I set off a little later this morning from Missoula, it was the first night back in Mountain Time so the clock time was later, but I woke up to rain showers which I wanted to pass. As I cycled out of Missoula it showered on me a couple more times before the rain clouds finally blew away to the mountains.

The entire day I cycled up Bitterroot valley, with Bitterroot River flowing down the middle and Bitterroot Mountain Range towering over me on one side and Sapphire Mountain Range on the other. In 80 miles of riding only the last 8 or so was shared with traffic, and by that point the road is more remote and the traffic is lighter. From Missoula to Hamilton there’s a dedicated bikeway for 45 miles, while it’s not shared with cars it does parallel the 4 lane highway so I put my headphones in and listened to podcasts to drain out the traffic noise.

From Hamilton I took the Old Darby Road alternate, which is a well compacted gravel road with pretty much no traffic, and from Darby there are wide shoulders on the road until it finally starts getting into the headwaters of the Bitterroot. Tonight I’m sleeping next to a fork of the Bitterroot River, and tomorrow I’ll climb up and cross over the pass to the other side.

Montana has much faster speed limits than I’m used to, many of the roads have been 70 mph, even in the mountain sections. In California these would be no faster than 55. Montana also has different speed limits for day and night, the 70 mph sections are posted 65 mph at night.

As of today I’ve been cycling for exactly 2 weeks, and my wheels haven’t stopped rolling since I left Astoria. I’ve done almost exactly 1,050 trail miles, almost exactly a quarter of the total distance. So far every day has taken me through varied and beautiful scenery, quaint little towns, 3 states, and 2 timezones, I’ve met interesting people along the way, and really in every way it has exceeded my expectations. I’m not sure I’ll be half distance in another 2 weeks, but I should be close.