Day 3 brought the highest point of the whole trip so far, and it started with cold feet. Everything was dew-covered getting into the tent, and I was glad I’d brought the 20 degree quilt over the 40, and Klement wins that one. Coffee in town, then the big climb, and it went better than I’d feared. We skipped the off-road bit of the route, and I thought the summit was done only to find there was still five hundred meters left, which made the last leg more taxing. I took breaks, but I still finished well ahead of the others. The descent after was the trade-off: my hands went stiff pulling the brakes, the traffic was busy, and the road threw bumps and potholes at us.
Klement was waiting at a turnoff before the bottom and talked us back up a similar grade for a kilometer to a trailhead restaurant. I complained, but it sat right on a stream and was worth it. Downhill most of the rest of the day, with enough hills to keep the legs honest. Then bad news: Mike realized his frame was cracked, and the rental outfitter pointed us to a bike shop for a replacement. His Garmin started going off route late in the day too, adding stress we didn’t need. We got into camp before sunset, and Mike rushed off to the bike shop before it closed while Klement and I settled in.
The shop didn’t have a replacement frame, so they zip-tie reinforced it to keep it functional for now. Mike’s worried it might snap under weight when he leans on it. We showered fast and walked into town, ending up at one of the few restaurants still open after eight, a Hong Kong place where we ordered by writing numbers on a pad, the staff barely knowing Slovenia at all. Back at camp, Klement spent half an hour talking a drunk local out of driving home; the staff didn’t offer to call the police and clearly haven’t learned to refuse him service. And coming back to our tents we found the one next to us trashed by a human or an animal, so we helped pick it up.
Tomorrow was all rain, so we booked a three-bed room at the next camp, knowing we’d pack up wet, ride wet, set up wet, and be wet through another night.
Day 4 surprised us: the rain started later than expected and we packed up dry by 6 AM. Oh well. Coffee, more rain, charging everything. We booked the room on the assumption it would still be raining when we got in, and packed the tent wet hoping we’d get a chance to dry it later. We debated a longer, less-hilly route given the late and rainy start, but stuck with the original plan. Slow morning, a pre-ride meal at the camp to try to dodge the heaviest of it, and we finally bit the bullet and rolled out around noon, still in the rain.
Just outside of town came my biggest recorded climb in Strava (I don’t have the data from 2012 Montana), and it went well. I had to shed my rain jacket almost immediately for overheating, and mercifully the rain stopped right around the same time. There was a nice plateau about midway before the climbing picked back up, and because the day was wet, we were climbing higher than the weather, up into the clouds themselves. It was a sparse day in terms of cars, tourists, food, and beer, but the climb roads were outstanding.
My left knee keeps getting worse, the same issue as all of my past tours. I can’t tell if my feet float too much, or I’m not stretching, or the bike fit is wrong. Klement was uneasy about the route coming into the day and had his own knee and back pain, but in the end I think he appreciated that we stuck with the original plan. The descents would have been awful if it had rained all day; there was even a technical downhill gravel section in there.
The place we’re staying is nice, not a boarding house but a proper bed-and-dinner place. I got a separate bedroom while Mike and Klement share twin beds. Airing everything out has been worth it. Dinner was expensive, slow food that left me a little hungry. Tomorrow looks like a long, mostly valley-grinding ride with a hilly ramp up at the end.
Across the two days the stats tell a story. Day 3 came in at 45.78 miles and 4,196 feet of gain under four hours of rolling, a touch under 11.3 mph average. Day 4 was shorter but sharper at 35.22 miles and 4,619 feet at a hard-earned 9 mph average, and it held my biggest recorded climb. The ratio of climbing to miles jumped, but it felt better than the numbers.