Day 11 From Butte up and over Fleecer Ridge

August 29, 2024

The day started great at the Super 8 hotel with a continental breakfast. They had one of those fun waffle makers so we both polished off a couple of waffles with syrup and peanut butter and washed it down with a couple cups of coffee. We were impressed with the hotel. Not fancy but had everything we needed (laundry, breakfast, proximity to pizza joint).

Beautiful park with boulders and challenging climbing.

We were a bit slower to get going but still peddling by 7:45. The start of the route was through the urban wasteland and not impressive it things improved quickly when we ducked off of pavement onto a gravel road. It wasn’t far until we came upon a nice National Park with disc golf. Unfortunately, without discs or time we just noted what a great idea it was for the setting.

The trail turned into more singletrack style climbing through a fantastic park with larger impressive granite boulders. Peter commented that it felt a bit like Denver. I guess I’ll have a comparison when we get to Colorado. The park was really enjoyable riding and we quickly tacked up half our morning climb, somewhere around 450 m.

We have both been pushing electrolytes to prevent cramping. The flavour is nice as well.

The thing we are learning about the trail is that it’s like a giant roller coaster. You climb up and then you descend only to climb up again. It’s rare that you do all your climbing for the day and then descend to camp.

We descended and then had another beautiful climb up a peaceful gravel road. It’s so nice being alone on those roads. This morning once off the highway we maybe saw two water trucks and two pickup trucks.

Where’s Waldo?! Peter filling up water in a creek. We were a bit worried we wouldn’t see any water for a while.

While we were descending from the climb Peter heard a hissing sound from his tire. I thought initially that something was rubbing on his bike. He had a full fledge tire puncture. Today’s mountain bikes are mostly set up tubeless. This means that you don’t have a conventional tube inside the tire and instead you have sealant; sealant is a liquid glue like substance that you push into the tire through the valve stem. When you get a minor hole that would normally puncture a tube the sealant fills the hole and makes a gooey plug. It’s amazing technology.

This scene has happened too many times to count. Cows are everywhere and roam free.

Unfortunately, in this case the hole was too big for sealant so he grabbed tire plug material nicknamed bacon and jammed it in the hole. The sealant took care of the rest and he inflated the pressure back to normal. It was no issue for the rest of the day. Good on Peter for fixing it quickly. It isn’t always successful and sometimes you need to install a tube just to get going again.

We ate lunch at noon by a really huge boulder. It was a pretty area with a lot of grassland and smaller trees. Soon after lunch we descended back down to the highway which was essentially the same elevation as the hotel. Case in point. You go up and right back down.

Because some things just aren’t obvious.

The afternoon delivered another huge climb up to Fleecer Ridge. Again, another deserted gravel road where our only companions were the numerous cows grazing on hillsides or right alongside the road.

Fun fact. We’ve seen a zillion chipmunks. They only have 2 speeds. Curious and stopped or full speed ahead. They move with such speed and jerky motion that I find them quite entertaining.

The climb up was fairly gradual. We just shifted down and ground our way up until the very final bit that was dirt track through grassland with a good pitch. I rode 95% up and pushed the rest. Views at the top were spectacular and then it was time to go down again. Others warned us about the descent but I felt like with our mountain biking experience it would be fine. I was wrong. It got really steep and loose where the only smart choice was to walk down. That’s easier said than done with a 75 pound bike pushing you down the hill as well but we used the brakes and got down about 300 m of elevation (much further walking). It took a while. The rest of the descent was nice and that finished our climbing for the day at around 70 km.

Trying to get down Fleecer Ridge. Very steep and loose.

From there we biked into a really small place called Wise River. It was a very small town with a small convenience store where I had to buy food for 2 days as we have 200 km to do before the next store. The cashier said we could stay at the community hall across the street on cots. We thought about it but we had daylight and wanted to get more kilometres so we ate dinner using their industrial kitchen and headed back out at 6 pm.

Another oasis, a commercial kitchen in the community hall.

The Tour Divide is the race that happens every year. I can’t even imagine trying to race this challenging terrain.

We finally made camp at 7 and my legs are toast. Yesterday we made it to over 25% of the Great Divide so we are still on track to finish in 40-45 days, although lots can happen.

Highlights:

-breakfast at Super 8

-boulders in the park

-climbing up for the views on Fleecer Ridge

-taking care of the mechanical issue successfully

-preparing dinner in a nice kitchen and feeling welcomed

-another perfect weather day, cool to start but 20 C in the afternoon

105 km / 1840 m elevation gain

Today's ride: 105 km (65 miles)
Total: 1,233 km (766 miles)

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Rich FrasierGorgeous pictures! My brain and my 70 year old body are having an argument about trying this ride. You're definitely encouraging me to do something really stupid! :)
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2 months ago

Andrew RichardTo Rich FrasierIt’s challenging for sure but a 70 YO just finished it and a 78 YO.
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2 months ago