T1 Day 21 (Kayla)

 6/27/23

C2C - day 21 - 1000 miles!!

At 9:30am this morning we officially crossed our 1,000th mile!! It was a relatively unremarkable point somewhere in Montana, but it was a very meaningful point to us. As 3 women who had never biked more than 70 miles in a day, and had just purchased our bikes last year, we all felt a sense of disbelief and pride at the fact that we were out here doing this and had made it this far. It has been such a wild ride to bike 1,000 miles, both mentally and physically, I can’t wait to see what happens in the next 2,000! 

Back to today - We woke up this morning after a poor night of sleep due to the sound of highway traffic and the light from a street lamp right above our tents. I resorted to sleeping with my buff over my eyes while Liz tried rolling her hat down over her eyes. Then we started our day in my favorite fashion, diner food! The diner was perfectly located next to the RV park, so it was only logical that we stop in. Of course we had to get eggs, hash browns, toast, a cinnamon bun, pancakes, and French toast! 

While we had filled up on a massive breakfast we were low on snacks and out of lunch and dinner food so we stopped 25 miles into our ride at a cute looking grocery store off the highway. I walked in first and immediately noticed that everyone I saw inside was wearing bonnets and long dresses with aprons. What had we stumbled upon? After looking around at the selection of pickled goods, fresh baked breads, cheese curds, and bulk items, I walked back outside to inform Liz and keelin that this was not a normal grocery store and that our resupply might look a bit different than our usual oatmeal packets, tortillas with tuna fish, and ramen or Mac and cheese. As it turns out it was a very welcome change! The grocery store was run by an Amish family and we picked up some of the best sandwiches we’ve had all trip! Along with a delicious loaf of bread and a potato soup mix that we would share for dinner. All in all a very successful stop. We would highly recommend Amish groceries stores should you ever come across one!

Okay now this is the point where I feel I should tell you more about the toll that 1,000 miles of biking has taken on our bodies. You may be familiar with the sisterhood of the traveling pants, well we have a sisterhood of traveling aches and pains (not quite as good a premises for a book series, I know). One day I had hand numbness, then it resolved for me and Liz started experiencing it. Liz and Keelin’s knee pain resolved, only for me to start having knee pain, then there’s the issue of butt pain and saddle sores, another problem that travels around the group. On this particular day Keelin had been struggling with a knee pain that we believed was related to a combination of saddle height and foot positioning. I on the other hand was dealing with some very angry saddle sores that had become open wounds. After trying to fiddle around with adjustments ourselves we decided it was time to seek out a bike shop to get some help. Thankfully we were in luck! Lewistown, a relatively small town in the middle of nowhere had a bike shop! We arrived just in time to wait out the afternoon showers and were greeted by the friendly one-man-show mechanic (who also happened to be an 8th grade science teacher during the school year). We explained our situation and while he was unable to provide any solutions for my saddle sores he did take a look at all our bikes and tuned them up for free while we hung out and chatted with him about our trip and drank seltzer from his fridge (he offered beer but with 30 miles of biking left in our day we decided against it). He also gave us some bike maintenance pointers, and it felt good to learn a bit more about this human powered machine that we’ve been trusting to get us across the country. 

Biking out of lewistown was all up hill and when I caught up with Liz and keelin I saw that they were chatting with another cyclist! I was so excited since we haven’t seen any other northern tier cyclists since we parted from Fisher back in Washington. However, when I got up to them it was immediately clear that this man (Ron) was not doing the same sort of thing we were, and was the egotistical sort of person to brag about their accomplishments without being prompted, and seemed to be very serious about cycling. If you can’t tell already that’s sort of the opposite of us, since we don’t even consider ourselves to be cyclists yet. He was a man in his 60s on a fast road bike with no gear and was eager to tell us his plan to bike across the country in 47 days by averaging 100 miles a day in the beginning, then 120, then 150. To cover the distance we had covered in 21 days he had taken 14. When keelin asked where his gear was he pointed to the sports car parked 100 ft behind us. His wife was following close behind him for anytime he needed food or water or anything else, and each night after he finished his mileage they would drive to a hotel for the night. He decided to bike with us for a short while, but I’ll admit I wasn’t upset when he sped on ahead after a couple of miles. I later learned I had missed out on him singing to Liz and keelin! Well anyways here’s hoping we meet some more less intense cyclists out here to connect with, but for now I’m content with our powderpuff girl squad!