Overall, Montana was a beautiful state and the people were friendly and helpful with Billings being the only exception.
Anyhow, back to leaving Billings. The cue sheet in the morning said we had a 1,200 foot climb out of town which wound up being around 2,100. I think someone transposed those digits? Even with the climbing it was still a relatively easy day. The ride was just under 53 miles, so it was more or less an extra rest day.
Day 16 took us from Hardin, Montana to Sheridan, Wyoming. Shortly after leaving camp we crossed the 1,000 mile mark.
Montana was a huge state, and it was nice to finally leave it. We were in Montana for more than a week and we didn't even traverse its entire width, as we swung down to the south to enter Wyoming.
Here are the stats from day 16:
Day 17... In my opinion, this was the worst day of the trip so far. The morning started out with a 2,000 ft climb out of camp, which was followed by an equal descent to lunch (mile 43). Up to lunch the ride was fine, but after lunch it was just torturous. The last 70 miles was a series of ascents and descents, with more ascending than descending.
The problem was that the road was playing mind games with the riders. I lost track of how many times I saw a peak through a mountain pass and thought, "Surely, that must be the top!", only to get to the peak and see the road descend momentarily before taking a turn up through yet another pass higher than the one before. This made descending torture as you simply had to climb every bit as much as you went down, plus some, time and time again. I got gassed out after 95 or so miles and slowly spun my way into Gillette with my tail between my legs, thinking:
This is the Big Ride, not the Little Ride.
-Charlton Durant
Day 18: Gillette to Newcastle
This was a great day of riding. It's always a good day when you go down more than you go up, and that's just what happened on this day. We even had favorable winds until the last 20 or so miles. While on the ride we passed the small town of Upton. Many of you may not know this, I know I didn't, but Upton is "The Best Town on Earth."
While reaching for my phone to take a photo of the Upton water tower, I accidentally took what I believe to be the best photo ever. See below.
Day 19: My favorite ride of the trip so far. It took us from Newcastle, WY to Rapid City, SD. Another state done!
It might be hard to tell, but someone drew mustaches on all the faces on the sign... even Teddy Roosevelt, and he already had a mustache...
The ride was awesome. We started out with about 1500' of climbing over a 25 or so mile stretch through the Black Hills National Forest up to Custer State Park. Shortly after entering the park, all the hard work from the morning was rewarded with some glorious downhill action... about 17 or so miles. The road descended through Custer State park with some sweeping corners. The speed limit through the park is 35 MPH and the cyclists I was with broke that law on more than one occasion. Since we were going the same speed as traffic through the park, we took the lane and when we all got to the bottom of the hill we stopped to flip over our cue sheets to see where our next turn would be and we were all smiling ear to ear.
Now, I'm going to pass out. It's been a long week, and I need to get some rest. I didn't get hardly any sleep last night in Newcastle because they were lighting off fireworks until about 2am.
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