I was back on the bicycle today. Along with me was my friend Larry from Bozeman. He has agreed to ride with me to Missoula which will be four days of riding. It’s great to have the company.

As luck would have it, Larry might have agreed to ride along with me in the snow. The forecast for the next four days is for two days of headwinds as a cold front approaches and then for two days of rain in the valleys and snow in the mountains (down to 5000 feet). We’ll be riding up McDonald Pass (elevation 6300 feet) west of Helena late Friday morning. Fortunately, the rest of our route for the next four days is below 5000 feet.

We had a very nice two-day visit with our friends in Bozeman. They gave us a great tour of the entire Bozeman area, treated us to a couple home-cooked meals — something we haven’t had in quite a while — and gave us plenty of time to play with their two adorable dogs, K.C. (a bichon frise) and Eli (a standard poodle). We also went out to a couple of Bozeman’s great local restaurants and enjoyed a relaxing, after dinner walk down Bozeman’s Main Street on a cool September evening.

Larry and I headed off on our bicycles at about 10:15 AM this morning. It was not too windy and it was a pleasant temperature, so we were feeling good to be out in the Montana countryside. Montana countryside, in this part of Montana, consists of wide, mostly treeless valleys between mountain ranges.

We headed north in one of these valleys for about eight miles and then we took a turn to the west and started an ascent through the Belt Mountains. We reached a summit at about 5900 feet in elevation and then began a long descent into Townsend, our destination for today. As we began our descent, the treeless valley changed into a forested valley and the road paralleled an unnamed stream. It was great to be back in the mountains.

Total distance:	41.49 miles
Time:	2:42:52
Average speed:	15.3 mph
Maximum speed:	31.0 mph
Total calories:	2415
Average heart rate:	123 bpm
Maximum heart rate:	150 bpm
Total ascent:	1160 feet
Total descent:	2644 feet
Ride profile:	(click on image to view a larger version)
Ride comments: Rode with Larry, a friend from Bozeman, today. There were some Headwinds all day long, but not too strong. Vast treeless grasslands at the beginning of the ride. After the summit about 18 miles into the ride, it quickly transitioned into forest.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 13th, 2006 at 4:54 pm and is filed under The Dream Tour, Bicycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.