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Hilltop Wind - RATPOD
Ride Around The Pintlers in One Day.
It’s a little before eight in the morning and I’m climbing
out of Dillon, Montana, on County Road 278. To the north are
the Pioneers, a compact hump of a mountain range still
capped in snow. To the south, an expanse of green foothills
falls away to a smaller jumble of peaks. Ahead, a narrow
stretch of asphalt twists and rises up into a cloudless June
sky, then disappears between two rock outcroppings.
My truck downshifts as it labors up the pass. Son Volt’s
“Windfall” is playing on the radio. I give thanks, to no one
in particular, that I am not on a bike. As I crest the pass,
I look ahead and see a lone rider in a yellow jersey. Head
tucked, hands shoved forward, knees pulled in tightly
against his bike frame, he is in a freefall ride down the
mountain’s backside — a neon peregrine in full dive. As the
hill flattens, I catch up and pass him. His legs begin to
pump steadily, working to carry speed off the big descent
and into the next climb. Son Volt hits the “Windfall” chorus
“May the wind take your troubles away . . . may the wind
take your troubles away . . .”
RATPOD stands for Ride Around The Pioneers in One Day. It’s
a ride created to benefit Camp Mak-A-Dream, a camp for kids
and young adults with cancer. The ride route swings north
and west out of Dillon and into Jackson, then follows the
Big Hole River as it boomerangs around the southern shoulder
of the Pioneer Mountains. Eventually, riders turn back to
the south and into Dillon, ending where they began. It
sounds difficult even before you know the statistics — four
major climbs, 7,200 feet of elevation gain, 157 miles, one
day.
I continue to follow the route, having passed all of the
nearly 400 riders. I coast through the town of Jackson and
into Wisdom, stopping to place a sign that points the way to
portable restrooms in the post office parking lot. Leaving
Wisdom, the road finds the Big Hole River. It’s a little
flat, slow and thin for a fisherman’s liking up here, but as
I drive along I study the seams and riffles for rise rings
anyway.
Twenty-four miles outside Wisdom, I reach the crest of a
hill overlooking the river and pull into a graveled turnout
that could park a half-dozen semi-trucks. I set a
bright-green sandwich board stenciled with the words
“Hilltop Water Stop” at the south end of the turnout and
begin to unload the truck. Soon, a second volunteer drives
up. He’s a big young guy named Jeff Buck who teaches
elementary school in Philipsburg and is a counselor at Camp
Mak-A-Dream in the summer.
Together, we organize the stop. We unfold tables, erect a
canopy, mix three-gallon coolers of Gatorade and set out
bowls heaped with halved bananas, orange wedges, jelly beans
and Snickers bars cut in threes with the wrappers left on.
We put out sunscreen and mosquito spray. Then we wait. Jeff
and I are an hour and change ahead of the neon peregrine I’d
passed earlier and easily two hours ahead of the mass of
riders. We sit in the shade of the canopy and talk hunting,
teaching and Camp.
A group of pelicans rises out of the river behind us and
rides the thermals above. They float up until they are
flecks catching and losing the light, disappearing and
reappearing against the blue. I hear Son Volt. “May the wind
take your troubles away …”
Being a kid and having cancer isn’t normal. Children are
supposed to worry about skinned knees and the end of summer
vacation, not osteosarcoma and chemotherapy. Death should
only be a conversation about what happened to the goldfish.
And yet, kids do get cancer. Camp Mak-A-Dream gives these
kids, teens and young adults a week of normalcy, where they
can play, swim, fish, make bird houses, eat s’mores and be
with the only people who could possibly understand a kid
with cancer — other kids with cancer.
About 10:45 a.m., the first riders roll into Hilltop. They
are the riders you think they are. The ones with the
lightest bikes, high-tech clothes, streamlined helmets and
shaved legs. They thank us warmly, barely out of breath
after 87 miles on a bike. We thank them, too, for supporting
Camp. They fill water bottles, eat bananas, clip in and head
on. We put out more fruit and water and try with no luck to
spot the pelicans again. I walk to the edge of the turnout
and look up the route, where cyclists stretch for a good
three miles.
It’s hard to describe what it feels like on Hilltop when the
mass of riders arrives. Bikes cover the ground. Support
vehicles wheel into the turnout with Neil Young cranked.
Volunteer mechanics help with flats and broken chains. HAMM
radio operators count riders as they pass by. A guy who
liberally uses the word “dude” gives away free samples of
Red Bull. The entire turnout bobs and churns with a mass of
brightly colored jerseys and helmets. Riders from all walks
of life, age 10 to 70, with bodies in every state of cycling
condition come and go for nearly an hour and a half. It is a
carnival.
Phil Gardner walks up to me as I arrange water bottles in
the back of my truck. “Hey man,” he says, “thanks for doing
this. We really appreciate it. You and Jennifer are
awesome.” Phil is one of the ride’s founders, a doctor and
cyclist who actually thought that hundreds of people would
be into riding 157 miles in a day for a good cause. And he
was right.
He and several of the original RATPOD committee members —
John Fiore, Andy Puckett, Jeff Haller, Eric Kress, Karl
Westenfelder — are all riding and all at Hilltop. For 10
months out of the year, these dedicated individuals, along
with Jennifer Benton (my wife and the Camp’s events
director) line up volunteers, mechanics, radio operators,
chase vehicles, food, lodging and sponsors. The logistics
are staggering, but they pull them off the way a tuned bike
shifts through gears. That Phil is thanking me for cutting
bananas seems almost absurd.
As the carnival reaches its energetic height, I can’t help
but notice how right it all feels. Whether a conditioned
athlete, a weekend cruiser, a bike mechanic or a water stop
volunteer, we’re doing something we enjoy in an inspiring
place for a single purpose — to help people too young to
conceive of cancer face the ruthless test of fighting it.
That the ride itself is a test of logistics, strength,
stamina and human spirit seems only fitting.
At 2 p.m., the last of the riders comes through Hilltop. He
is fatigued, but determined to make it another 20 miles to
the lunch stop, where food and a shuttle back to town await.
We cheer him on. “I’m getting that century mark,” he tells
me, referring to
 making
it more than 100 miles. Then he coasts off Hilltop and tucks
his head. When he hits the flat, I see his legs begin to
pump, working to carry speed off the descent and into the
next climb. In my head, the “Windfall” chorus plays again.
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