A 4500km Journey !

We were up early and ready to roll out of Butte by 6am as we had a busy day ahead of us. We were hoping to cross 3 passes and 150kms to get to Montana High Country Lodge for the night as it was their last night being open to TD riders before their fishing season begun. Spirits were high as the sun was out and we were hopeful of a days riding without rain! The first 30kms or so were paved as we climbed out of Butte through some lovely countryside.  It was a big climb to the top but then we were rewarded with a great down hill into a farming valley rather than one filled with trees and crossed under the I95 ( interstate expressway) before again climbing up through a Gulch (gully) they call them, this time up to Fleecer ridge. We had heard stories of the downhill section being unriderable so were keen to see for ourselves what the story was. We pushed our bikes up the last 2kms as we climbed a muddy meadow track and then turned at the top to come down, the first 1km was fine riding th...

After our arrival into Helena we decided to have a sleep in!  The bike shop wasn’t opening until 10 and we wanted to get the bikes checked over before we left town as there weren’t many options in the coming days . The guys at great divide cyclery were awesome, I got a new chain and back brake pads and he cleaned my running gear and cassette which made it just like a new one for all of 5 kms out of the city until we hit the mud! We climbed out of the city and followed quite a good gravel road for about 35kms until we headed into a rather muddy rough bush track but it wasn’t too hard to imagine a track like that back home so we all managed to ride/ push our bikes through that section quite well. Then we had a 20km ride back down to Basin. Basin was a cute wee town of 300 with a pub, a pizzeria and a church. We had a number for some cyclist only accommodation and it was awesome ! We were soaked through and had all our fingers and toes crossed that we would be able to stay at the acco...

I haven’t really gotten very specific about the passes we have crossed on our journey yet so I thought It might be a good idea to update you all ! We have crossed over many passes over the past 10 days, in Canada there was the following - Elk, Koko, Fernie, Flathead, Gaulton then into the US we had Whitehead, Red Meadow, Richmond and Huckleberry passes none of these have been continental divide passes either ! Then yesterday we had our first 3 continental divide passes - all in one day !  It was a big day with a lot of climbing but very rewarding with amazing valleys and meadows at the top between the 2nd and 3rd passes. But let me back track a day .......  We had a bit of rain when leaving Ovando - ok well a lot actually, by the time we rolled into Lincoln - 60kms into the day we were like drowned rats and decided to call it a day there, we had really wanted to get over our first continental divide pass that afternoon and stay at a Cyclists accommodation cabin on route but al...