Crusty Cassette

With a week's work scheduled out of Lewiston, I recalled the early warm nights that start by 5:00 p.m. sometimes so warm as to allow riding in short sleeves at night this time of year. So, I issued invites for a couple nights and took the bike apart storing it in the car's trunk for the trip North.

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Sunshine sparkled on the waters of the Southfork of the Clearwater River all the way from Kamiah to the RV stop at Harpster.

Somewhere between Kamiah and Kooskia Gary, Jim Kenyon and I caught Linda and Donna who had headed out early trying to steal a march on us.

Southfork

"Already the prettiest ride you've done this year," I told Donna.

I grew up in Colville, WA where the trees have the decency to grow on the sides of the hills instead of only down in draws like Green Hollow near Colfax. The Southfork drainage not only sported evergreens but green grasses. The sky was mostly blue with light a light dusting of clouds here and there.

We rolled early at 8:30 rather than 9. Jim McCracken had cancelled so had Bill and Helen. Lee had already arrived driving on to Kooskia to get a head start on us. No one else had responded and we were ready to go after debating the question of jackets. I chose to go short sleeves. At 55, it was nippy but I didn't expect to need a jacket long enough to merit carrying it all day long.

Highway 13 south from Kooskia toward Elk City climbs lazily at best being largely flat save for 1 or 2 percent and a few hills. It's mostly straight as well until you get near Harpster.

Traffic was heavy for a Sunday morning I thought but still manageable. The road has severely degraded over the uyears to the point I hesitated calling for this ride. Looks like some work is about to happen. Two short patches of grooved pavement do not by themselves justify the road equipment I saw along the way.

This is a great route. It is only 33 miles to Grangeville with stops available in Kooskia, Stites, and the RV spot at Harpster. Since it is an out-and-back- you can stop again.

Lee spun back down the road looking for us as we took our ease at the RV spot. We got his attention and he stayed with us the rest of the day even racing Donna to the top of Harpster.

Donna and Lee at the top of Harpster Grade>

The hardest part of the day wasn't the climb up Harpster grade which was cool and averaged 5% though it did reach 6 and 7 sometimes. The hardest part was the 4 miles across the ups and down of the prarie to Grangevill against a bit of headwind.

We terrorized Grangeville riding right down the mainstreet to the Subway on 95. It was just noon.

And an Alaskan Malamute named Tuscon. Aren't you glad he's not on the green belt trail?

A bit of wind came up but still not bad. The descent back to the Southfork from Grangeville down Mt. Idaho is swift but you've got several steep climbs to get there and a view of the 14 back to Harpster that we'd shortlly be riding.

Linda lead off when we left Harpster until I swung in front to give her a pull into the wind. Lee let us go at Stites. I think he was probably going to try to add more miles before hoping in his pickup at Kooskia.

Back at Harvest Foods in Kamiah, Gary discovered a dead battery in his pickup. Apparently turning on your parking lights for a little extra driviing light on a predawn drive isn't such a good idea. Just turn on the headlights, Gary.

The end of the day felt more like fall than summer. That bit of wind blowing leaves around and the cloud cover combined to feel like October despite temps in teh 70s.

This is clearly the best time of the year for a bike ride on teh Southfork--well, except maybe for late spring with Southfork raging over its banks. Today we saw mostly the bones--big rocks above Harpster.

Corrie

Sandy Lane and Randy Cross
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“We’re going to get wet,” I told Linda Saturday morning.

The mottled sky grows dark hanging low over my back as I ride near Joseph Lookout. I feel first one drop, then another. I expected this but hoped it wouldn’t happen. Crack. A flash of lightning turns the world day-glo. Seconds later a low rumble of thunder far away swells to a full throated belch.

The wind picks up driving the rain into my left side soaking my jersey through my wind-breaker. I feel the first dampness on my left foot. Soon that shoe will squeak soggily as I pedal.

Darkness wells about me and I hear the rain platting on the pavement in suicidal fury. Rivulets form and run off into the ditches where puddles are growing into small streams. Hail bounces madly from the pavement and stings my neck and my bare legs. It’s too late but I stop to put on the hated rain gear including the old rain pants with no elastic. I use reflective bands to keep the pantlegs from catching in my chain; I use a shopping bag under the helmet and baggies over my socks inside my shoes to keep my feet warm, if not dry.

