Last night we had a lot of fun hearing about life in the mountains from Jay and Mary. Jay told his stories and shared pictures of the mountain tops at the beginning of the spring, when there are walls of snow 10, 15, 20 feet high. Mary described her experience biking downhill at 30mph when one of her spokes snapped and her life flashed before her eyes. We left their house well-rested and ready for today.
Today’s ride was 60 miles from Big Timber to Bozeman. A similar distance to yesterday’s ride, but for some reason today was a thousand times more enjoyable. The sky was a perfect, well, sky blue, with not a blemish of a cloud in sight. We rode the frontage road to start; even though it’s a mere 20 yards from the highway, the frontage road experience is wildly different from the interstate experience. With nary a car to distract us, and less ugly road clogging up our view, the frontage road proved to be a delightful beginning to the trip.
We circled the Crazy Mountains for 15 miles before being forced back onto the Interstate, then another detour back to the frontage road, then back to the Interstate, before exiting at Livingston. This would be just about our halfway stop, and we were really looking forward to some ice cream to fuel us for the mountain pass coming up.
About 2 miles out of town I heard a pop from my back wheel. Something wasn’t right. I pulled to a stop and checked to see one of my spokes splintered in the middle. Haven’t had a single issue with my bike, but of course the day after we hear a story about a broken spoke, what do you know? Maddie, the hitchhiking pro, stuck out her thumb and hailed a pickup truck. A sticker on the back of the truck read: “Ice Cream Dude”. We knew we were in good hands. Dwayne stopped for us and loaded our bikes into the back, then dropped us in front of Livingston’s bike repair shop.
Jordan, the dude working in the bike shop, was awesome. He fixed my bike real quick, and had a great attitude the whole time. He really made the whole experience a hundred times better, just a really good guy. He showed me a large piece of metal that was also stuck in my tire - looks like the broken spoke aided in avoiding a flat!
While we waited for the bike to be fixed we grabbed some ice cream from the do-it-all bar next door. It was a super-hip place (as was Livingston as a whole, actually). A converted garage, with indoor and outdoor seating, a breeze flowing through, the basketball games on huge flat screens at the bar. The ice cream was good, though our scoops were lacking. The woman scooping us continuously reminded us that she was really just a bartender, and didn’t usually work behind the counter. She’d certainly never scooped ice cream before.
Maddie was mildly worried about the rest of the ride. We’d been told many times that there was a massive mountain pass you had to take to get into Bozeman. As we pedaled up the frontage road out of Livingston we were waiting to see the enormous hill. That hill never came. All we had were a couple miles of a 3% climb, with some steeper sections sprinkled in, and then it was over. We had to return to the interstate for the last 12 miles, all downhill into Bozeman.
The scenery was absolutely beautiful as we passed through the mountains. Unfortunately we couldn’t spend much time enjoying the view, as the shoulder had shrunk, and gravely debris littered our path. For many chunks we had just 4 feet of space, with a barrier on our right and semis whizzing by on our left at 70mph. I felt like I was a tram-car tour guide at the zoo: “Please keep your hands and feet and panniers inside the shoulder at all times. If provoked, wild cars will knock you half way back to the east coast.” On our right we also passed a few yellow road signs with depictions of cars being crushed by falling rocks. Luckily we weren’t in cars though, so the rocks wouldn’t hit us. It was harrowing, but we made it through unscathed.
In Bozeman we arrived at our host, Cody’s place. We showered and changed, then walked around town and explored a bit. Main St, Bozeman is very cool. There were breweries and bars and coffee shops and ice cream shops and book stores and even a Lululemon. We settled on Revelry for dinner, an upscale casual restaurant. We sat at the marble bar in front of the TV with the Nets-Celtics game. Wine glasses hung above the bar, the sun lighting them up as it sank lower in the sky. We ordered a fantastic sausage cavatelli dish, along with a bacon-onion-arugula pizza. It was one of the fancier dinners of the trip - we deserve it after 51 days in the road!
Of course, no day is complete without the second and third ice cream stops of the day. First we visited Sweet Peaks, where I got strawberry rhubarb and honey cinnamon and Maddie got grizz tracks and espresso. Then we walked down the road to Genuine’s, where I ordered Mexican chocolate and sweet corn, and Maddie went with banana peanut butter and cinnamon. My take on the ice cream was that Sweet Peaks had better quality ice cream, but the flavors at Genuine’s were executed better.
To cap off the night we spent time hanging out with Cody, Connor, Cai, and Justine. Cody is our host, Connor also lives here, and Cai and Justine were late arrivals, CouchSurfers from Vancouver who just arrived in Bozeman. We stayed up late swapping stories from our travels and discussing where we’d be heading next. Cai and Justine are on a road trip across the US, ultimately looking to end up in Nashville to see their grandmother. What their path to Nashville might look like, even they have no idea. Cody has done two longer bike tours himself, and is planning a third for this fall. It’s really cool to be surrounded by others who share a similar wanderlust to us, and want to learn and see all that our world has to offer.
It feels really good to have made it to Bozeman - it feels like a checkpoint of sorts. by my estimation we are around 3/4 of the way to the coast. And now we are really looking forward to exploring Yellowstone the next two days! If you have any recommendations in regards to the park, do let us know.
-Charlie