Seeley Lake - Ovando - Lincoln

Started out the morning with breakfast with Sam Schultz.  Thanks for coming up from Missoula, Sam. Hope you caught some fish.

It was a tough morning after that. First, we had to say goodbye to Renae and Daniel. It was SO nice to see their smiling faces at the end of a hard day of riding. I will miss Renae!!!!

Next, although we jettisoned a BUNCH of gear, this was the first day of carrying it, and it was a SHOCK to our legs. To top it off, the dirt road was waterlogged from heavy rain last night and we sunk into the road making it tougher to make forward progress. At one point we looked at our odometer and lamented we had only gone 5 miles. We had 60 to go!

We came out of the forest and stopped at the quirky town of Ovando for a lunch snack.

From Ovando we headed across the Blackfoot Valley to the start of the climb up Huckleberry Pass. I thought about offering the guy tending his garden at the last house before the road pitched up $20 for a ride to the top, but didn't.  Good thing. Despite all the new weight Doug and I are now pulling, our new found fitness kicked in and we kept a good, strong, steady pace. In fact, we actually pulled in two riders in front of us. Once they saw the grey in our beards they found new energy and passed us before the summit.

We almost had a disaster on the way down. The skewer on my rear axle, the one to which the Bob trailer connects, came lose.  Luckily, I noticed it while stopped. When I went to start, my rear wheel came loose and rubbed against the chain stays. I shudder to think if it would have come off while going downhill at 25 mph. Lesson learned! Bob really needs to make an adapter for a 16mm thru axle!!!

We pulled into The Three Bears Motel in Lincoln about 6pm - 9 hours of riding. Big day, but super stoked at our performance.

For those of you following on Trackleader, I think the Spot gps batteries failed somewhere in route. Sorry about that. We'll start the morning with fresh new batteries.

To all my friends at Tullys, my bum is doing fine. Thanks for being concerned.  :-)

I didn't take any pics with the phone today so none to share.  Sorry.

We're at the 309 mile mark. And tomorrow we cross the Continental Divide for the first time.