Two Wheels on my Wagon (13 page)

My fear of bears, whether real or perceived (the bears, that is, not the fear – that was very real), had been so all-consuming that I had neglected to worry about mountain lions. This was clearly an error.

‘How big is a mountain lion?' I asked, trying to gauge the prominence to give them in my informal animal-anxiety ranking.

‘Oh, plenty big enough,' said N-O-R-D, pointing to a skin on the wall of the stairwell. It was 5 foot long, excluding the tail. I didn't fancy trying to grapple with it, even if it was only a rug. Nevertheless, it was significantly smaller than the grizzly skin next to it that had belonged to an animal shot in 1948.

After settling in, I followed N-O-R-D's advice to head another 200 yards to the other edge of town for dinner at Trixie's (truth be told, competition was strictly limited). It had previously occupied centre stage in the middle of the town, but the coming of the state highway had inspired a move to catch the trade from passing motorists. As a result, the original Trixie's had become the museum, while the restaurant itself was now housed in a former barracks imported from Helena. The eponymous founder had apparently been a daredevil horsewoman famous for her bareback tricks (the horse was bareback, that is, not the rider – had it been the other way round her fame might have been even more widespread).

The atmosphere was convivial. I sat at the bar and uncomprehendingly watched baseball on the TV. A few locals played pool while some more itinerant guests quietly ate their burgers to a country soundtrack.

The lady behind the bar took my order. Having now seen all that Ovando had to offer, I asked her what it was about the town that justified a museum.

‘Not much,' she replied. ‘It just tells you about the history, the logging and ranching, that sort of thing. There are a lot of old pictures.'

It used to be quite a bit bigger, she continued, pointing out that at Ovando's height there had been more than 200 inhabitants, before adding, a touch wistfully: ‘And we had our own dance hall. They also thought about bringing the railroad through the valley but then they decided against it.'

My history lesson was disturbed by the arrival of another visitor to the bar who started talking embarrassingly at cross-purposes with a much younger female acquaintance about his relationship concerns. I devoured my excellent burger listening intently but discreetly to this real-life soap opera. Any lingering yearning for
moules frites
and the Mediterranean had by now been completely dispelled.

L
eaving Ovando the next morning was a chore. It was another frigid, pre-dawn start. My gloves had proved themselves to be singularly inadequate for sub-zero temperatures, and holding onto the handlebars with unfeeling hands took a conscious effort. The air was dead still, but the unavoidable wind chill generated by riding at 15 mph froze my gritted teeth into a malevolent grin. As I rode across the broad valley bottom, through pockets of icy patches, I disturbed a herd of female whitetail deer. They cantered away across the surrounding farmland, and I lamented my departure. I would gladly have swapped yesterday's time travel for the ability to beam up my family to share the experience of such a delightful relic from a different age. The town sign had been right: it was genuinely a ‘Jewel of the Blackfoot Valley'.

The farmland came to an end after an hour, but not before I had to answer a call of nature. Up to this point in the ride, the need for discretion had not been great and cover had been readily available. Now, in the middle of a wide, open valley, I was confounded by not only a complete absence of trees but also a passing farm truck that materialised from nowhere just after I had concluded I was safe to proceed. The look on the driver's face was as cold as the morning.

The wooded climb of Huckleberry Pass at last began to provide an antidote to the chill. The forest retained the appealing, open character of yesterday evening. There was none of the accompanying Mediterranean warmth, however; I was heading east, and the sun was yet to rise over the crest of the pass. Nothing stirred. The only sound came from my wheels as they crunched over the gravel.

I worked my way up to a small tarn in which the surrounding trees were perfectly mirrored. Then came the top of the pass, a narrow defile between the rocky peaks to either side. I paused to take in the altered view. Lower-lying ground had now taken the upper hand in its tussle with the mountains. Rather than the topography being dominated by endless mountain ranges and the corresponding valleys in between, such mountains as there were now stood like islands in a patchwork sea. Big, rocky islands, it should be emphasised, and there were still plenty of them, but they were no longer linked together in the succession of ridges that had dominated the scenery since Banff.

