We rode 105 miles today from Thompson Falls to Missoula Montana. I rode with Jake and Dylan but Dylan racked at about 40 miles because of terrible knee pain that was building since we started. We were expecting to see a lot of wildlife, some big horn sheep, deer and elk but I didn't se anything! One pace line had a deer running parallel to the road with them behind some trees, I was very jealous. But as usual the views keep getting better, we took a highway that followed a river, I believe the clark fork river, for a long time, it was an incredible sight. At one point we were coming through a pass between two steep hill sides and as we turned the corner I could tell the view was opening up and once we got around it there was a gorgeous lake and snow capped mountains in the distance, my jaw dropped. Our route snaked through the small mountains around the area until we got to about 70 miles in when we had to climb up and over to get to Missoula, it was a long steady climb but they are always worth it for the downhill on the other side, even though for a short section we had about a foot and a half of shoulder to ride on between rumble strips and gravel. Every day the riding becomes easier and easier, when I was training I remember being shocked by the idea of riding every day, doing 100+ mile days, being on the road for 10 - 13 hours, it is getting to the point where it feels natural, we just get on the bike and go. Fun fact about the ride, Jake got his first flat ever 10 miles away from lodging.
We all passed our rack point at 95 miles by 2 like it was no big deal which is great that people are already starting to pick up the pace. However we had 5 guys racked today from sickness or injury, it has become a small problem, guys racking themselves because they are tired or hurting and not wanting to push through. We had a team meeting to address which felt like the citrew telling us we sucked but after that the cyclist met to really talk about how we felt about this issue and clear the air and help each other. There are a few guys that felt like they had a day or two that they could have kept riding but other than that, people have been racking themselves for only serious pain that they can't cycle through without further injury. What I made clear was that I would rather ride for as long as possible with the entire pace line and team and end up getting racked because we aren't moving fast enough than have someone in my pace line rack because they felt like they were holding back the line from making rack point if they were tired or sore. That was a big reason for a few people racking so I hope the team culture will change to that kind of mindset that every second with each other is more important than riding every mile. People definitely understand now that they need to push themselves harder though and with some long rides coming up it will really put us all to the test as a team, I'm excited for it.
Our friendship visit was special Olympics Montana, we got to meet a bunch of people that played a ton of sports like basketball, bowling, and running. I ate dinner and hung out a guy Tak who was a big seahawks fan, he was telling me about the draft and how much money those guys make. While I was talking to him another teammate TJ was talking almost the whole visit with his mom. After we got back to lodging Tak and his mom came by unannounced because they wanted to give TJ a mug that Tak had made, it had a couple paintings he had done around the outside. TJ was really amazed and told us about what they were talking about the whole time. Tak's mom is actually not blood related to him but lived in Japan and made 30 trips to and from Montana in a 10 year span to visit Tak who has down syndrome and was being physically abused in a foster home program but in those 10 years they could not put the guy behind bars because of Tak's down syndrome and him not being able to come forward and not having the same treatment in a court. Eventually the guy was fired from his position and she was able to get Tak out and adopt him. It took years of therapy but you would never know this if she hadn't said anything. It was really hard to hear about how the justice system just couldn't handle this situation. Now TJ said the thought of becoming a disability lawyer has crossed his mind, he was already planning to go to law school.
In the evening we took some naps and then headed down the street to go explore downtown and visit the local bars and breweries. The first place we went to that was recommended to us was Tamaracks which was a really cool brewery, we got some great stouts and IPAs and finished off the night at Walking Mustache a delicious restaurant and our server happened to be from the same area of Georgia as two of the guys on the team.
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