Susan and Brice's Bike Blog

(Susan)

About to get blessed with two more straight days of tailwinds after the two we had yesterday and the day before, we’ve decided to push on hard ahead to get some serious miles while we can. So itinerary change: tomorrow we’re going to try for Hinsdale and the following day for Harlem, because the forecast is for several days of strong headwinds after that. We might putter into Havre then and stay put for a day, depending.

Tonight we’re in Wolf Point, which is located in the vast Fort Peck Indian Reservation. Wolf Point’s economy seems to be two-fold: casinos and catering to the oil industry that’s centered in Williston, ND. Although Williston’s a hundred miles away, we still got the last hotel room at the place we’re staying tonight because it’s all full up with people staying here and commuting into the oil fields. Ever since Bismarck, we’ve been skirting the edge of the vast ripple effect of that development up there and it’s been really interesting seeing the effects and talking to people about it. Will write a post on this later.

Today was a pretty uneventful ride. There was basically nothing between Circle and Wolf Point other than fields. We ran across a pair of strikingly yellow fields with a crop we’d never seen before. It was quite stunning. Does anyone know what this stuff is?

Our friend Sean is making his annual summer drive from Minneapolis to Leavenworth to get a couple of weeks of bouldering in and so we were able to have him over to our littler spot of grass at the glendive RV park for dinner last night. We served one of our classics: pasta, white cheddar cheese sauce (from powder), tuna, and an entire bag of spinach mixed together. Only the best when dining with the Keowns.

Today we had an uneventful ride up to Circle. The light was pretty flat and not great for photography, but here’s yet another landscape anyway:

Susan forgot to mention in the last post that we were raced by some horses yesterday. We were biking past a herd of 15 or so horses grazing when one spotted us and started running alongside the fence; soon the rest joined in. For probably a minute they were next to us, pacing us easily, and then they lost interest and peeled off to do whatever horses do.

We’re off to sleep to the gentle sound of the sheet metal hanging off the abandoned building across the street blowing in the wind.

(Susan here)

First, an updated itinerary:
Tonight, Glendive, MT, followed by:
Circle
Wolf Point
Glasgow
Malta
Chinook or maybe Zurich if we’re wimpy
Hingham
Shelby
etc
We estimate that it might take us almost two weeks to get across Montana, including rest days.

It’s a little frustrating because the towns are so sparse in eastern Montana that we either have to go a short 45 or 50 miles to a town with somewhere to stay or an epic 90 or 100. Not being particularly epic people, we’re opting for slightly shorter days. Tomorrow, however, we are getting a 30 mph tailwind, a situation so once in a lifetime that it seems rather a shame to waste it on a 49-miler to Circle, which we should finish up in just a few hours. However, tomorrow it’s also supposed to get up to 95 degrees F. So we might just count our blessings that we don’t have to be out in that inferno for as long as we might otherwise.

The temperature has been steadily climbing ever since we reached the badlands. After tomorrow it’s supposed to drop again, thankfully. It’s hard to believe that just a few days ago we were worried about hypothermia. Today, biking along the interstate from Medora, we sought out the one bit of shade we could find for lunch, a thornbush along the edge of the right-of-way, growing up against a barbed wire fence. We crawled underneath the bush to eat our peanut butter and cheese sandwiches, not able to move much because we’d either get scratched or expose a limb to the sun. Funny to think that we’ll be in snow at the other end of this state.

We woke this morning after a night of heavy thunderstorms dry and ready for a day of sightseeing. Some of our car camping neighbors who had big family tents were wet and ready for a day of driving home.

After breakfast we biked (with just lunch/water – not full gear) into the South section of Roosevelt Nat’l Park. The road took us up and down canyons, past hundreds of anxious prairie dogs, and near some Bison. These guys were in the road; we stopped and waited a good distance away from them until a car came and got them to move along. I took this picture on the move since they were still fairly close:

We parked the bikes and switched shoes for a little hike a park ranger had recommended. The trail forded a river and then climbed steeply to another wide plateau (this one without freeways or other roads) and more bison:

The bison did prevent us from attempting a fairly ambitious hike to a petrified forest. It would have been cool to see but not worth getting trampled. Instead we consoled ourselves with views of the industrious dung beetle:

and more pretty rivers:

Our route was blocked by another bison in the road on the way out; a friendly park ranger offered to drive slowly between us and the bison which worked great but didn’t afford much of a photo op. We may not be living up to our safety third motto.

