Wake up was a little tougher this morning after staying out late…but not too bad. As we headed out of the Y at 5:30 a spinning class was already in full swing…haha yay cycling. Quick crew chief breakfast and we were on the road. Today Scott Shek from the Boulder chapter joined us…he’s interning at Push this summer making videos of the team for recruitment and sponsorships…hope he gets some sweet shots of my good side.
Ride started out with a pretty intense climb…another no-name pass full of lovely switchbacks. Best part of climbing is of course going down the other side….several miles of sweet downhills opened up into a beautiful flat area surrounded by mountains…truly got to experience “Big Sky Montana” here. As we passed through the little town of Whitehall we stopped to give a quick interview for the local newspaper. I spouted off the whole rundown to Kendall, the college-bound intern who really had no idea what was going on (I think they just told to go talk to the dudes riding bikes)…I don’t think she even asked a question…maybe I was just really thorough haha. Afterwards we hopped back into the paceline (me, Nick, Todd, Jake, Andrew….solid crew) and kept moving. Hitting the rolling hills wasn’t so much fun (I prefer big climb w/ big downhill…not little one after little one) but we were movin along and stopped for lunch at about mile 66.
Crew chief lunch was quick and relaxing…afterwards I hit the road with Geren and Jay, who had been riding with only two – which is tough. These guys like to push it…so we basically rocked out the fastest 34 miles I have ever done…pretty intense. Rolling into Bozeman was a bit nerve-racking with traffic and a crappy shoulder w/ rumble strip, but we made it in safe to the local high school…beaming over having finished our first legitimate century ride (100 miles in just 5 hours of ride-time, baby!…out of control). Kicked back and relaxed while the rest of the team came in (our meat-head ride had put us pretty far ahead).
Bozeman is a pretty big town (one of if not the biggest in Montana…Kelly the bartender from last night nicknamed it “Boze-Angeles”). After showering up Ezra, Jake, Jay, Grimace (Josh) and I headed over to the CVS to load up on snacks…by far the biggest CVS I have ever done business with.
At around 6 we headed to dinner at Eagle Mount, an amazing organization that runs programs to allow people with disabilities to ski, swim, ride horse, cycle…you name it. Got to tour the barn and meet some of the horses…beautiful animals. Richard, one of the cycling participants, let the whole team try out his hand-cycle…wicked cool, but pretty hard to handle. We feasted on some burgers with the staff and directors at Eagle Mount and they told us all about their programs…really neat stuff. Snowberger’s aunts and cousins actually live in Bozeman and volunteer with Eagle Mount so it was fun meeting them.
We got back pretty late…some guys headed out to the appropriately named “Bar”…I decided to stay in and take it easy for the night and get in some solid hours of sleep.
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