Butte would have been a good place to have taken a rest day, but the hotel I was staying at wasn’t the kind to hang around in long. It also wasn’t situated in a nice neighborhood with coffee shops, etc. So instead, I packed up early and headed out by myself. I wanted to go early so to miss and morning traffic as I navigated out on the route. Traffic was minimal, and I was outside the city pretty quickly.
Today would be one of the other hard sections, mainly the one called Fleecer Ridge, which would be the last climb of he day. The route was on pavement for the first 10 miles, and then turned to single track. I saw a group that looked like the boys cross country team from a local high school at the beginning of the trailhead. The single track was nice for runners, but not so much for bikers. There were a few challenging technical parts where I had to get off the bike to maneuver through. A couple trees had fallen down across the track as well, which made it a challenge to get around. I was walking the bike up a steeper section when this woman runner coming down schreeked a bit and said: “Oh my gosh, I thought you were a moose!”. I guess I have been called worse.
Loading up my electronics.
Obstacles at times.
The route finally took a long downhill to a very open area, totally devoid of any trees. It was a dramatic change of scenery since I was just in a dense forest. You could see the highway way down in the valley below. The sun was pretty intense that part of the day, and there has no shade anywhere. I finally arrived at the highway and the route went underneath it via an underpass. I thought this would be perfect for some shade and lunch. I turned on my phone since there usually is a good signal near a highway. I just got a text from Dave (Dave and Debra from Wisconsin) asking where I was. He apparently had his rear hub locked up. It turned out that they were several miles behind me, so I really couldn’t help. They found a kind lady who would drive them and their two loaded bikes back to Butte in her pickup truck to take them to a bike shop. That is the risk taking a remote route and having a bike problem you can’t fix on the trail. He owns a bike company in Wisconsin, so he should be most capable to do so.
Suddenly no trees
Lunch spot in the shade
I finished lunch in the shade of the underpass, and continued on the access road. I would run into Marek again, who was taking the alternate route around Fleecer ridge. I didn’t see another biker the rest of the day. I had to turn onto a rough gravel road that pointed straight into the wind. This is probably the start of the winds playing a factor on the trip with more open spaces. It was another long hard slog up the mountain pass until I got to the start of the Fleecer Ridge trail a couple hours later. It went straight up in this large field on a rocky two track road. I got off the bike and started to push uphill. The hike-a-bikes may sound easy, but I am usually pretty winded after a bit, and need to take frequent stops. An elderly couple was coming down from the top of the ridge on their quad 4x4’s. The woman had a large dog in front of her with a safety harness. She asked if I needed any water, and stressed that I needed to be very careful going down on the other side of side of the ridge. I had read and seen many reports about Fleecer Ridge on the GDMBR forums and YouTube, and assured her that I was planning to walk down as carefully as possible. Really nice couple.
I finally made it to the top and the trail was not steep yet so I rode the bike a bit since I was so tired of pushing it. Not too long afterwards it was apparent what the big deal about Fleecer Ridge was. It became very steep with lots of loose rocks. The sensation I had was similar to standing over a double diamond ski run, except you have a bicycle at you side 😬. I carefully walked/slid down managing the brakes on the bike. I had to be careful not to use the front brake too much, since the heavy rear end of the bike would want to pass the front wheel. It is really hard to take a picture that conveys the steepness, either up or down. My bike computer would register a grade of -40° at times. No fun.
Fleecer Ridge going down
You can get an idea of the slope
My bike computer doesn’t lie
I finally made it down to where the path was again bikeable. I really feel more in control on the bike than next to it. My brakes have held out pretty good so far on the trip, but I know that I will need to replace the pads soon. The rest of the route was mostly downhill into the little town of Wise River. I stopped at the only convenience store to find out they had just sold out of cold chocolate milk 😫. Must have been other GDMBR bikers coming through. I can’t imagine fly fishermen or Harley riders craving it. I got some other refreshments and an ice cream sandwich and went over to the community center where they let us stay for a small donation. Ciaran, and two other women bikers were already there. Ciaran took the Fleecer Ridge route as well, and I felt better when he said it was tough for him as well. We all later went to the Wise River Club which we were told is partially owned by the lead guy in the band ZZ Top, Billy Gibbons. There were rumors going around that he and some of the band would show up this weekend and might ever play. That wasn’t happening tonight, and I didn’t plan to hang around another day or two to find out.
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