4. A River Runs Through It

A River Runs Through It

From Billings Montana 6/29

Through most of Idaho and Montana, it seems that we have been following rivers. And to make things particularly interesting, some laws of gravity seem to be tossed to the wind, and when we’re riding down, the rivers are flowing slightly uphill. Now I realize that there’s probably at least an optical illusion at work here, or perhaps merely delusion, disorientation from so many days on the road.

This is Day 15, only Day 15, and it’s a Monday I think, and we’re in Billings, Montana. Camp was set up at a middle school in the Alkali Creek Residential Area (I’m not kidding with that name) on the outskirts of town, and by the time I got there, both parched and sweaty, at the end of the second one hundred mile day in a row, I hotfooted it to the Best Western Ponderosa in the center of town. The BWP is a little worse for wear, but it’s heaven on earth to me. It is one of those old motels (or at least half of it is very old, and that’s where I’m residing) where the doors never seem firmly shut, and the metal is rusting on the stairs. But there’s a phone jack and a big tub and a washer and a dryer (which I used at 5:45 am while simultaneously devouring a huge waffle and real big bacon at the Catlin Family Restaurant attached to the motel) and a pool, which I intend to slide into at the end of the day when the sun has gone further west. I’ll have quite enough sun tomorrow, thank you, when we head to Hardin.

Things started heating up yesterday after days in the deep freeze. You may have heard this, but while the entire rest of the country was sweltering, Montana was singled out for rain and worse. We left Missoula in a driving rain on Thursday, and the chill that comes with that sent at least one person to the hospital with hypothermia, but the afternoon turned pleasant for those of us who made it past Pit 2 and lunch (I ate mine sitting on a piece of cardboard leaning against the wheel of a truck as a windbreak), and I dried my socks in the afternoon pinned to the pack on the back of my bike, and my clothes that had become soggy from sweat under my rain gear dried out in the wind.

Cotton may be king, but polyester is premiere (sic).

Friday morning I left camp again in the rain, but my polyester clothing and some extra preparation like plastic bags between my shoes and my socks and some plastic gloves between some fingered gloves and some biking gloves got me through the day. It was a disaster. Literally. It started sleeting about halfway up McDonald Pass (the Continental Divide), which soon turned to snow. Our first pit stop was 12 miles out of camp on the top of the pass, which would have been cool under other circumstances, but we had a mini blizzard with which to contend. In short, the ride was suspended around 10 am. Everyone who was at Pit 1 or yet to arrive was hauled off the mountain in any vehicle the staff could commandeer, and I for one found myself fit as a fiddle on one side of a Burger King in Helena that had been taken over by the Big Ride. The other side of the BK was a triage setting where people in dire straits were getting clothes ripped off and hot liquids poured down them, and other people’s backpack water bottles (the Camelbacks that have the plastic water containers) were being taken from them and pressed into service as hot water bottles.

There are a thousand stories from that day.

Three I’ll tell you in short.

One is about a man who lived halfway down the mountain and had a barn. Some riders in trouble pulled in, and he let them in the barn. He set up a heater. More riders arrived, and he moved them into his house. He put some in hot showers. At one point, he baked chocolate chip cookies. At least 50 riders were in his barn or his house that morning.

The second is about John Robinson from Niantic, Connecticut. John lost his brakes going down the mountain in a whiteout. He says he screamed all the way down. At one point, his computer registered 44 miles per hour. Near the bottom, and thankfully about a half mile before some intersections, he was able to snake his bike down to close to 15 miles per hour. But he was still in deep trouble. A rider in front of him turned around, saw what was happening and jumped off his bike and threw it to the ground. He ran alongside John, got him in a bear hug, and ran the bike and John to a standstill. John doesn’t know who the man is, just that he’s “a big guy.”

The third is about ten people, nine men and one woman, who were so irritated about being pulled off the ride when it was suspended that they went on to camp in Townsend (the really really hurt people spent the night in the town itself in a gym under medical care with Red Cross help); the rest of us went on to the regularly scheduled campsite at a fairground outside town. The ten rented a bus, left camp at 4 am the next morning, returned with their bikes to McDonald Pass, and Saturday rode from where the ride had been suspended to Harlowton, 130 miles that day instead of the 100 the rest of us enjoyed. Now they “haven’t been sagged.” They’ve “made the whole ride.”

