Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome

Hey all,

We're writing you from Whitefish, MT only 101 miles from the border! Wait! What's that, how did we get here so fast?!? Well, that's an interesting story.

We cheated.

We left the nice folks in Lima and rode through a canyon on our way to a nice campspot by Morrison Lake. While in the canyon, Jamie was having a grand ole time looking around and somehow twisted her back too far and WHAM! Hurt back. No, she didn't fall but tweaked it good and proper. She finished the 38 mile ride in enourmous amounts of pain and it was obvious that she can not continue riding like this. I rode back a couple miles to the last ranch house and the rancher drove us back to the motel in Lima.

Jamie's back is tweaked pretty good and there is no way she can continue riding.

Our trip, as we knew it, just took a completely different turn.

The next day, the nice folks at the motel drove us 50 miles up the highway to Dillion, MT. In Dillion, Jamie saw a chiropractor and we rented a car.

That's right... A car.

With no other possible way to finish the trip, we elected to finish by driving. Well, with Jamie driving.

During all this, we got a call from Jon the Jackolope (a rider we originally met in New Mexico). Jon was in Lincoln, MT and getting over being sick. We figured it would be a great idea to salvage what we could out of this trip and drive to Lincoln to meet Jon, then Jamie would drive the car with all our stuff in it while Jon and I rode the trail without any load.

This seems to be the best compromise given our situation. We tried really hard to do this trip properly, overcame altitude sickness, bad water, near starvation, and food poisoning but a hurt back is a hurt back and we don't have enough time to allow her back to heal (two weeks of rest) and then continue so we are making the best of things. This isn't how I wanted to finish the trip and I miss having Jamie riding beside me (she was getting really strong on the bike and would sometimes ride ahead of me) but at least this way somebody will get to ride and finish.

Since we started cheating and having Jamie haul everything by car while we rode, Jon and I were able to fly through some mileage. We been averaging a consistent 12 mph average (6 mph up, 30+ down, and 18 mph on flats) every day over a bunch of serious passes. Jamie meets us for lunch somewhere and brings us water and we just keep going. We've also picked up a new friend, Steve, that works at Great Divide Bikes in Helena, MT. He's been riding with us for the past three days and we have seen some amazing stuff. We're in a section of Montana carved out by glaciers and it creates some steep and spectacular scenery. Riding without a load is an different exerpience as well. The bike now accelerates when you ask it and the granny gear is rarely used. We've been so fast that we missed our turn one day and ended up getting lost until we came out on a paved highway. After riding 30+ miles, we were only 14 miles from our starting point and late for lunch. Knowing that Jamie was waiting with food and a cool lake to swim in, we were well motivated to get there quickly by pavement. We averaged 20-23mph in a paceline on knobby tires all the way to lunch. Something that would be pretty respectable on skinny tired road bikes. It certainly shows how much stronger we are since we began.

The next day, Jon pulled his hamstring halfway through the ride and Steve and I finished by climbing the last pass. On the climb we saw smoke.

Lots of smoke.

Like forest on fire kind of smoke.

With no cell phone service to call it in, we tried to hurry over the pass to get back down to the next town with services 20 miles away. On the way, we passed some ATVs that were busy trying to get to a phone as well. We blazed the pass under a blazing sun (Montana is in the middle of a serious heat wave) and flew down the other side, hit pavement and cranked out some serious speed to the fire station only to see a helicopter with a bucket of water flying away. Apparently the ATVs got to a phone first and the fire dept. was already on it but we were able to help pinpoint the location better for them. Everything here is extremely dry and there is a huge fire danger. In fact, the views are obscured from smoke from forest fires in Idaho. We've been riding in a severe heat wave here and that makes riding without the load a lot better.

After the excitement of the forest fire, Jon called some people he knew and we ended up on a tubing trip down the cool swan river. Having a car certainly allows us to get into different adventures other than riding! Tubing in a cool river is very refreshing in a heat wave and Jon's friends treated us to that, dinner, a place to stay, and breakfast.

Jamie's back is starting to feel better now but we are not going to push anything. Tomorrow, we will drive over to Glacier National Park and check that out (once again, a nice benefit of a car). Then on Wednessday, I will try to play Great Divide Racer and ride the 101 miles from Whitefish to the border in one day over two big passes. Then we will return to Lincoln and I'll finish the other trail portions we skipped to meet Jon and complete our whole journey by the 25th. We've come so far and I feel really bad Jamie got hurt and couldn't finish but we're still having fun and carrying on the best we can. The adventure never stops out on the Great Divide.

Lee