All week long I had anxiously watched the forecast. With temperatures consistently over 100 degrees all week, I found it hard to credit a drop into the high 80s for the Prairie on Sunday. This was even more hard to accept with the several forecasts I check disagreeing by about 8. Shoot the Tribune and Klew couldn’t even agree on what yesterday’s high temp had been. Why should I believe them on anything they said much less that improbable drop from Saturday to Sunday?

“If I get hot, I’m going in the river,” Tamra promised at Tuesday’s ice cream ride. It had been 101 degrees at 6:30 when we left. Cliff said he was going boating with the Riddles. Linda was having a busy work week and couldn’t compute riding in the heat on Sunday.

“It’s a tough ride,” I warned Tamra but I couldn’t discourage her. She was the only one I was confident would show up on Sunday? But would I?

I try to get 250 miles each week but to do that I have to plan for my weekend well ahead. I counted the Cottonwood ride as 90 miles. Yes, the Largent Guidebook does say it is a century but only (in fine print) if you ride through Lawyer’s Canyon to Nez Perce and back. We had ignored the Guidebook last year. My log showed 90 miles and nearly 6 hours of riding.

I considered not riding at all on Saturday in preparation for Sunday. I didn’t send out a reminder on Thursday. I wasn’t sure what I’d do. On Friday, however, I decided I’d had enough for the week and would take the day off and ride with Linda to Sage Bakery in Uniontown on Saturday. If we go slowly, I figured I’d still feel good on Sunday.

Linda and I left about 6:30, climbed the grade and rode into Sage Bakery where we found Maureen enjoying a coffee with her friend Marian. On the way back to the grade, Bill and Kathy Cone in matching cycling gear were headed north—presumably to Sage Bakery. It was a cycling kind of morning. But by 11 when we got home, I could feel the heat and I kept thinking of that 9 am start time in Cottonwood.

I started making phone calls.

I knew Tamra was open to an earlier start. What I wanted to know was who was going? It was too late to put a change on the web. I called Carol.

“Sean’s going for sure,” she reported. “I don’t know how much I’m going to do.”

Carol wanted to go to church and join us later. “You want to ride down Mt. Idaho and along the South Fork,” I said. “That’s the best part of the ride.”

But we made no changes to the Guidebook ride. A few minutes later Sean called me. “We have a family reuninon in Harpster at 4:00. What would you think about starting in Kamiah?”

Kamiah? That would mean climbing 7 mile canyon in the coolest part of the day. “I’ll get on Mapquest and do some calculating and call Tamra. I”ll get back to you,” I told Sean.

By starting in Kamiah it looked as though going to Cottonwood would be unnecessary. From Kamiah to Grangeville would be only 35 miles. We could take a couple of bars and put off lunch until Grangeville.

Sean called back wanting to start in Kooskie instead of Kamiah. “That’ll get us off Highway 12 before the traffic gets heavy.”

I couldn’t get Tamra until I remembered she was redoing Ben’s kitchen. I called Ben Jain’s number and Tamra answered. We agreed to meet at 6:15 at Rusty’s Ranch Café in North Lewiston where I would drive the two of us to Kooskie for an 8:30 start. I confirmed with Sean and the Guidebook revision was on. I hoped no one would show up at the web-apppointed time and place. Sorry, if you did.

At 5:30 am Sunday I was checking the weather forecast when Tamra called. I was afraid she was canceling. The sky was filled with dark stormy clouds and the wind was about 13 mph. But Tamra is not easily discouraged. She had picked up another rider, a co-worker named Jeff who hasn’t ridden much but had the benefit of youth and memories of hunting in 7 mile canyon to inspire him. I would join them rather than Tamra me since she had room for three. Nice.

In Kooskie the wind had dropped to nothing. We were just on the edge of cool enough to want a jacket. I had allowed two hours of driving time which had put is in Kooskie before 8 despite our stop at the groeryin in Kamiah. Sean was surprised to see us. “You spoiled my plans,” he announced. “I was going to get here early and get warmed up.”

Tamra and I didn’t think he needed any warm up. Neither did he apparently as he urged us to just ride rather than talk on highway 12 to Kamiah. He wanted to get it over with. I lead out at 20 to 21 mph but dropped back after a mile. Sean picked up the pace to 23 to 25. In Kamiah we the day was still cool but we were all warm. Nothing to do now but climb 7 mile grade.

Now you may think geography is fixed. But you are wrong. Perhaps you know about continental drift but you probably don’t really believe it in your gut. Continents are just too big to move. But if you have followed the Largent Guidebook for this ride and climbed 7 mile in mid-August-afternoon with the sun blazing down on your forearms, the sweat running in your eyes and down your back, you will believe that continents can move. Or at least, that 7 mile gets shorter and less steep when you do it first and in the cool of the day.

Jeff, Tamra’s coworker, is in his early twenties. He is just a week or so away from going to medical school in the Caribbean. (I know, going to school in the Caribbean is a little like riding a recumbent—vaguely indecent and immoral.) He showed up on a Cannondale he had gotten from Scott at TNT. It had plenty of climbing gears in back but only a double crank. His training was lacking too. “I did 60 miles last weekend,” he explained when I checked him out on the way out to Kooskie.

