very little riding on busy roads. That was about to change.

At mile 9.90 we were back on 93. Jacinto had mentioned the new pavement and I was drawing a complete blank. Ah, yes. New pavement by the Farm to Market Road we had taken on our way north. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for us now as it goes down to Kalispell rather than our destination of Whitefish.

Traffic zoomed past us. This is not the Icefields Parkway with 50 km an hour speed limits. At least we had a good shoulder, not a Canada size shoulder, but a good shoulder. The day was warming up, the skies were blue. The headwind was blowing. Yes, typical of our past few days.

Jacinto was behind me, but not too far. We ticked the miles off. I stopped only twice for pee stops. I couldn't believe it. I was a pedaling machine. I spent so much time riding without stopping that I got a bit of hot foot. That isn't usually a problem for me.

At mile 40 I stopped for food. Jacinto pulled in. I asked to sample his selection of leftover meats. Yum - a roadside picnic. I ignored the thoughts in the back of my mind of our dinner conversation last night about meat gone bad. This meat had been refrigerated until four hours ago. That is pretty fresh, right?

I had hardly pulled out to finish our last few miles when the rear of the bike seemed squirrely. You know that feeling. Darn. I pretended all was well. No. It wasn't. I stopped and squeezed the back tire. Yep. Definitely soft. At this point we had seven miles to go. Jacinto said to just pump it up and get to town. That sounded fine.

I stopped a couple of times to check if it were holding air. Yes. Still firm.

I had the tire on my mind. I was appreciating the fresh pavement. How did I get a flat on fresh pavement? As we got closer to Whitefish we hit a big climb, the shoulder completely disappeared. The new pavement went only to the white line and sometimes not even that far. Traffic seemed to suddenly increase. There was no wiggle room at all. Luckily everyone held their line well, but several vehicles were far too close. Do they have a three foot law in Montana? No one on this road qualified.

I wished the climbing would quit so we could hurry and get off of 93. I know now why so many CGers dislike riding into Whitefish. I thought Kalispell was busy. Ha. We had a good experience there in comparison. I kept watching my computer. We didn't seem to be entering Whitefish proper, but the mileage was definitely ticking down. Finally, we entered town proper. I thought we were squashed before! This is using my elbows to polish cars as they drive past. There was no getting off of 93 as our lodging was right on 93.

End of story is that we made it fine. Oren was looking out the motel door for us. His experience getting into town wasn't any better than ours. Now he is interested in the back roads exit tomorrow rather than the direct route. Good call, Oren.

We saw many cyclists all over town. We rode past Glacier Cyclery, whose name I recognized from Adventure Cycling ads. This might be a good mountain biking area, but I give it negative stars for road riding. You would think the highway department would have taken into account the many bicycle tourists who ride this area when repaving Highway 93. Not even paving to the white line and leaving a big lip to grab tires? For shame.

We did not have any Mexican food the entire time in Canada. Jacinto has a Mexican restaurant scouted out for dinner tonight. It is our last meal with Jim and Genny. From here we merge back to our original route of Swan Lake, Seeley Lake, and finally in to Missoula.

The good thing about having a flat tire (a little piece of glass) is that it gave me a chance to pull the Schwalbe Marathon Racer off and see how the tread looks. That's hard to do with fenders. I put the tire on new in May, but did some training with it and also the Taos Tour. Now the tire has ~2,500 miles on it and the tread still looks excellent. I had wondered if it might be getting thin, being the rear tire on a recumbent. Jacinto assures me that I won't get as many miles from the Marathon Racer as he's going to get out of his Marathon Plus'. I agree with that statement.

We went to a Mexican restaurant Jacinto found close to the motel. The food was average, but it did have rice and beans and tortillas. It was very loud and busy.

The three remaining riders agreed to join Jim and Genny at The Buffalo for breakfast in the morning. They have eaten there before and want to return.

Jim gave me a back road route to get to Swan Lake. I hope that Bertha is talking to me now the phone is happy about being back in the USA. Bertha did talk to me today. Once we got off Tobacco Road (where Bertha was on the job, telling me to curve left and turn right), Bertha had one last instruction, "Go straight for 43 miles". That was the last I heard from Bertha all day. Oren doesn't like back road routes. However, I believe the finish of today was so unpleasant that Oren decided to join us tomorrow. I gave him a shoulder bump and said I would be so happy to have a pee buddy. That is the ultimate compliment, isn't it? To be happy someone will stop and pee with you?

we are back in the land of old pick up trucks. I see quite a few going down the road. This one might be permanently parked. I learned to drive on a 1974 Ford. My mother still has it. Old Fords are close to my heart.

Jacinto catches up to me on our only diversion road today. Tobacco Road, right out of Eureka.

I had to cross the road to take a photo of this sign. I thought it said Bare Bear - perhaps it was a naturist resort. Nope. Not quite that interesting. Since I had crossed the road, I took the photo anyway.

My RANS Stratus XP in Aluminum has been an excellent touring machine. This year I have custom wheels from Sugar Works - Phil Wood hubs and Marathon Racer tires. I had a flat tire today. My first in ~2,500 miles on these wheels/tires. The dry bags with backing plates have worked out very well. It is a very sturdy, lightweight system. Capacity with the 20L bags is more than enough for a credit card tour. I believe there is an added advantage when riding in the rain with the backing plate helping to keep the spray down.

Today's ride: 54 miles (87 km)
Total: 1,545 miles (2,486 km)

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