It was a beautiful spring day so my good friend Bill (see, Bill, you got a promotion) and I did a big loop through Montana and Wyoming today. I was on my FJR and he was on his Victory. My goal was to ride Hwy 314 from Busby, MT to Sheridan, WY, a route I’ve not taken before.
We headed out about 10:30am and to avoid taking the interstate, we rode through Lockwood and took Old US 87 all the way to Hardin. From there we continued on to Crow Agency where we took our first break across from the Little Bighorn Battlefield site. From there we headed east and just short of Busby we took Hwy 314 south. It’s a rather scenic route going from prairie to tree covered hills and the road is in great shape with plenty of sweeping curves. Hear a view along the way.
We arrived in Sheridan, WY and stopped that Black Tooth Brewing for a refreshment. It’s a nice place and I was happy to see they sell beer in smaller classes in addition to the standard pints. I had the peanut butter stout and the ginger lime cream ale. Bill tried the 307 ale.
Street views outside.
Around the corner is a storefront that looks like it just houses a couple old cars and some vintage motorcycles.
We walked back to the brewery and loaded up to head out of town, stopping for gas too.
We decided to take “the slab” to Ranchester where we’d get back on the 2-lane roads. We pulled over and discussed the route and I grabbed a photo with the Big Horn mountains as a backdrop.
The road we took, Hwy 345, becomes Hwy 451 when it crossed back into Montana and pretty much runs parallel to Interstate 90.
We went past Lodge Grass and somewhere before Gerryown we pulled over to discuss the rout. Bill suggested that we go back through Prtor so as not to retrace the road we took this morning. Sounds fine to me as it was only 4:30 and plenty of daylight was left.
When we got back to Crow Agency we had to cross back over the interstate and take the back road through the town to where it hooked up with Hwy 1. This road must be laid out on a section line beccause it runs east/west and, for most of the way, is as straight as a ruler. It ends at Hwy 313 where we turned south for some miles until it swept west and became Hwy 91 in St. Xavier. We pulled over so I could get a photo of the sign warning us of a rough road ahead for the next 44 miles.
The is rough and bumpy but the scenery makes up for it. We’ve ridden this route in the past so I didn’t feel inclined to stop for photos plus, there are few places to really pull off the road. When we got to Pryor, I did get a couple photos there.
We headed north and then picked up Hwy 416 which eventually becomes South Billings Blvd.
I pulled into my garage at 6:39pm, just over 8 hours after we’d left. It was a great day. The temperature was perfect and there was virtually no wind.
It was 337 miles.
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