The Hajj

SUN 7/25 -- Darby to Missoula (75)
and
MON 7/26 -- [rest day in Missoula]
The route for our pilgrimage to the holy city of Missoula, home of Adventure Cycling, continued to be downhill, but was otherwise mostly unexceptional. We spent quite a bit of time on bike trails -- for 3 or 4 miles coming into Hamilton, and then, 20 miles later, for about 15 miles between Stevensville(*) and Lolo. The paths provided a nice break from having to worry about traffic, but it wasn't like there was anything to particularly recommend them otherwise -- they were right next to the road.

I rode with Hugh who -- HOLD PAGE 1! -- had a flat about an hour into the ride, a classic flat of the audible "pop!/ssssss" variety. I don't have an exact tally, but Hugh must be pushing double figures, flat-wise, and looks to me like a sure bet to win the coveted most flats crown. Dennis is probably in second place, and he made a strong "Don't count me out yet" statement with 3 flats on the day we came out of W Yellowstone. But that didn't exceed Hugh's best one-day performance, it only matched it. And now Hugh has shown what kind of stuff he's made of by pounding out another one in quick response to Dennis's challenge. Sure, Dennis put on a flashy one-day show, but it's Hugh's consistent, day-in-day-out approach to tire trouble that's going to have him on the top of the medal stand, wearing the gold, when we hit the Pacific.

The flat was probably related to the very worn tire Hugh was riding. "Very worn" as in: when you held it up to the light you could see light through it. He diddled around for a while trying to effect a complicated, temporary repair strategy that I thought was ridiculous and doomed to failure (I favored a simple slab or two of duct tape on the inside of the tire, enough to limp into camp with), but despite that opinion I hung in there with him and offered encouragement on the order of: "That's never going to work, Hugh," and "Give it up, man," because that's what good friends are for.

[sorry--something's gone screwy here with the margins and I'm powerless to fix it]

Little did I know that Hugh had a grander vision, a bigger plan, which was to dawdle long enough for Clive and his magic pannier to show up. Of course Clive carried a spare tire with him, which he not only loaned to the cause but helped put on. I am convinced that if you were out on the road and for some reason needed a full-grown llama, Clive would have one stored on his bike somewhere, probably in his pannier bag.

One positive effect of the delay was that it gave us a chance to ride with a bunch of other folks at the back of the peleton -- Lucille and Robin, Dawn and John, Phil (always the last one out of camp, by hours, sometimes), and Michael, riding sweep. And ride in -- not a pace line, because that's not allowed on Adventure Cycling tours -- close linear formation, let's just call it, for several miles, both along one very straight, uncrowded section of road, and again along the 2nd, longer bike path. When that sort of riding works, and when the conditions are right, it's a major hoot -- the person in front has to work hard (although on the flat and/or with the wind it's no big deal), but everyone else in the pa... the close linear formation gets to draft off the person ahead if them, which leads to a cool, snake-like procession across the landscape and major and extended zippiness. Fun!

And speaking of fun, the final 12-13 miles into Missoula definitely wasn't -- it was along a heavily-trafficked [sp?] highway with a pretty rough shoulder. Not horrendous, just long and loud and generally umpleasant. Unfortunately, that's the way back out of town on Tuesday -- we backtrack that distance to Lolo to pick up the road that takes us west, into Idaho. In addition, I have a hunch that, since it was sharply downhill going into Missoula, it just might be uphill heading out. Time will tell...

The rest day was unexciting -- my favorite kind of rest day. We visited the Adventure Cycling headquarters, saw some memorabilia from the original Bikecentennial trek, had an official group photo taken, and were treated to a very nice burgers-n-dogs cook-out with the staff. I bought a cool Trans-Am t-shirt. Other activities: sleep in, blog a while, patch a couple of busted tubes, oil the chain [I never got to it the other night when we talked, hon], read, calculate miles ridden (3,254) and remaining (837), engage in fruitless search for more sunscreen, dinner at a Thai restaurant. Told you it was unexciting.

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(*)Stevensville included a pie break at the Stevi Cafe. Even though my achilles tendons are much improved, I have concluded that I need to continue the regimen that has yielded positive results in order to minimize the risk of relapse. Strawberry, advertised as fresh but I suspect otherwise. And a little skimpy on the ice cream. Disappointing; C- 


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