In August of 2013 I participated in a 5-day, 500 mile ride from Bozeman, MT to the Salt Lake City, UT area. I arrived in Bozeman a couple days early to do explore Bozeman.
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| Bozeman, MT |
The day's route was built around the
Hyalite Canyon ride, which seems to be Bozeman's most popular ride when it comes to Internet searching. For the remainder of the ride I headed north on Bridger Canyon Rd/86. I started and ended at the Comfort Inn, which means I didn't even need to rent a car after I flew into BZN.
Riding out of Bozeman was simple enough. There wasn't too much traffic on my route and a lot of the roads had bike lanes.
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| Riding south out of Bozeman |
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| Heading towards Hyalite Canyon |
I passed a few fields and I had views of the mountains both to my left an to my right.
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| Looking towards Bozeman |
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| Looking towards Bozeman |
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| Getting closer to Hyalite Canyon Rd |
About 10 miles into the ride I made it to Hyalite Canyon Rd., which is where the real fun began. The ride to Hyalite Reservoir is about a 10-mile climb. The climb isn't very difficult (it's only about 1,300 feet over 10 miles), but the scenery is fantastic. As far as I'm concerned it's a must-ride if you're ever in Bozeman.
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| Just turned on to Hyalite Canyon Rd |
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| Hyalite Canyon |
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| Hyalite Canyon |
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| Hyalite Canyon |
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| Hyalite Canyon |
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| Hyalite Canyon |
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| Hyalite Reservoir |
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| Hyalite Reservoir |
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| Hyalite Reservoir |
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| From Hyalite Reservoir |
The downhill wasn't super fast because I had a headwind. That was fine with me, though, because I wanted to enjoy the scenery for a second time.
After I was done with Hyalite Canyon, I headed back towards Bozeman. I hit a little traffic in town, but I had a shoulder most of the way. I made my way to Bridger Canyon Rd/86, which turned out to be more scenic than anticipated. There wasn't always a shoulder on this road, but traffic was very light, so I have no problem recommending this portion of the route to anybody.
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| Bridger Canyon Rd- close to Bozeman |
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| Bridger Canyon Rd- close to Bozeman |
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| The big M |
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| Bridger Canyon Rd |
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| Bridger Canyon Rd |
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| Bridger Canyon Rd- close to the turnaround point |
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| Bridger Canyon Rd- close to the turnaround point |
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| Heading back to Bozeman |
I enjoyed the route. I picked the Bridger Canyon Rd section by default as the closest highway nearby to add in some extra miles after the Hyalite Canyon ride, but it ended up being a great stretch of road. The scenery was fantastic- much better than the pictures above illustrate. I recently entered the GPS world, so you can find a good copy of the route
here if you want to try it for yourself.
Montana is one of those states where one ride, no matter how good it may be on its own, is never enough. I could definitely see myself riding in Montana again in the future. Of the states I've ridden, I'd rank it as the #2 state (behind Alaska) I want to return to the most. I'd especially like to ride on
Going to the Sun Road.
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