slideshow

Jim McCracken has long tried to get Clare to join him on a bike with little success. She did do spinning classes last summer. Now Jim's found a way to get her on the bike--food.

Here's Jim's tale:

Harrison B&B&B (Bed & Breakfast & Bike) Tour

Clare was ready for a vacation and delegated to me the task of coming up with a getaway that was not too far from the grandbaby in Coeur d’Alene, not too strenuous (no mountain climbing) and not too expensive. Fitting that description nicely is a three day bed & breakfast tour based in the lakeside community of Harrison, Idaho.

I discovered Harrison last summer on a Spokane Mountaineers out & back bike ride on the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes that started in Cataldo. I was impressed with the pretty little resort town on Coeur d’Alene Lake. It has a nice shady park, a marina, a few stores including a bike shop, restaurants and a primo (giant scoop) ice cream parlor. Throw in a motel and two bed & breakfasts and you have everything you need.

I made reservations at the Wild Boar Bed & Breakfast, a judiciously updated turn of the century home overlooking the lake. Owned by Harrison native Russ Wilber, the B&B caters primarily to cyclists who pedal in on the bike path or drive in and use Harrison as a base. Other guests at the four bedroom house included a three generation family that visits every summer and Bruce & Sue from Helena, Montana who are warming up their new Co-Motion tandem for a world-wide tour. Bruce was nice enough to give me a test-drive of their Roloff equipped 26er with S&S couplers, definitely built for the long haul.

Clare & I enjoyed an awesome sunset the first night and woke up to a great breakfast of scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, fruit, toast, juice & coffee prepared by Russ who is a darn good cook. After breakfast we got on our bikes and pedaled the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes toward Heyburn State Park. Neither of us had been on this section of the trail before and we enjoyed being right next to the lake the whole way and crossing the cool train bridge over Chatcolet.

We started the next morning off with pancakes & all the other stuff and decided we could get used to this Bed & Breakfast thing! Russ is a super host and filled us in on all the history of the area. I was curious about how the Rails to Trails project had impacted Harrison. Russ said that it’s definitely added to new dimension to the community. In the past, the marina has driven the local economy with most tourists boating over from Coeur d’Alene for the day to party. The three bar & grill’s in town pretty much cater to the boater culture featuring nearly identical menus: burgers, fries, pizza, cigarettes & light beer. The bike path has initiated a measure of cultural dissonance by bringing in more families and lycra-clad baby boomers looking for a more up-scale fresh air atmosphere, a lighter varied menu and perhaps some regional wines & microbrews. But with the current economy, nobody is complaining about more people coming to town.

We rented a tandem kayak for a few hours and took to the water on our second day of perfect weather, no clouds and temps in the 70’s. Osprey, heron, ducks & blooming lily pads line the bay near the mouth of the Coeur d’Alene River. Although we had no cell phone coverage here, we did find a pay phone attached to a post on a tiny island about 20 yards from shore. I guess if your iPhone doesn’t work, you can still use the islePhone.

We took a day off to play with the baby in Coeur d’Alene and eat dinner at the Texas Roadhouse, then we drove up to Lookout Pass and bought tickets for the Route of the Hiawatha. I considered renting mountain bikes for this but after talking with the guy in the rental shop at Lookout I decided to give it a try with our bikes. Clare has a Trek comfort bike with 700 x 35 tires and suspension on the front fork and seat post. I thought she’d be happier on her own bike than on a strange one. The rental guy said every day people ride the trail on road bikes, although he also mentioned that every day some of them bail out. I was fine on my road bike, mountain bikes are kind of over rated…

Donna Callahan had told me that she got cold in the long tunnel so I made sure that Clare had a coat with her and that was good advice.

Half way through the 2 mile tunnel Clare said she never wanted to go through this thing again. I said, “Well you have to do it at least once more to get back to the car.” “Oh yeah” she replied. I thought “Oh yeah” was a pretty good response. I had instantly imagined all kinds of much worse responses that would have indicated that I was in big trouble for coming up with this idea. By the end of the 14 mile ride she decided that it wasn’t that bad after all, now that she knew there was, in fact, light at the end of the tunnel.

Anyway, this was a fun getaway for both of us and we highly recommend the Blue Boar Bed & Breakfast in Harrison as a base for your bike trip on the North Idaho trails.