Day #60 (7/5/24) – Bike Across America

I woke up to my alarm at 4:00, thinking that I could start biking at 5:00. But, as I keep moving west, the sun rises a little later each day. At 5:00, it was too dark, so I had to wait until 5:15 to start.

It was cold again in the morning – only 47 degrees. So, I had on my warm weather gear again.

Again today, the winds were forecasted to be a headwind for me, and to pick up in the late morning with gusts over 20mph.

I have been slowly climbing up to Bozeman Pass since I left Billings (3,100 feet of elevation). Big Timber, where I started today is at 4,100 feet. Bozeman Pass is at 5,600 feet. I think that is why the wind has been especially punishing the last couple of days. I’ve been going uphill and into the wind.

Bozeman Pass was 55 miles into my ride, and I wanted to get over it as soon as I could.

I started the day biking on the frontage road. There was almost no traffic that early. After 15 miles, the frontage road turned into the hills and there was the dreaded sign.

I swear that I didn’t put those bullet holes in the sign, but they did make me laugh.

After that sign, the road alternated between gravel, dirt, and rocks as it climbed up into the hills. It was slow going, but I didn’t have to get off my bike to push. I was able to bike up, but used my lowest gear for some of the climbs. It wasn’t as bad as yesterday.

There were no houses on this road. Just grazing cows (and deer). The scenery was beautiful.

After five miles of climbing, I got to descend. Again, I had to pump my brakes to keep my speed down at a safe pace.

After descending the hill, I started to see some houses, so I knew that I was almost back to civilization. Here is a picture of the Smith River (named for the blacksmith in the Lewis & Clark expedition), which was at the bottom of the hill. My shadow decided to photobomb the shot.

I rolled into the town of Livingston at 8:30. I really wanted to stop at a restaurant in Livingston for a stack of blueberry pancakes, but decided to press on instead (because of the winds).

I was back on the frontage road for the next 12 miles. Then my Komoot app wanted me to turn north and head into the hills on a gravel road. Now, I could see the hills that I would have to climb, and they were very steep. I pulled out my cellphone to see if there was any alternative.

The reason why Komoot wanted me to bike into the hills was because the frontage road ended at the next exit, which happened to be just over Bozeman Pass. From there, there wasn’t a frontage road for a couple of exits.

So, I googled whether it was legal to ride your bike on the interstate in Montana. When I did it yesterday, there were no signs that said you couldn’t. No, “Only Motorized Vehicles” or minimum speed signs. And it turns out that it is legal to ride your bike on the interstate in both Montana and Wyoming. Now, I don’t think that it’s a good idea, because the speed limit on the interstate is 80 mph and the shoulder has lots of gravel and debris everywhere. But it’s legal.

I bet you can tell where I’m headed with this. I could either take a gravel road up into the hills for 20 miles, or ride 13 miles of asphalt (six of them on the interstate) with much less climbing. I chose to ride the asphalt. Since my six miles on the interstate were on the downhill side of Bozeman Pass, they were very fast – less than 20 minutes. Here is a picture from the top of Bozeman Pass.

I was in a restaurant in Bozeman eating lunch by 11:30. Bozeman is a very nice city and has an excellent downtown area. I really enjoyed looking around. it is the home of Montana State University and is only 90 miles from Yellowstone National Park.

At lunch, I decided that I would continue biking downhill to the town of Belgrade, and made a hotel reservation there. It was only 14 miles from where I was having lunch. And even though the wind had picked up, the downhill slope more than made up for the wind. And the temperature was a perfect 70 degrees.

I spent most of the afternoon re-planning my route through Montana to avoid gravel roads and big hills. I was able to eliminate over 100 miles of gravel and 4,000 feet of climbing. But I had to add eleven extra miles. A great trade off, in my opinion.

For the day, I biked 73 miles and climbed 2,900 feet. After today, I figure that I now have less than 1,000 miles to the Pacific Ocean. Tomorrow will be another early start to avoid the late morning winds.