Day 9: Paradise to Hellgate

Today we left Paradise Montana for Missoula Montana. Most of the team got a kick out of the fact that we were staying at a place called Hellgate highschool. I guess it was named after some Indian treaty.

We started riding at 6:30 this morning, and It was freezing. I wished I had worn my winter gloves, and not my cycling gloves. Especially since we were riding through a valley for the first half of the day, it took a long time for the sun to start shining on the road. Once it did warm up though, the weather was great for the rest of the day.

After yesterday’s 105 mile ride, there were a lot of people in pain. My knee was killing me most of the day, but I pushed through the pain. Having a headwind while going up hills was certainly not fun, but the pay off was at the top of the mountain when we started going downhill towards Missoula. I didn’t know if I was going to make it through the day, but we dedicated our ride to a guy we met at a friendship visit named Jack, and I kept reminding myself why we were doing this trip, and that we were doing the ride today for Jack. We arrived safely and did an arrival at Adventure Cycling. They were also kind enough to provide us with lunch.

Adventure cycling is a not for profit that promotes recreational and race cycling across the United States. Their founder first started promoting cycling with a ride from Alaska to the tip of South America. A few years later in 1976 they did the bikecentenial, to promote cycling and the bicentennial of the United States. The original bikecentenial route is now called the Trans America route, and is close to the route we follow today. Currently Adventure cycling publishes a monthly magazine as well as sells bike maps for numerous routes across the country.

After lunch and a tour of adventure cycling we went to lodging at the infamous Hellgate High School. We showered up, rested a bit, and then headed to our friendship visit. This was set up by Truman State’s own and former Build America teammate Lukin Murphy. We had another BBQ dinner, and I spent some time with a woman named Judy and a guy named Dan.

Dan was in a wheel chair, and was hard to understand. He had to repeat himself numerous times, and I was rather impressed that he did not get frustrated. At one point he asked for all of our autographs, so Alex ran out to his van and got a Thank You card we had all signed. He then wanted to give me his autograph, so now I have an autograph I’ll be holding onto the rest of the trip.

I really enjoyed this friendship visits, and the whole team was impressive in the way we all immediately interacted with everyone. Often times we have to step out of our comfort zone at friendship visits, and the whole team is doing great.

Tomorrow is a complete day off with nothing planned. I won’t be doing a journal entry about it, but I’ll go ahead and post some pictures instead one I get the chance for tomorrow’s entry.