June 19 - Riding with bears
By: Mike Curiak
Saturday night at midnight, just got in Lincoln Montana after 17 hours of riding. Today was epic. I don't know where to start. We're 36 hours into the race with 305 miles over. Steve Fastbinder and Jan Kopka are in the lead and are about 3-4 hours in front. This morning, it rained and I was not able to get a rhythm as we followed Steve's tracks. Jan passed me as if I was standing still.
I had an eventful day today and I don't like eventful days in these kinds of races. I had 3 flats and my bike computer broke. In a race like this where there are many, many turns based on mileage, a bike computer is crucial. With my computer broken, I missed a few turns and had to backtrack and reconnoiter a bit.
Lincoln does not have a bike shop and I hope to get a new computer at Helena. I'm pretty anxious right now. The ache of the day is my achilles tendon. No pun intended, but that's always been my achilles heel. It feels good when I walk and stand but quite painful when I'm on the bike. I'll try to figure that out tonight with a lot of massaging.
There was tons and tons of climbing done today in and out of the Swan mountains up into the mission mountains going to singletrack on the Richmond basin. There was also bit of snow and downed trees.
The hard part was I could see Pete Basinger�s footprints on the snow and over logs and right on top his footprints were pretty enormous bear footprints. I saw three bears today two of them were black bears but first thing this morning I saw a grizzly. You pretty much know that you're in bear country here in Montana and you know danger is high here on Richmond Hill. So every 3 seconds I would yell anything... friends� names, girlfriend�s name and anything that comes to mind. And it's a good thing I did since a lot of times I yelled out, I would hear something move, 3 of those times it was bear.
I spent a lot of time messing with my computer, 3 flats and lubing and cleaning the chain. It was so muddy from 4 hours of rain. I felt I was going nowhere and expected the other guys to catch me.
Coming down Huckleberry Pass, Right as it was getting dark when your bike lights don't quite illuminate the trail yet, I realized something was trotting in front of me and I swerved to get around it and it swerved with me. I then realized I was at the business end of a skunk. Well, a big swerve and a bunnyhop got me out of disaster as I escaped the skunk's wrath.
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Pete Basinger at Lincoln Montana 6:30pm
Steve Fastbinder and Jan at Lincoln, leaving at 9:30 am Sunday
Gary Dye Ely lake, got in at 1:30 at night, headed to Helena