I’m feeling over my mild cold and Susan is rested up as well so we will be back on the road tomorrow to Glendive and a whole new state!

We’ve been hearing about Medora and the Theodore Roosevelt National Park for a while now but didn’t really know what the deal was with them. Biking west from Dickinson today was the same pretty but somewhat monotonous rolling pastureland, until we creaked up one particular rise and BOOM!! this happened:

Whoa. So this explains what the deal is.

Biking along interstate 94, we discovered another animal that is terrified of bikes: prairie dogs. We passed a big prairie dog town alongside the highway, and they all stood up at the openings of their burrows and “chip!” “chip!”ped in warning to their neighbors until we passed.

We’ll be in Medora, a tourist-focused genuine-turned-faux Old West town for two nights. Our campsite backs up to the Little Missouri River:

Tomorrow will have some nasty headwinds, so it’s a good opportunity to explore the national park. The park has over 500 bison that live here (sadly with no Tevatron to play with) in addition to prairie dogs and the great scenery. A little history: Teddy Roosevelt first came here as a 24-year-old to shoot his first bison and was so wowed by the experience that he decided to become President and found the National Park Service. Something like that.

In other news, we met our first ACA eastbound cyclists today, in the bike shop in Medora. These guys are ahead of schedule a couple days because they hitched a ride into town when their bikes broke down, but there should be many more where they came from in the few weeks ahead. (Because the passes just opened over the Rockies, it’s impossible for anyone to have left the West Coast more than a few weeks ago.) We warned them about Gackle and bid them a good journey.

(brice writing)
We woke this morning to beautiful skies and a brisk wind out of the northwest. After a delicious and filling breakfast at the Glen Ullin gas station (seriously) we rode off through more rolling prairie that changed back to farmland as the day went on. Steam threshers continue to be a part of the scenery; evidently arranging them artfully is something of a north dakotan art form. We found these guys high fiving:

Between the wind and a cold I’ve been fighting off the day felt harder than it actually was. I was asleep well before sundown last night and it looks like that trend will continue. Susan is feeling a bit worn down too so we’re going to take a short day tomorrow to Medora, which is right next to (or maybe actually inside?) teddy roosevelt national park. We’ll take Sunday off to explore the grasslands (and avoid the forecast westerly winds) and see if that gets us feeling like 60 miles isn’t too hard again.

Here’s one more fluffy-clouded landscape just for fun:

(Susan here)

Our rest day in Napoleon was uneventful–it felt good to do nothing at all, especially with a wind blowing in the wrong direction outside. We did meet some real nice locals, though, as always, among the early morning breakfast crowd at the restaurant in town. The morning we left, they very sweetly sent us with a couple gifts for the journey, including some homemade donuts. Someone even chased after us in his pickup truck in order to catch up with us and give us a little something.

Now that I’m rethinking that episode, I’m reminded of that scene in every fantasy story ever, where the wise old woman of the forest gives the heroes three gifts for their journey before they set off into the dark realms. The dismal weather and the long distance we had to cover that day did make it kind of epic, and not in a fun way. We covered about 75 miles to Bismarck in a steady drizzle that never exceeded 50 degrees. Given that I’d somehow left my favorite green fleece in Enderlin, I was wearing one of Brice’s warm layers, so both of us were slightly underdressed. We had to keep moving and not dawdle to stay reasonably warm. Hence no pictures from that day. We did see our first buttes, though, south of Bismarck along the Missouri. Kind of exciting–actually in the west now for real.

In Bismarck, we got me a new warm layer at the Farm and Fleet and stayed with Cathie, the mom of our friend Timothy in the Twin Cities. Cathie fed us a variety of German-North Dakotan delights that we’d never had or heard of before including fleischkuechle, knoephla soup, and a custard-like peach kuchen.

