Cell Service
Missoula, MT to Ovando, MT
54 miles or so
I am spending tonight in jail. It's just after 10 o'clock and through the bars on the window I can still see the neon oranges and yellows of a sun setting behind the jagged teeth of Glacier. I'm in the town of Ovando, Montana (elev: 4250; pop: about 50). The bike, my faithful companion, rests against the chains holding up the bed (a 2' x 7' fir rectangle with twine gridded at 6" intervals to suspend the sleeping bag, the thermarest, and, in just a short bit, me). Beyond all this, I also have an outlet, lamp and desk. I am in paradise. At the moment, the bike and I are the one-room jail's sole occupants but based on how the night's been progressing, I wouldn't be surprised to see company. Tonight, Ovando is bustling.
In wigwams and covered wagons, overflowing from the inn and trixie's up on the hill, a group of mountain bikers has taken over town. A few were here when I arrived, and there's been a new arrival or two every hour since. At this point, they've survived 5 days of one of the most grueling races in the world: a 2,800 mile sprint along the continental divide from Banff to the Mexican border. At the vanguard, a handful of men ride for roughly 24 hours a day and complete the trek in less than 2 weeks. The group that's here now, these guys say they're taking it easy. They ride at least 15 hours a day, starting around 4 am, and will likely arrive at the border in about 20 days. Today, since I started to pedal just after noon, we finished our rides at about the same time.
On recent nights in freezing rains, they've climbed vertical mountainfaces carrying their bikes behind them, fallen asleep on hours-long predawn descents, and been driven off the road by territorial diesels. And yet, each of them is sweeter and more gregarious than the others. They invited me to their table at trixie's, where we all feasted on burgers and beer. Though our routes run perpendicular and I've had a near-constant tailwind on my paved roads, they sought genuine parallel in our adventures thus far, in what happens to the mind and body when both are extracted from their networks and given a singular task. And Ovando, it turns out, adores its itinerant cyclists. Among other things, it has restored some of its pioneer-days structures to offer dry places to sleep for the night. That's how I lucked out with this 120-year-old jail. Speaking of, it's lights out. Big day tomorrow.
At this point of intersection, I met another Jay. He's riding a single speed across the continental divide