The ride from Townsend to Harlowton was a small miracle for me. It too started out rainy, and by Pit 1 at 16 miles, things were a mess. Once again I had dressed for the worse, and it saved me along with the hot water that they had at the stop. I threw a teabag in my water bottle and filled it with hot water, and it kept my insides warm and at times my hands for the next 30 miles. I made it to Pit 2 in spite of crosswinds that threw several bikers and their bikes to the ground, and I really didn’t know if I could go on. But thank goodness, I was able to dry my clothes a bit and eat lunch in the gym in White Sulfur Springs. The afternoon was something. That afternoon itself made this whole trip worthwhile. The skies cleared. We had a tailwind that literally blew us east. At one point I was going up a small hill at 7 miles per hour AND I WASN’T PEDALING!!!!!! I rode 50 miles in three and a half hours. There were snow-capped mountains. There were wild flowers. There were — yes — buffalo. The telephone and electric wires were singing. There were birds galore. IT WAS WONDERFUL.

I didn’t care if I ever got where I was going. I was WHERE I was going and I was getting there fast. I had wings, and it was glorious. I was in the moment, in the moment, in the moment….

Which makes me think of a little thing that Niki sent (thanks Niki), which is worth sending all your way: “Being detached from the outcome of what we do is one of the greatest, liberating, peaceful ideas that can be contemplated. You do what you do, what you love to do and do with passion…and then…you do the next thing that you want to do. It might be interesting to try to spend one day on your wheels and not think about your destination. At all. Every spin of your legs is taking you somewhere, and the destination may end up being an entirely different ‘place’ than you ever imagined.”

That afternoon as I neared Harlowton, I spied three little boys (maybe 6,10 and 12) running to the side of the road from behind a silo. It was otherworldly. They were all dressed alike, in dark wool suits and identical blue and white shirts, and little dark wool caps. The oldest of the three waved me down, but I wouldn’t have stopped if my computer hadn’t flown off my handlebars (I’m not kidding; it came out of its holder and fell almost at his feet, sailed really, in the wind). He handed me the computer and spoke from the back of his throat with a funny cadence to his voice. “I’d like this bike when you’re through with it,” he said.

“Well, that’s not going to work. I’m riding to Washington, D.C.” I said.

“Well, I’d like to ride it now,” he said.

“No,” I said. “I have to go on.”

“Where will you be going?” he said.

“To Harlowton,” I said. “I’m late.”

“There are others?” he asked.

“Yes, there are others,” I said. And I rode away.

I can’t get his face out of my head. There were spaces between all his teeth. And the other two, watching. Never saying a word. The youngest one looking slightly scared like you do when you see someone quite unlike you for the first time.

(Gear shift.)

Now that I’ve checked it out myself, I understand why the GTE Big Ride website is really Big Ride Lite. It is, after all, a public relations device for GTE and the American Lung Association. Bill Dale and I laughed (the laughter that follows terror) over lunch here in Billings at how the disaster day on the Continental Divide would be reported on the website: “Big Riders from all over the country mastered the difficulties the surprising weather brought their way as they crossed McDonald’s Pass outside Helena…”

Of course there’s going to be no mention of triage at the Burger King.

Of cots in the Townsend gym.

Of ambulances driving riders to the Helena hospital.

Of blankets donated by a local church.

Of the Methodist women bringing cookies to the fairgrounds.

Of the man with the barn.

Of the staff doing a great job at everything except communicating with the riders.

And that’s the way it is or at least that’s the way it is for me.

One of the things I’ve loved about sending you these e-mails are the responses I’ve gotten back. From Kathy Atkinson. From Carol Van. From Gene…et al.

Keep those phone messages and e-mails flowing in. It’s like being a kid at camp folks, and I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to hear from you.

Next day off, Rapid City. If my memory serves me, Ron Hull’s hometown. We arrive there on the 4th of July, and it’s been more than a little difficult finding a motel what with the holiday and Mount Rushmore etc., but the Holiday Inn Rushmore Plaza came through. Between here and there, there are a lot of miles and tent stakes, tho’ (and I hope tailwinds), and I’ll be ready for another hot tub and phone jack for my computer.