Day 1: Catapult Launch

 A no nonsense day sets the tone for a no nonsense tour.

Both the tone of the organizers and the facts of the route instructs the tour rider that its going to be up to them to find the fun in this event. About 50% of today's distance was accompanied by aggravating circumstances that would justify a longer sentence from the most lenient of judges. The other 50% was great! And since we rode 125 miles, that great part might be rated as a real nice 63 mile ride, if it could only be taken in isolation.

Chief among the aggravations was the car and truck traffic that deafened us for the extended periods we rode on busy 2 and 4 lane highways. Usually we had a decent shoulder to stay clear, but it would sure be nice if there were more paved roads in this part of the country.  Just a reminder to my North Carolina riding friends of how good we've got it.

Of course its not natural to take pictures of the part that isn't so nice, but for the purposes of illustration I've got some. At first this road heading east was pretty good. But at some point during the 25 minutes we were on it someone must have rung the breakfast bell because we started getting passed continuously.

This is from the hardest part of the day when we climbed a 1-3% grade for an hour on this road's shoulder. This was accompanied by the second and third aggravating circumstances which were heat which was mid 90's without much in the way of a breeze, and the smoke from distant forest fires. Baked!

The last aggravation was rough road surface, some chip-seal, some wear and tear, and then there's the gravel on the shoulder that we need to ride through. I don't really notice this that much until I hit some smooth fresh pavement and my mood finds some buoyancy.

OK, enough whining... Now for the nice parts. It was around 50° when we set off before 7AM. The PacTour folks wisely got us fed and on the road as early as possible in order to take advantage of the cooler temperatures in the morning.

 

 

As can be seen from the route map,

 

the first challenge was getting to the east side of Flathead Lake. In fact from the start of the jog east at the top of the lake to the end of the jog west at the bottom of the lake was a third of the total distance traveled today and almost half of the climbing. You might think it would be flat since we were riding next to a lake, but the road doesn't work like that.
 

At the north end of the lake were a number of housing developments, a golf course etc ... pretty chichi.

 

 

 

Looking south - seems like a long way to go to get around that lake!

 

 

One couple is riding a tandem on this tour.

 

 

Well its still a long way to go, but we seem to have done a good bit of climbing to figure that out.

 

 

After we got around the lake we hit the best part of today's course. Which was 14 miles on a bike path, with a tailwind, much of it at a 1° downgrade. You really feel like you are traveling in those conditions!

 

 

Maybe somebody can explain to me why these railings shown below were installed on the bike path. There were several sections. They don't look cheap! 

 

 

After the path ended we got on some farm roads to ride through the lower Flathead River basin.

As we went south we could see more and more smoke in the air. I for one did not detect any odor however.

 

 

US 93 goes through the Flathead Indian Reservation which, like the Cherokee, provide bi-lingual signage (this one says "National Bison Range" in case you can't read it).

 

 

After I got in, washed, and dealt with the laundry I went to my massage session (one of the tour staff is a masseuse who schedules 1/2 hour sessions for $35). It really helps after two hard days. I'm pre-scheduled for a session every other day. After a good dinner with four fellow travelers, as we walked back to the hotel we found that Missoula had a street fair going on this evening. It had live music, crafts and the typical fair food vendors. Fascinating to see the mix of people in this vibrant college town. As I observed on a previous post, these northerners are bound and determined to take advantage of the last of the warm weather before those early Montana snows hit.

And here's a shot to match the first picture above at the end of a long day.