DAY 5 – Basin to Wise River (80.9miles)

After Bruce’s morning classic he rejoins Matt and I on the highway a few miles from Butte. The Outdoorsman bike shop is right on the route and draws us in. I consider road bar tape, new gloves, socks and shorts, but for some reason decided not to make any fast purchases in the end. What a mistake! Bruce wants to get his bike serviced so Matt and I go on the food hunt. We eat pizza on the floor outside the shop. I love stopping on a ride to eat sitting in the street with friends. Who needs tables, these are the best meals.

The guys in the Outdoorsman bike shop tell me Alex was in two hours ago and is hurting and thinking about giving up. I just think Alex is another guy caught out by going at it too hard out the gates and he won’t last the distance.

In the Butte supermarket I manage to get some strapping tape to layer on the sole of my left foot. My shoes are well past their replacement day and I can feel the rectangular cleat hole through the insole and it’s pressing and rubbing on an old injury making every pedal stoke painful.

On Fleecer ridge I get the compass out and have no problem spotting the solitary fence. I head over to it and continue down, but as it gets steeper and steeper I decide this is no place to prove my technical skills and get off to walk the bike down, which turns out to be difficult enough.

We all arrive together into Wise River at about 7pm and I’m split with wanting to head on, or put in the whole 140 miles to Lima tomorrow. At the store I’m on the hunt for calories, and find something called ‘half and half’, a pint of half milk and half cream mix and about 600 calories a go. I drink three pints of it and tell Bruce he’s pissing in the wind with his Gatorade. But then I can’t eat my dinner in the café with three pints of fat in my stomach – lesson learnt. The waitress in the café tells us about the giant Australian that was here two hours ago. During dinner we decide to head for Lima tomorrow and I’m racked with guilt about only riding 80miles and finishing the day so early. I get my clothes washed though after 8 days on the trail. While waiting for our room to be cleaned I chat with the bar/motel owner who has some good stories.