June 26- Sheridan to Ennis, MT

Lack of access to wifi or a good phone connection has kept me offline on this blog for the last few days, but now I have a chance to catch up.  I kept notes, but next few posts may be a bit sketchy.

A few miles out of Sheridan, we noticed a ticking in the rear wheel. Inspection revealed that the edge of the wheel's rim was bent outward. Worse, there was a crack in the rim where it was bent. I had a weak but useable phone signal, so I called Bike Friday, the bike's manufacturer. Talk about customer service: Phil at Bike Friday punched in my name and immediately knew the specs on our bike. He said they would build a new wheel that day, and Fed Ex it to the nearest bike shop, at West Yellowstone, two days ahead.  Meanwhile, we would limp ahead and hope the damaged wheel lasted those two days.

Our route took us through Virginia City, a touristy western boomtown, and up 1000' to a mountain pass which has no name but deserves one. After the top, we took the downhill very cautiously, not wanting to be going fast if the damaged wheel broke entirely. That was the descent where we'd set our personal top speed, 55 mph, years ago. We'd been looking forward to riding it again, and were frustrated not to be able to enjoy the fast downhill.

We reached Ennis, a pretty frontier town. After a shower and a nap, we went to dinner at the best restaurant in town- at the bowling alley. Breakfast the next morning was at the best cafe in town- at the pharmacy.

3 weeks of riding, total 1050 miles.

An out-of sequence picture. At Badger Pass, between Wisdom and Dillon, I took this shot back at the Big Hole valley. I'm including it because we noticed there are a couple of animals in the picture we didn't see when we took it. Can you see them?