Tamra and Jeff at Kooskie ready to ride.

But he did fine staying with us all the way to the top and only dropping to his small chain ring just below the false top. He didn’t like using the small chain ring and Sean and I were a little concerned that peculiarity might be problem later in the ride. The last 9 miles on the South Fork riding into a head wind did slow him down. Youth is vaguely indecent and immoral too, I think.

Tamra underestimates herself. She worried about being dropped but she was always right with us up 7 mile. I was happy with the pace though Sean might have gone faster. Still we may have gone too fast as Tamra began complaining of cramps in her quads when we left Cottonwood. Sean gave her some of his jelly beans and we got her some salty snacks at Grangeville. By the end of the ride the cramps were gone but one knee was bothering her. But Tamra is hard to discourage. Carol’s folks brought Carol and her bike to Grangeville where Carol rode out highway 7 to meet us. In contact by cell phone, Carol offered Tamra a ride. Tamra wasn't having any of it. “I’ll be fine.”

Xeno

7 mile makes a good imitation of a top when in fact you turn a bend and find yourself climbing another ¾ mile steeper than anything else on the climb. Off to the side of the road taking a break we found Xeno and a fully loaded touring bike. He’d ridden from Ithaca, New York.

Xeno and his bottles

Yes, that was a half-full gallon bottle of milk hanging from his pack. The jar in the scarf on the port pack held “blackberry moosh” he was fermenting for alcohol. “I’m not old enough to buy liquor,” he ezplained.

He happily joined us for the rest of the climb and soon scooted out ahead of Sean and me. We stopped again at the top of the hill. “Where’s your next town,” I wanted to know. He had Adventure Cycling maps.

“Greencreek,” he answered.

“You know you can turn right on 7 and go to Nez Perce and Craigmont and spend only 6 miles on highway 95,” I said. “Judging by what you’ve just done, you’re a good hill climber. You can handle Lawyer’s Canyon.”

But Xeno wasn’t having anything to do with the Largent Guidebook. He stayed with us all the way to Cottonwood where he was headed to Winchester and Hell’s Gate State Park for the night.

He said he thought he and his bike weighed in at about 250 lbs. So perhaps Steve is right and the extra weight on a touring bike makes no difference. In any case, now that we know tourists can kick butt riding up hill, we’ll expect more from Steve.

Xeno took a hit off his milk bottle, waved good bye and headed north on 95. We went looking for lunch in Cottonwood.

We had planned to stay on 7 to Grangeville, but Sean wanted to give Carol time to catch us in Grangville so we agreed to see what we could find to eat on Sunday morning in Cottonwood. We found burgers. Tamra and I had something called the Rope Slinger. Sean had the Cowgirl. We tried not to make much fun.

Sean’s cyclocomputer reported 74 degrees sitting in the shade under a light breeze as we ate our burgers. “You guys are fun,” Jeff said apropos of nothing. “I’m having a good time. I’ve never ridden in so little traffic.” Save for Highway 12, we really hadn’t seen much. Across to Grangeville in the early afternoon brought a few more cars but this was a day a cyclist could enjoy the scenery. Sean and I remembered the route to Grangeville differently but neither of us remembered the number of “rollers.” By the time we had done the 20 miles to Grangeville, we were a different group. Carol had joined us and on fresh legs pulled pretty hard. Tamra, her quads cramping, had dropped back and Jeff stayed with her. I got separated between them and Sean and Caroll out front and couldn’t catch up. On highway 12 though, it was Jeff who fell back as we rode into a head wind. Oh, well the worst was over. Now it was just up to Mt Idaho then all down hill back to Kooskie.

We took it easy. The wind was chill and the air cool. Though there was lots of blue sky, we often had the shade of a friendly cloud. We stopped at an overlook to take in the scenery. Things were definitely dry. At the South Fork the trees were thinner and those killed in last summer’s fire more prominent. It was still gorgeous. And we still had the ride along the Cleawater to Kooskie. This and the Huckleberry ride are my two favorite scenic routes. We voted to let Carol and Tamra pull us back into the head wind. Carol agreed to pull all the way to that first shadow 20 feet up the road.

Despite the wind the general downhill kept our pace fairly high. By doing this section in the afternoon we had won ourselves a good deal of shade as well. The wind was cool too. The guidebook has this ride all backward.

It was Sean who called for the swimming stop. Though the day was not hot and the wind a bit cool, we decided to give Tamra a chance to make good on her promise. Sean hit the water first and I actually waded in and considered going in. The water wasn’t bitter cold. You could easily get used to it. Still we wondered if riding into a headwind would make us cold? Tamra had been cold in the shade at Cottonwood.

The Largent Guidebook doesn’t say anything about being cold. Strange. So rewrite the Cottonwood ride to start in Kooskie and take lunch in Cottonwood. 7 mile is shorter and less steep in the morning.