The old man’s jaw dropped as his truck entered the pasture, on a dirt road some 20 miles south of Kila, and he took in the scene. More than 60 wool-clad people surrounded two picnic tables covered with baguettes, cured meats, pungent cheeses, wine and cigarettes. Some women wore long skirts. Some men wore primitive-looking leather helmets. They stood talking and laughing, their fingers slick from salami, topping off each other’s cups.
Scattered around them were dozens of bicycles, gleaming among the tall grass, almost none of which were built this century. The lugged steel frames bore odd names: Frejus, Ciocc and Mondonico. Their handlebars were wrapped in leather or cloth; the derailleurs appeared antique.
“Where’s your bike?” someone shouted at the man in the truck as he rolled past. He smiled and shook his head and said if he was younger, he would join in.
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Chance Cooke stands at the head of the crowd, before departing the Cottage Inn in Kila.. |
Shortly afterward, the bicyclists mounted up and continued on their 59-mile route from Kila to Hot Springs along U.S. Forest Service roads, the first day of the fourth annual Cino Heroica ride, which ran from Sept. 11-12. The following day cyclists returned via a slightly more direct route, making for a 110-mile round trip.
Begun in 2007 with seven people, the “Cino” is an underground celebration among local riders of an earlier era of European-style bicycle tours, when unpaved roads, steel-framed bikes and perilous conditions were the norm. The ride is based on a similar event held each year in Tuscany known as “L’Eroica,” which means, “The Heroes.” While European in its sensibilities, few places but Montana boast the hundreds of miles of backcountry roads necessary to pull off an event like the Cino Heroica.
The romance of this cycling era, before cigarettes and wool were supplanted by energy bars and spandex, is what draws riders to the Cino in numbers that have roughly doubled each year since it began. As Reed Gregerson, the event’s lead organizer, described it at various points during the weekend, the Cino is about riding with style. The bicycles are beautiful and the food is rich. There are no rules, and while several people rode aluminum-framed suspension mountain bikes, older, European road bikes are encouraged.
For my bicycle, a 1982 Peugot stripped of derailleurs and gears to make it a single-speed, I earned “Heroic” status from Cino organizers in the parking lot of Kila’s Cottage Inn prior to the ride’s commencement. While this status reassured me my bicycle was cool, a lack of gears was going to make the climbs harder. The first 18 miles up Browns Meadow Road really hammered that particular point home.
After lunch, the route took Flathead Mine Road to Crossover Road to Hubbard Dam Road. Along the way, we encountered steep, gravel descents; sandy, washed-out tire-sucking turns; and grazing cattle unsettled by the long train of cyclists rolling through. It’s one thing to ride such terrain with big tires and shocks, quite another to be bent over a rattling, 30-year-old road bike. Fortunately, Chianti and Parmigiano Reggiano fortify the nerves.
Over the course of the weekend, cyclists could be heard asking each other, “Are you feeling Cino?” a condition seemingly derived from some delicate internal balance of irreverence, leg fatigue and tobacco.
The pine forest eventually ceded to Sanders County’s hills. With minimal truck traffic, the pedaling was peaceful and the views of surrounding farms sweeping and pastoral. Because Cino isn’t a race, a cluster of riders often loitered atop every climb, snapping photos and talking, giving the ride the feel of a linear party stretching from Kila to Hot Springs.
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Reed Gregerson, left, one of the lead organizers of the Cino Heroica, pedals toward Hot Springs. |
But after nearly 60 miles, with quads cramping, it was a relief to see Hot Springs emerge behind the last hill. At the Alamedas Resort, where most riders were staying, the ceremony following dinner was in keeping with the Cino spirit, rewarding those who exemplified selflessness, grace and a sense of humor. Ron and Jan Brunk, of Glacier Cyclery, received the “Hero” award for their willingness to drive from Hot Springs to Marion to retrieve a small party of riders who took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up at the Hilltop Hitchin’ Post lounge in Marion.
Chance Cooke won the safety award for a hard crash he took en route to being the first to make it Hot Springs – on a fixed gear bike, no less (“Fixies” have no brakes and don’t coast; their speed is controlled entirely by the pedaling cadence). Stephanie Sunshine, who did the ride in a long skirt, boots and goggles, won “Most Stylish.”
And Marc Nadeau, who rode the entire day’s route on an old, purple, girls’ Galaxy Flyer, pedaling barefoot, won the “White Handlebar Tape” award for employing a means of conveyance that Gregerson said, “doesn’t make sense, but it looks cool.”
After dinner, the group retired to a plastic dome to watch a grainy documentary on the life of Jacques Anquetil, a Frenchman who was the first to win the Tour de France five times, beginning in 1957. Much of the film revolved around Anquetil’s capacity to consume steak, seafood, champagne and brandy until the wee hours, then crush his competitors the following day.
The next morning, soaking in one of the Symes Hotel’s pools, Gregerson lamented the modern absence of style possessed by cyclists in Anquetil’s era, who would win a race and then don a linen suit for the subsequent press conference. Somewhere in there lay the essence of Cino.
At 50 miles, Sunday’s return ride to Kila was shorter then Saturday, but harder, with a 6-mile sustained climb described by those who had ridden it before as “soul-searching.” Following a night in the Symes interrupted by a drunk man screaming, somewhere in Hot Springs at 2 a.m., that he “worked harder than anyone in this two-bit town” and was, apparently, “done,” I didn’t feel very rested.
But pedaling the Peugot north through the warming Hot Springs valley, a pang of regret crept in that the Cino Heroica was nearly done. It was just getting good. Lunch was leftovers: baguette, Brie, wine, olives, pepperoncini. I topped it off with a heavy slice of rum cake and hopped back on the bike, setting off alone.
The day was growing hot, just in time for the climb up the drainage, and passing several farms, I began to reenter forest. It was quiet, and looking around, easy to forget where I was: Montana or Europe, one of the two.