And I ride. What else can I do? SAG? Who knows where Leanne is and if she has more room. Home is 70 miles away. Perhaps this is just a passing storm?

Can I be forgiven for having visualized this storm? Something not so very much different happened to us on a Joseph ride two years ago. The forecast for Sunday suggested three-quarters to an eighth of an inch of rain-more in thunderstorm areas. Just for good measure we had a cloud burst Friday night. I fully expected a few folks to show up at the boat launch on Saturday morning only to announce they would not be riding to Joseph this year.

Postal

But members of Twin Rivers Cyclists go a little bit postal about the Joseph ride. People who refuse to take the bike out of the garage in months with an “R” in their names suddenly become determined to get the mail to Joseph.

Dave bought new rain gear for the occasion. Mike Riddle and John Skinner already have theirs. They used it two years ago. I carried my make-shift bags, pants and rain jacket in my stow-a-way on my back both ways. I usually stick the rain gear in the SAG wagon where, of course, it is useless.

I’m a bit embarrassed by my rain pants but I needn’t have been. Tamra and Rory had full bright yellow body suits which they wore in anticipation of rain or just to stay warm coming down Rattlesnake. Tamra had about fifty plastic bags taped around her feet when she finished at the boat launch on Sunday. She’ll never make the cover of Bicycling Magazine that way.

Yes, we would be going to Joseph this year. Weather be damned.

Some degree of sanity does surface. How else do you explain the sudden rash of injuries just days before the ride. First, Debbie calls to announce she’ll not be joining us after all. It is a disappointment. She’s been off the bike for a couple of years and is just getting back. Seems she has a new and perhaps more serious complaint. Then Chandler found he had a festering sore or something. Becky calls to ask if we need her SAG. Well, of course, we need her SAG. This is the only time we ever see Chandler and Becky, but I tell her no, I think only a few folks are counting on sagging a part of the way.

And someone we’ve never met named Joe Alexander sends his girlfriend to the boat launch to say he’s injured and cannot ride. Carla planned to ride tandem with John but suddenly developed an injury to her big toe. Do you pedal with your toe? Another stranger RSVPed but neither showed nor cancelled. Could he have been checking the forecast?

Camraderie

Joseph is a destination but it represents much more than simply a place to ride. At dinner our elder statesmen and women (you know who you are) agreed that the club had made this pilgrimage for at least 15 years. The first few seasons saw the group riding all the way to the end of Wallowa Lake in October. These were unsupported rides. There was no SAGging up Bufford or deciding you were too tired, cold, or wet to continue. You had no option. I could almost hear the stories about walking to school in the snow getting warmed up on the side lines to be trotted out once more.

Nicki, who loves a party more than anyone I know, played her role as social chairman providing a neat little paper bag with a serving of caramel corn and an inspirational quote for each of us. It was Nicki who suggested we favor our long-time waitress, NJchol, with a group photo. And it was Nicki who congratulated the lean and hungry John Skinner for riding from Lewiston to Enterprise at age 70. Time’s Winged Chariot doesn’t seem able to keep up with John. Or maybe it’s his garish costumes.

It may have been the Black Butte Porter that Jim and Clare McCracken provided at Indian Lodge, or maybe Nicki is serious. She plans to return to the bicycle next season. When I joined this club it was Nicki riding out ahead and coming back to see what was holding us up. Just to show she was serious, she and Mike Riddle climbed Rattlesnake grade on the tandem. She told me she could almost say it “was a piece of cake.” Mike wasn’t so sure about doing that again.

Mike found TRC a friendly group

It was Mike Gridely who put the nature of our Joseph Ride in simple language. Mike is a first timer for this ride but a veteran of the northern tier having ridden from Gig Harbor to Bar Harbor. He showed up with fenders ready for anything but had declined joining us for dinner. He felt he’d be too slow to join us. I talked him into paying a visit to the Stubborn Mule and though he claimed to have only just made it in, he did make dinner.

Mike was having a great time enjoying the scenery. He said we have a great group and pointed out that “it doesn’t matter how much or how little you ride, everyone is welcome.” Almost everyone had spent time riding with Mike and introducing themselves.