The descent to Lincoln was straightforward, and I was looking forward to a second breakfast in what I had anticipated would be a charming town of a reasonable size and with plenty of services. The reality was rather different. For a start, Lincoln had a rather dubious claim to fame, having been the home of Theodore Kaczynski, the psychopathic Unabomber, who lived alone in a nearby cabin without electricity or running water. It was an uncomfortable irony that I was now appreciating the same wilderness in which he had once lived and the protection of which from industrialisation had inspired him to three murders through his near twenty-year campaign of letter bombs.

On closer inspection the town consisted of no more than a crossroads, the branches of which were populated by half a dozen motels, a couple of diners, a post office and two gas stations with convenience stores attached. And JR's Taxidermy Studios (‘Mounts on Show!'); just as long as they hadn't taken to stuffing cyclists. It ill behoves a rider on the Tour Divide to moan about such a broad array, but somehow Lincoln's practical benefits were outweighed by its sombre ambience. The forest seemed to have thickened again and its tentacles had enveloped the town.

Or maybe it was just me. Progress had been good and the scenery stunning, but I felt listless. Glum, even. Maybe Ovando had been too welcoming. Maybe I needed to avoid such creature comforts in order to better endure the rigours of the ride. I used the payphone at a gas station to call home and relay how much fun I had been having. Clearly I was not very convincing.

‘But you're doing so well,' said Catherine, unprompted.

‘Am I? I mean, I am?'

‘Yes! You're not far from catching a group ahead of you, and there are still people behind you. Benjamin's very proud – you're not last.'

‘Oh,' I said.

It seemed churlish to take offence at the surprise that had accompanied this last remark. I, too, had come to the conclusion that all those further back would have had the good sense to give up and go home. I had assumed the
Lanterne Rouge
was mine for the taking.

‘And everybody here is addicted to watching your blue dot on the website, so you'd better keep moving.'

People outside my immediate family were watching li'l ol' me? Almost instantly I was transformed, in my own perception at least, from lonely wanderer to mountain bike racer with a global fan club, an ambassador for adventurers the world over. Did the good people of Lincoln – which by now seemed a much more charming place – know who I was, I wondered, as the gas station complemented my spiritual nourishment with more practical sustenance. Fortunately the question remained rhetorical.

I breakfasted on the porch: two pies, two pastries, two chocolate bars, two cups of coffee but only one banana.

‘That sure saves on fuel,' said a man, motioning to my bike, not what I was consuming. ‘It's costing me a fortune these days.'

I noticed that the truck to which he returned after buying his groceries had been left with its throbbing V8 engine running all the time he'd been inside. It seemed wise not to say anything.

Replenished, I resumed my journey. It was just after 10 a.m. High clouds obscured half the sky, but the weather seemed set fair. The aim of the day was to reach Helena, Montana's state capital and one of the biggest settlements on the entire route. In the intervening 65 miles there were two major climbs, not to mention the first three US crossings of the Continental Divide itself. There were also several sections of route described on the map as ‘rough'.

The first of these materialised after less than an hour.

‘Next 4.4 miles are extremely steep uphill, but they lead through fascinating country with several stream crossings,' read the description.

‘Extremely steep' turned out to be an understatement. It was also stretching a point to suggest the admittedly delightful woodland, though perhaps not fascinating, was sufficient distraction. Previously, with the exception of the connector, all stints of bike-pushing had been brought on by seasonal modifications to the underlying terrain: snow; mud; overflowing streams; fallen trees. Here, it was necessary to push because of the underlying terrain. Not only was it steep, but the trail consisted almost exclusively of a succession of boulders, some fixed, most not. It was tiring work.

