Greetings from Dupuyer, Montana!
It’s been a wild few days, but I can finally sit down at my laptop to jot down a few thoughts and share a few pics. The route I chose to ride across Montana hasn’t been front loaded with cell towers and wi-fi, but in a way that’s a good thing.
So far, my adventure has been better than I could’ve scripted, and has exceeded expectations. I still have many miles to go, but right now I couldn’t be happier. The first day of real riding turned out to be a lot harder than I expected. It was uphill, into the wind, and hot. By the time I had done 71 miles and arrived at McGregor Lake, I was fairly smoked. A nice meal and lots of water helped. Despite the less-than-optimal riding conditions, my journey along the Kootenai River and the Great Northern Railway was gorgeous.
On Monday, I rolled into Kalispell via an outstanding shared use path created by Northwest Montana Rails to Trails. A few miles outside of the city, I was greeted by an enthusiastic group of a dozen riders from Flathead Valley Community College. It was one of those perfect summer days for riding, and everyone was in good spirits—just excited to be outside, together, and having fun. As we arrived at FVCC, we were greeted by even more employees, and were able to hang out for a while and enjoy some coffee and snacks. I felt overwhelmed and very grateful. Thank you so much FVCC!
After stopping at FVCC, it was on to Glacier National Park. At GNP, I met one of my friends who would be cycling with me from the Park. Camping at Apgar, we had our first real weather event of the trip that night. As I lay in my tent, I heard a few drops of rain.
“It will just be a quick shower that passes right over”, I thought.
Wrong. It poured, for at least 2 or 3 hours. It was a real soaker, but luckily the inside of my tent remained pretty dry. The next day was supposed to be a rest day, but we found out that Going to the Sun Road was closed to vehicles, but open to bikes. We also learned that the road was almost ready, and could open any time. I thought this was a golden opportunity, so we went for it. Instead of resting as planned, my friend Chris and I stared the journey up to Logan Pass.
It was incredible. That’s all I can say. That’s all we kept saying all the way up. Some variation on, “This is incredible” or “I can’t believe we get to do this”. If you’ve ever been to Glacier, you know that photos don’t do it justice, but I’ll post some anyway.
Finally, today we rode from St. Mary’s on the east side of the Park to Duyuper. Talk about some wind. Wow. Fortunately, the wind was at our back for about 80% of the ride and we were flying. For one 10-mile stretch, we averaged 26 miles per hour and weren’t even pedaling hard! Unreal. The fast time gave me some much needed bonus downtime this afternoon.
Tomorrow it’s on to Great Falls College, where I’ll be stopping for another employee meet-and-greet at 3pm. If you’re in Great Falls, I’d love to see you there! My fingers are crossed for more tailwinds tomorrow!
Neal
Montana Moves 
Fantastic report, Neal! Best wishes for more exciting and productive travel!
Great report. Looking forward to more.
Technical note: Your email displayed three “This slideshow requires JavaScript” messages.” After various failed attempts to get Outlook on and off the web to display the slides, I hit the link to the WordPress site where I was able to see them without problems. You might want to mention that on future slideshows since the only people who will see this workaround comment are people who already found the workaround.
Look amazing! I’ve been meaning to take part in one of those bikes only days at the National Parks.
Hi Neal! Thanks for the beautiful photos and update! Glad you’re on schedule and doing well.