Today the sky was gorgeous and blue, the winds were ok, and the scenery breathtaking. We also enjoyed the novelty of biking on the interstate for a while. Camping in Glen Ullin tonight. Brice says that North Dakota is his favorite state so far for overall scenery:

(Crossing the Missouri west of Bismarck)

(brice again)
So we had a brilliant plan to wake up at 5 this morning so that we could get a couple of hours of biking in before the wind picked up too much. We woke up just fine, but the rainstorm overhead successfully encouraged us to stay inside the tent awhile longer. 3 hours later rain was still falling so we figured we’d better make a run for it while we’d still have enough of the day left to get somewhere else. The rain finally ended around the time we got out on the road, where there were ~20mph headwinds.

Those of you who haven’t spent hours biking into a headwind might think that it’s disliked by cyclists because of the impact on speed. And that’s definitely a large part of it; it took us over 5 hours to go 38 miles today, close to half our normal speed; we spent more than the normal amount of effort to make it even that far that fast. But it’s also much harder to control the bike, and all the highways here have wake-up strips along the shoulders, so moving half a foot sideways can be a jolting experience. It’s also extremely and continuously loud – we had to shout to hear each other even when riding nose to tail.

But on the other hand, we got to ride through awesome scenery under a dramatic sky, and 5 hours of 20-30mph wind really makes one appreciate the power of nature. We got to see some more post flood road signs:

After coming over a rise, we saw a strange mechanical/pachydermic procession on the horizon:

Which turned out to be your standard roadside threshing machine collection:

In addition to dogs, we’ve learned that cows also view bicycles as threats. We passed herds multiple times today that either took off running away from us or else herded their young into the middle of the pack and then mooed at us angrily. So maybe the wind is feeling threatened too.

After the long hard ride today we are taking tomorrow off (more headwinds are forecast for tomorrow; wednesday should be calm). Napoleon features multiple restaurants (all of which will be open tomorrow, one was even open tonight) and working bathrooms, so we’re looking forward to a relaxing day sleeping in, tinkering with the bikes a bit, and packing more calories in. Susan might get a haircut – stay tuned.

(brice writing)

Today started out with a beautiful ~15mph tailwind. We covered 46 miles in about 2:50, making almost 16 miles an hour, so we stopped for lunch along the James river:

…and that’s when the wind stopped, followed by 15 minutes of spitting rain, followed by the wind remembering that it left its jacket at home and abruptly turning around. So it took us 3:15 to make the remaining 28 miles, down around 8mph and getting slower by the minute.

The cycling was broken up by some interesting geography; this area of ND had some serious floods in 2009 that evidently completely changed the landscape, creating lakes where there had been none before:

I was enthusiastic about biking in the wind:

and there were some more very straight roads:

Finally, we arrived in Gackle, where were planning on camping at the local RV park. I started this trip extremely skeptical of the merits of RV park camping, but the previous two places we stayed had really nice areas for tent camping, clean showers, and a comfortable atmosphere. Because high winds out of the west are forecast for tomorrow, we were really hoping for a similar experience from Gackle so we could take a rest day tomorrow. As it turns out, the tire sign out by the highway is about the best thing going here:

The Gackle RV park is 5 gravel pads next to hookups with a bit of grass, where we’re now camped. The shower is broken, as is the toilet; fortunately the land backs up to some fields with no neighbors. Also, both the cafe and the bar in town are closed through Memorial day, which is understandable… but if we did take a rest day here, we’d be hanging out either in our tent or at a picnic table in what is basically a gravel parking lot. We really didn’t feel like biking 60 miles to Hazelton against the wind though. So we’re settling for Napoleon, which is a bit over 36 miles away. We’ll take a rest day there on Tuesday, when we should at least be able to hang out at a cafe, and then have about 70 miles to go to Bismarck.

The wind is supposed to be a bit weaker early tomorrow, so we’re planning on getting up at 530ish and hitting the road by 7. Wish us luck.