At the top, the reward was to traverse a flower-strewn meadow to the east side of the Continental Divide for the first time since before crossing Elk Pass in Canada. I staged a photo of relief masquerading as joyous celebration. Then came a freewheeling descent, through a noticeably more arid landscape, that immediately paralleled the nascent Marsh Creek. It seemed quite feasible, and almost equally appealing, to swap the bike for a canoe and continue downhill all the way to the Mississippi delta. At the junction with Little Prickly Pear Creek, however, our routes diverged. Huckleberry Finn would have to be left for another day.

It was nearing midday. I treated myself to an apple pie. Quite why such a simple dish required a list of ingredients that covered the entire back of the packet was a mystery, not least because most of the ingredients were either unidentifiable or unpronounceable, or both. It was delicious.

What goes down must go back up. Another hour-long climb, rideable this time, returned me to the western side of the Divide. It also heralded another change in scenery. I was now in mining country. Or, to be more accurate, I was in what had once been mining country.

So far every habitation on the route had been predicated on exploiting the area's natural resources. Most owed their existence to primary industries, mainly logging and agriculture; only Banff and Whitefish had transcended this reliance, though being service centres for visiting tourists ensured the essential link with their surroundings was unbroken.

Here it was mineral wealth. The precariousness of such a dependence was abundantly clear. Remnants of mining camps and the mines themselves dotted the scarred landscape. Not all of Montana was so fortunate in its abandonment as Ovando. I rode alongside a giant, crumbling lime kiln. It was as if a modern Ozymandias had briefly passed this way, but his legacy was no longer lasting than that of his ancient counterpart.

‘Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.'

Here, the despair was not just the dilapidation wrought on such mighty constructions in scarcely 100 years. It was also the despoliation of the surrounding landscape that would take much longer to heal.

The day's final crossing of the Divide was a simple affair, the route for once having deigned to remain near the crest of the ridge between passes. The roughness of the trail persisted, however. Boulders vied with ruts and roots to cause havoc to passing cyclists. It came as something of a surprise, therefore, to turn a corner and find a man ostensibly mending the track ahead. Alone, and bereft of such modern conveniences as a digger, I suggested he had his work cut out; an Ozymandias for straitened times.

‘Oh, I'll just keep doing a bit here and a bit there.'

He may not have been much of a road builder but he was a considerable mountain-bike enthusiast. Although appearing to be well into his 60s, he had recently ridden more than 300 miles off-road across Iowa, and warmed visibly to my description of events so far.

‘Say, when I get this ol' rock moved you could come and stay at my house. I've plenty of room and you could give the bike a once-over.'

It was a kind offer, but his house was 7 miles off-route, which seemed too high a price to pay. More importantly, an innate fear, fuelled by Hollywood, of psychopaths haunting just such locations to lure unsuspecting passers-by to meet a gruesome end, possibly later to be featured on an extreme reality TV show, was another factor in my decision to decline. He took it well, and showed no ill-feeling by recommending I stop at Van's Thriftway supermarket on the way into town for supplies.

The rest of the descent into Helena passed almost too rapidly, dropping 2,000 feet in 15 miles and half an hour, most on the smooth tarmac of US Highway 12. It seemed like a cruel taxation on the day's efforts thus far, though no doubt I would have plenty of opportunity to earn it again tomorrow.

The outskirts of town marked the beginning of 2 miles of hideous strip development – a procession of prefabricated showrooms selling everything from air-conditioning to real estate, interrupted only by parking lots and the streets of the town's grid layout. Weeds grew in the cracks in the sidewalk. The sun, up till now a benign presence, began to beat a tattoo on the bleached, dusty concrete. And on my head.

I came to Van's. Like its neighbours, it appeared cheap and not overly cheerful. A boy scout standing at the entrance selling popcorn to raise funds to attend a jamboree agreed to watch over my bike while I went inside. The first priority was to replenish my depleted stock of elastic bands, which I used to hold various bits of kit together. I asked a passing shop worker where I might find some.