Every morning, we roll out in silent acceptance of the fact that we don’t know what the day will bring. This involves our daily routes – there’s only so much an elevation graph and a line on a map can tell you. The team spent the majority of today on Interstate 90 (I-90), which you’d think would be dull but was in reality quite enjoyable. As we inched closer and closer to our destination in Buffalo, the snowy peaks of the Bighorn National Forest beckoned to us. It was surreal to watch them grow bigger with each pedal stroke, especially with the knowledge that we would be going up them the next day. Although tomorrow is going to throw a lot of climbing at us, we know it’ll challenge us in ways that’ll ultimately improve our riding – plus, we’ll also be doing our first camping day! Apologies if you don’t hear from us for a while, dear readers.
Ride Overview
Mileage: 67.5
Elevation: 3,178’
Ride Dedication: Carrie Ivicic, the mother of Lucas’s friend and a breast cancer survivor.
Points of Interest: I-90!
quote(s) of the day
“Britney Spears is who Shakespeare wishes he could’ve been.” - Kavin
“If you catch one, you can keep it in the van!” - Lucas, upon seeing a herd of wild turkeys
tales of the trail
We started today with Neal’s morning activity: “Throw Shoe, Bite Leaf” Yes, it's exactly what it sounds like. Everyone lined up in a parking lot, and when Neal tossed up Olaf’s shoe, we all raced to the nearest leaf and bit it before the poor shoe hit the ground. A few airborne shoes and chewed-up leaves later, Joey emerged victorious. It’s always entertaining to imagine what some of our morning activities look like to the average person walking by.
The team in the midst of a round of “Throw Shoe, Bite Leaf” — note the speck in the sky that is Olaf’s cycling cleat and Joey running the opposite direction in a clever strategy to bite the leaves of the closer tree (no wonder he won).
Izzy, Maaike, and Claudia as our van crew for the day!
After adorning our bikes with the colorful fresh flowers that our stayover host kindly gave us, we set off onto I-90. The first few miles of ordinary grassy hills filled us with a little dread for what was to come, but then we saw them – the Bighorn Mountains, surrounded by endless blankets of dry, shrubby hills. In all their vastness, they never left our sight for the entire day. Seeing snow in early July was a new and exciting experience, one that we find gets more and more frequent as we make our way to the unfamiliar West.
Olaf + Bike + Flowers = Happiness.
Lucas embraces his inner country boy.
We patiently scaled slight and gradual hills with general ease (a testament to our increased collective strength at this point of the ride), which were followed by long descents that gave us a moment to drink in the horizon ahead of us. Interstate riding can turn our jersey pockets into somewhat of a junkyard – some groups pulled over a few times to inspect the odd license plate or shattered phone here or there. Anything for some entertainment.
Emma, Lucas, and Anthony make their way to the mountains.
The team biked at a good pace and arrived at our lovely stayover, St. Luke's Lutheran Church with enough time for us to do some local exploring, bike maintenance, movie watching (tonight’s pick was “My Cousin Vinny”), and more. A huge thank you to our hosts for donating dinner and doing our laundry – a luxury, with our upcoming camping day tomorrow night.
In the best way possible, nothing about this ride is normal when you really think about it, including the fact that we sleep in a new town almost every night under a new roof. We’re intrigued to see how camping will add a new dimension to our post-ride routine, as well as to spend time with the amazing natural landscapes we’ve been passing by in a more intimate way. Stay tuned for some spotty updates (assume Maaike and I are frolicking around a lake and eating s’mores in the time being).
Shoutout to Susan from Gillette for telling us about this awesome mural!
Lucas and Olivia being the most fashionable ride leaders there are.
Cyclist’s Corner
Today’s Rider: Neal Linden
How are you feeling today?
Today I’m pretty tired. Sleeping in was nice, but I wasn’t used to it, so I just like woke up at the normal time and couldn’t go back to sleep. But the interstate was very pretty, but kind of bland. Solid six out of ten day.
You’ve fundraised thousands of dollars for our cause. What has been the most impactful fundraising experience you’ve had?
I went to CSL Plasma a lot. I would sit there and just scroll through Instagram reels while it was sucking my blood, I spent so much time on Instagram reels. We went canning on Dad’s Weekend, and it was really fun just selling snacks to [people]. We got to meet a couple of athletes on campus who were very interesting to talk to. It was really fun selling snacks with you guys.
What keeps you going when it gets difficult to put in all of those miles or even to get on the bike?
What I kind of think about lately is that, my bike is like, breaking, and we can’t have parts, so I’m biking as much as I can before Dylan needs his parts that I utilized back. I’m gonna bike on them as much as I can. Also, I remember the 110 day in Minnesota, I was like dying, but I wanted to do the full 110 [miles] or whatever we did with all the detours. I was like “this ain’t nothing.” I was like, “it’s just fourth quarter football, that’s all it is…it’s fourth quarter, we’re playing Sterling-Newman, we’re down three.” It was a good game, that was a really good game… But I think back to how hard football was, and I’m like, “this ain’t nothing.” [Biking] low key is kind of harder sometimes, because this goes on for way longer.
Do you have a favorite accessory to wear with your ride uniform?
Bandanas. Every day. I’ve added so many — I think I have like 14 now — I have so many bandanas and socks. I’ve stopped doing laundry for them until we get to rest days, just because I have so many. They don’t take up much space. But dude, I love bandanas. The Pit Vipers are one of the greatest investments I’ve made in my life. They protect my eyes, while also protecting my ego, wearing my little bike helmet, because I get to have cool Pit Vipers to balance it out. If I lose my Pitties, I’m going home and not finishing the ride. Dead serious. I’m not doing it without them.
What’s your rest stop routine?
Ideally, what I should do, is get off the bike, do pushups, fill my water bottles, eat, Chamois Butt’r, go. What I do do, is I get off my bike, I usually talk to people for about five minutes, then I lay down on the ground for probably 15 minutes — just exist horizontally for a while, sometimes I fall asleep and sometimes I don’t — usually if I fall asleep, someone wakes me up and they’re like “we gotta go,” so I’m like, “okay.” So then I flip over, then I do my pushups, then I fill my bottles, then take snacks for the road because they’re trying to get me to leave… Every time I ride with Logan, at exactly mile 60, I pull out a Tootsie Pop, and I ask him “hey Logan, how many licks do you think it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll at the center of a Tootsie Pop?” I always wait until mile 60. I did it one time…he just started dying, and I ended up riding with him for three days in a row after that, so I just kept doing it.
In the remaining portion of the ride, where are you looking forward to visiting the most?
First time I said Eugene, Oregon, I remember that because there’s some restaurant that has a hamburger challenge that I wanted to do. Also, very recently, I found out that Ed, who’s biking across the country, his sister owns a sporting goods store in Eugene, Oregon that he told us to go to. So that’s like, everything coming together in Eugene, Oregon. I don’t even know where else we’re going. Thermopolis, I hear has hot springs…and it’s a very well named town.
Anything else you want to talk about?
I’ve had these bibs in my bag the entire trip that I’ve had as a spare, right? And I wore them today, because our other bibs [didn’t dry], so I wore the spare bibs today. They were the most uncomfortable, I forgot how uncomfortable they were! All day, I’m sitting here just like, urgh. Those bibs sucked. Also, I’m really excited to finish the movie “My Cousin Vinny.” I wanna find out if they’re innocent or not. It’s such a good movie… So if my mom reads these journals, hopefully she’ll watch it, because it’s a good movie. I’m gonna start quoting it. Shout out mom.
(A reminder that any unfamiliar terms can be found in our handy I4K dictionary.)