We met our group at the Armory Hotel, just 2 blocks from where we spent the night. There are 15 in our tour and it always fun to meet new people from all over the country. Now the hard part is memorizing their names! The leaders gave us a list of everyone's names, so Mark and I would quiz each other. We walked over to the local park, Beall, to explain the day's tour, our bikes, and road safety. Since our last tour, Backroads have added a GPS device (Wahoo) that is locked into the handlebars. It has the routes pre-programmed and we just have to follow it and not have to use a map. It would tell us when we had to turn and how long until the next turn. It made biking so much easier when you don't have to look down at the map to make sure you are heading in the correct direction. It also flashed when the turn was upon you or if you missed the turn.
It was a gorgeous morning and the light jackets that we were wearing, soon ended up in our packs. The morning ride was 34 miles with 1985 feet of elevation gain. The ride consisted highways, bike trails and a small road with few cars. The small road, Brackett Creek Road, had many ups and downs and with no cars we could coast down it at over 30 mph! The last picture is of the small road.
Lunch was a large picnic set up by the Backroads tour guides. This biking company always has a variety of lunch meats and salads for the bikers. The lunch was set up in Clyde Park which seemed to be a very small town, but they had a fantastic cafe and bakery just a block from the park. In the background, was the van driver for the day, Cale. The two guides switch off between bike riding with the group or driving a van with food and luggage. There was also an additional support van driver because of the number of people in our group.
After lunch, we took a short shuttle ride to bypass road construction. As we returned to our bikes on the shore of the Yellowstone River, we had an additional 21 miles of riding and an 894 foot elevation gain to the Sage Lodge where we would spend two nights. The Sage Lodge considers itself the ultimate Montana luxury resort. You can hike, bike, fly fish, or paddleboard in the lake At the restaurant, we had a condensed menu and Mark selected elk and I had salmon again.
The map of our biking:
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