Day 12 - Rest Stop to Helena

Distance -88.6 miles
Max speed - 50.5 mph!

After our night at the rest stop, we got up eager to begin the day fresh, without the bike woes that had plagued yesterday. This was not to be. About 15 miles into the trip my back tire was low. Hoping this was not a slow leak, we stopped, and I pumped it back full of air. About a mile later it was low again, so we stopped again so I could change the tire.

Remember that with the amount of flats we had already had, all that was left was the tube I had tried to patch the night before. The patch didn't hold. After a brief discussion, we determined that I needed to get to Helena and a bike shop since we had no working tubes. That meant hitchhiking.

After about 30 minutes of holding my thumb out, a tractor trailer that I hadn't even bothered to flag down pulled over and offered me a lift. The driver was Dick Perkins, and he helped me strap the bike in the trailer he was towing. I would call the trailer empty, except it he transports cattle so there was a thick layer of cow poo layering the floor. I didn't complain. It turns out that more often nowadays instead of herding cattle down the roads, people will hire him to transport them from place to place. This is good for him, and good for us because it means we won't get delayed behind cows.

Not only did he offer to get me to Avon down the road, but he then went the few miles back to his house, got his pickup truck, came back and gave me a ride all the way to Helena. In Helena he drove me to the bike shop first to check the hours, then to a park where I could meet up with Aaron and Sam. I tried to give him gas money, but he refused.

-James


Meanwhile...

So James started idling down the road with his thumb out. After changing 5 tires in a day and a half our backups were gone with no bike shop for miles! Sam and I ate some lunch and watched him walk away, trying to predict which truck passing us would be more likely to pick him up, and hoping we could catch it on film, but no luck. We packed up and then biked on, kicking dirt and condemning hitch hikers as we passed to help make him feel better.

After 20 miles we stopped for a break and a trucker pulled up with James riding shotgun. He shouted something out to us over the noise of the engine, and I think I saw James hold up a sign that said "HELP ME, 911", but I don't know. He took off and we figured James was done for, so we burned all his stuff and said peace. (worried family members: this is a lie, James is fine, I'm just trying to keep our ratings up with exciting stories)

Anyways, Samuel and I enjoyed some solid tail-winds and battled some serious side-winds at points to make it to Avon. Avon is a small Montana town of anywhere from "50 to 190 people" according to the very nice town store lady named Virginia. She was very excited to hear about our trip. I helped her use Microsoft Word to make store credit gift certificates for the 4 graduating high school seniors of Avon, she gave me a free postcard. We enjoyed some snacks, got our picture with Virginia, and headed out to climb the continental divide pass.

Continental divide pass ain't got nothin on us and we were up it in 5 seconds. (worried family members: I lied again). The view from the pass was amazing and we sent our "respects" to both the Pacific ocean and the Mississippi from just one spot. We bombed the downhill 10 miles from the pass into Helena (that's the capital of Montana students!), which easily met the criteria for a "righteous downhill", mainly because the wind was with us, and we actually hit 50.5 mph on the descent!! Parents, please don't worry, we were being totally safe. We rolled into Helena and found James chillin with all the skater punks at a park.

-Aaron

...and continuing...

After we were reunited, we started walking towards a church to see if we could stay there. Out of nowhere a woman stopped and asked us if we needed a place to stay. We said we did, so she gave us directions to her house. It turned out that they had people over for a BBQ, so we were treated to dinner and game two of the Stanley Cup.

Everyone there that we talked to had cool jobs. Betsy, our hostess, works for the nature conservancy, her husband Andy worked for a land trust, there were two pediatricians, and there was even a UVa alum named Martha who works as an environmental lawyer for Montana. The whole family was naturally into outdoor activities, like biking and skiing. Betsy skied for Dartmouth in college, so we talked about the UVa ski team with her. Most people were surprised to hear there was skiing in Virginia. Besides his job, Andy also works with Adventure Cycling, which is a nonprofit based in Missoula that helps cross country (and other) bikers.

On top of dinner and a place to stay, we all were given guest beds to sleep in, as well as showers and even use of the washing machine. I am a little amazed but extremely grateful at how helpful strangers have been to us. After visiting the bike shop tomorrow we are going to take the route suggested to us by Andy down to Norris, where there are some hot springs.

-James