Courting on a Bike
A Montana love story.
I met Montana on my bike.
In late June, my Minnesota legs and lungs took me on a whirlwind four-day courtship with 186 miles of southwest Montana's roads. It took mere hours to recognize this was a love story in the making.
Three days after pulling up to our new Bozeman home, my husband and I ventured out on the “Pedals for Peas” fundraising ride from Helena back to Bozeman. Before letting our sea-level bodies properly adjust to mountainous exercise or beer-drinking, we heartily engaged in both. We heard that’s what good Montanans do. I signed up for this ride as a novice multi-day cyclist, begging my Midwestern running legs to surprise me with latent mountain power. In truth, the ride served as a plea to feel at home in Montana: to meet her people and her landscape and, I hoped, to discover I belonged among them. And with hardly a greeting, the Last Best Place laid out its cards for my blue Bianchi and me.
On day one Montana showed us the 56 miles between Helena and Townsend (do the math, and you’ll know we went the long way): miles as wide as they were long, shaping a Big Sky sensation of both connectedness and anonymity. Every yard along Canyon Ferry Road sparked anticipation for the next: fluorescent wildflowers around one bend, unforeseen hills around the next, trees blanketing each turn. The ride culminated at the breathtaking bridge above the Canyon Ferry Dam, a soothing sight for the water-starved eyes of a transplant from the land of 10,000 lakes.
At our first night’s destination, we savored a taste of small-town Montana hospitality. The good people of Townsend provided ample ingredients for carbo-loading and Scotch ale–downing. The road through the Helena National Forest brought us to White Sulphur Springs on day two. The stunning pines helped me fight off resentment over the 22-mile climb. But like a woman finally free of labor pains, I overlooked the uphill punishment as we gleefully dove downhill in the final miles. As we closed in on our northbound turnoff, a quick photo-op turned into our afternoon’s entertainment: a modest clump of curious cows became hundreds of cattle, distant beasts sashaying their way through their pasture to greet us.
Arriving in White Sulphur, we soaked our weary bodies in the namesake waters amid stories of Ivan Doig and swigs of Montucky. The townsfolk once again fed us with food as hearty as their hospitality. In contrast to day two, some of our tour-mates dared call day three’s ride “boring” with its minimal grades and consistent landscape. Two days earlier, I never would have imagined calling a 42-mile ride dull. But thus we began observing the unquenchable spirit of Montana’s adventurers, our bodies wondering whatever happened to serene paddling in the Boundary Waters.
Wilsall housed our last evening, its people more than worthy of grand finale status. Our host church provided a succulent banquet, complete with a Ringling Five-style singalong co-led by one of the band’s members. We sang along with our hosts as they recited their community’s anthem, an ode to the dearly departed of Wilsall.
The final leg offered no quiet ending to our maiden Montana voyage, as the 10-percent grade earned us stories to share with our new neighbors. Nearing the top of Bozeman Pass and not yet six days after moving to Montana, I genuinely wondered whether I had left my mind and my ability to breathe behind in Minneapolis.
Four days prior, I'd embarked on these 186 miles in search of a new home. Now, amidst the waving fields of wheat and herds of cattle, I knew I'd found one. Sure, the dramatic grades posed worthy challenges to my ill-trained hamstrings, sparking a yearning in my legs for the flatland lakes of yore. But the ever-present postcard views beckoned me onward: theatrical ranches to the right, dancing antelope to the left, jagged mountaintops stabbing the sky to the front. On each path we met the senses we now call home: the lusty tones of the Ringling Five, the mellow soothing of post-adventure pints, the sweet aroma of Russian olives. As we settle into Bozeman, these textures will remain with us, hopefully for years to come.
