Responding to Some Questions

Ted Z. recently asked a number of "technical" questions about the ride. I cannot find his original email, but will respond to as many of them as I can remember.

1. What's my average speed? Only about 9 miles an hour, overall. Some days I will average a bit higher, such as 10 or 11 miles an hour, but many days are much slower. Maybe this will increase as I get into a flatter part of the country.

2. Do my arms get tired from being in the same position all the time? I haven't noticed any significant arm soreness. I do change my grip frequently, so my arm position frequently changes. I never ride in a "tucked" position for very long, and normally am in a semi-upright position with my hands at the front of the dropped handlebars, by the brake levers.

3. What is the maximum speed I have hit? 50.5 mph. I am not a daredevil, and normally I am braking continually on steep descents. On the second day of my trip I was on a nice straight descent on a good road, without other traffic, and let my speed build up to 39.8 mph, at which point the bike was shimmying and I slowed down. Various other times I was in the range of 40 to 41 miles an hour. Then, last week on my way into Great Falls I found that I had hit 44.3 miles an hour on a smooth downhill run. A few days later, going from Great Falls to Fort Benton, I was descending a long straight hill on a smooth surfaced road, with a nice tail-wind, and was surprised to look down and see that I was going 45 mph; so I got into a more streamlined position and let the speed creep up to 50.5 mph before slowing down. I felt very comfortaable and secure on the bike at this speed, but I doubt that I will exceed that, and have no particular desire to do so.

Court P. asked a couple of questions:

1. On a hot day, have I ever been tempted to jump into one of the waterways that I have photographed? No....and the reason is that in most cases the swim would involve climbing down a steep bank to the river, then wading out through rocks into a fast moving current of ice-cold water. I think if I passed an actual "swimming hole," I would be tempted.

2. Have I thought about how my life would have been different if I had been raised in Montana instead of on the East Coast? Or if I had married a Montanan and settled out here? Yes...I don't think you can help wonder about such things. And for me personally I have often wondered what life would have been like if Leslie and I had decided to stay in Alaska, as I had somewhat wanted to do, after getting out of the Army. It is interesting to speculate about such things. I don't know the answer, but suspect that I would be pretty much the same person, but with some different interests. If I were to move to Montana in the future, I know one thing that would change: I would definitely learn to fish!