Big Ride Day 14

Photos from Day 14

Once again, another long, grueling day. After a not-so-great breakfast at the youth center, we departed in overcast, rainy conditions, another cold, wet morning. In addition to the cold and the wet, we also had a pretty strong headwind to contend with. It was one of those mornings to just put your head down and get through it, which I did. We did pass one interesting place advertising a "Testical Festival," which is apprently a yearly ritual that occurs when the bulls get castrated. I arrived at the checkpoint in decent time, but it was after the checkpoint that things went from bad to worse. I met up with Mark, a magazine editor from Delaware, a little ways from the checkpoint. We went through some rolling hills and them stopped by one of the water stops where a little kid was selling cookies. It was really cute. We also stopped by a small bar to go to the bathroom and ended up watching Wimbledon and talking to the bartender for a while. Right after that, we reached a very long, very flat and boring section of highway with a strong headwind that got many people demoralized -- I know I was. Mark and I finally met up with several other riders -- Lauren, Jerry, and Lynne -- and we formed a pace line to break the wind. Finally, we got to a place where the road turned to give us a small tailwind and also started to go downhill. That was enough for me as I felt an adrenaline rush and poured on the speed. I was off like a shot and tore up and down rollers for about 10 miles, ignoring the building pain in my knees, before reaching the outskirts of Billings. Entering Billings from the direction we did was really amazing. We had been traveling on a high plateau for quite some time and suddenly, the plateau on either side of the highway began to fall away and revealed the valley containing Billings below. The highway goes on kind of ridge that divides the valley in two. I stopped to take a few pictures and then the rains came. It started pouring down rain and I was kind of mad that I hadn't gotten into camp a little earlier. When I finally did get into camp, it was still pouring rain so I wasn't sure what to do. Since we are staying at a school tonight, I just went inside to ice my knees, warm up, and wait out the storm. By the time I was done icing, it was dinnertime and I ate dinner also before going to get my stuff out of the gear truck. By the time I was done dinner, It had cleared up and I was able to set up my tent in dry conditions. The school had actually offered to let us sleep inside but I thought that I probably wouldn't get much sleep if I did that.

Later on, there were massage therapists from the local community at the school and I got a massage. I was really tired so Doug and I decided to go down to a local watering hole for a beer. The bike tech, Chris, gave us a ride in the back of his camper down to a place near his bike shop (he lives in Billings). It was this little dive pool hall and we had a few (very cheap) beers, shot a few games of pool and then walked back to camp. On the way, we made a detour to buy some junk food (a bikers appetite is an amazing thing!). After gorging ourselves, it was time for bed.

This page modified November 25, 2000