Saturday, June 16, 2018

Day 49 – Glendive,MT to Circle,MT

Date: 16.06.2018
Altitude: 1233.6 ft (376 m)
Distance: 50.94 mi (81.98 km)
Total Altitude: 83769.7 ft (25533 m)
Total Distance: 3304.55 mi (5318.24 km)

Second day in Montana. I didn't had a good start in Montana yesterday and it continued like this today. After riding on the interstate yesterday, today I had to deal with rain and a flat tire. I hope it will not continue like this in Montana.

Today I had a really short day ahead of me, so I got a late start into the day. Since I only had to cover 50 miles today, I had the chance to watch the world cup game of Argentina against Iceland this morning. After the match was over I got a good breakfast at the Diner next to the Hotel and I finally hit the road at around 10am.

When I started this morning on my route to Circle, it was already raining, it already started raining last night and hasn't stopped since. It also continued raining throughout the day, so it was a pretty wet day. With the rain also the temperatures went down to the mid 50s (about 12°C) and it wasn't too comfortable to be out on the bike. But I had worse and it wasn't too cold, even with the rain. Luckily I didn't had to be out in this weather too long. If the rain wasn't bad enough on its own, I had a flat tire about halfway on my route on top of that. This is now the third time on my trip I had a flat tire and the first time I had a flat in my front tire. Luckily it was the front, so this mad it a bit easier to change the tube. Still it is no fun to change a tube in the rain on the side of the road with the traffic soaring by. While changing the tube I found a small nail caused the flat tire. I used my third spare tube to replace the punctured one, so I will need to stop at a bike shop soon and buy a few more spare tubes, to be safe.

The route diverted this morning from the I94, so I don't have to worry anymore about having to use the interstate on my route. After I left Glendive I stayed all the way to Circle on MT 200S. So it was again one of those days where I didn't really needed my GPS. On MT 200S was quite some traffic and the conditions on the shoulder changed along the way. In some parts there was a wide shoulder and in other parts there was no shoulder at all. Fortunately I had my flat on a part of the route with a wide shoulder. The route had a constant slight increase in altitude over the first 35 miles of the route and on the rest of the route I lost most of the altitude gained in the first part of today's route again. There was only a really slight gradient, so it was not really challenging. The scenery along the way was similar to the last few days, but I couldn't really enjoy it, with all the rain.


Conclusion for the day:

A flat tire is never great, but having to change a flat in heavy rain on the side of the road is no fun at all.















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