We did ourselves proud with Mike and with the Lanes and the Crosses. Dave and I were concerned that these couples might back out of Joseph after Tour de Lentil. They are not fast and expected to be bringing up the rear. Instead they handled the sagging chores on their own and leap frogged enough to keep up with rest of us. Sandy Lane tells Linda via facebook that she’s starting her hill training for next year’s Joseph Ride right now.

Randy Cross comes to cycling for his health and takes it easy since he’s had a heart attack. This didn’t stop them from doing STP, Chafe, and our Joseph ride this year. We hope to see more of these folks.

Mike Gridely is right. This club is a social experience that just happens to be focused on the bicycle. That’s essentially what Donna Callahan told me during the Plummer Ride. You guys like each other and enjoy each other’s company. Linda said, “I so enjoy Just being with the group again.” (Of course, the goup including Helen and Tamra just enable her travel addiction.) Perhaps that’s why Donna and Gary “happened” to cycle through the boat launch just as we were finishing up our weekend.

The Callahan’s have yet to make the Joseph Trip. Those who have know that even if they miss a year, or that they, like Karen Breese, ride only to Joseph Lookout and campout, or like Lee Bauer do a footrace at Fields Spring before driving on to Joseph, or like the Priebe’s only see us once each year at Joseph, or camp at Wallowa Lake and bring the beer like the McCrackens, or like Linda, Carol, Helen, and Wanda who plan to swap riding and sagging over two days—they know they are part of the group. We are diverse; we are, well, TRC and Joseph binds us together. Advocacy

“My bike is going in my room!”

That was Katherine Cross with fire in her eye and an edge to her voice that begged you to argue with her.

Mike Gridely is on the board of Idaho’s newest advocacy organization, The Idaho Pedestrian and Bicycle Alliance of Idaho. We may be joining that group, but it wasn’t Mike who got to advocate for cycling this trip.

Nor was it me.

“You’ll have to leave your bicycles on the breezeway,” the check-in clerk told me.

“You’re telling me you don’t want me to come back,” I said.

“I just work here.”

“I’m not mad. I’m just telling you what is going to happen.”

I took my key and left to add a couple of miles for a century. I fully planned to bring my bike into the room without asking and deal with the issue later. I’ve brought my bike into my room in Spokane, Sand Point, Seattle, Bellingham, Vancouver BC and Cle Elum this year and never been asked to leave my bike outside. Only once have I ever been asked that by a hotel and then I was provided a locked storage room.

But when I got back, the Crosses were deeply engaged with the manager who conceded the point by telling them we’d be responsible for damage caused by our bicycles. I guess we didn’t know that.

The needle on my anti-cycling sensor is pegged way over to “very high,” but I don’t think this could have been anything but anti-cycling sentiment. The policy was only two weeks old and none of us had been notified.

We’ll see some changes in the Joseph Ride next year including a No Vacancy recommendation for Indian Lodge.

Long Riders

Five more Miles, dear.

Yeah, I added miles each day just so I’d have two centuries. But this year, Jim Kenyon was right behind me spinning around to get another 5 or 7 miles before he’d give up the bike. Jim get’s it. You don’t get out to 100 miles every day. Shame to waste all those miles and come up short of the standard for long riders.

Oh, sure there’s the double century STP that One Day Dave did for the second time this year on his new Madone. Yep, you can buy your way to the front of the pack, and training keeps you there. He spun just a above my ability to stay comfortably with him. If I crowded him, he’d just go harder. That’s my buddy Dave. Hey, but thanks to Sean and Dave for waiting for me at the top of Rattlesnake. That thing is gruesome.

Bill Arnold says his goal was to not do a century this year. He’s trying to cut down. That didn’t keep him from riding every pedal stroke this weekend. That’s despite trying to ride to Joseph on a three pancake breakfast. Bill made sure to eat well at Bogan’s on Sunday. It may have put him at the back of the pack, but at least he wasn't hungry.

Katherine and Leanne

Wind and rain

I’ve seen both sides now and I’m pretty sure I prefer the rain. Well, not the rain I had imganied but the rain we actually got—not so bad.

Sunshine on the mountains

The sun shone on the eagle caps above Indian Lodge as we left. The the west and north the sky was pretty black. By Enterprise two rainbows sprung up between us and the mountain. That’s supposed to be some kind of promise. I thought about skipping breakfast and putting all the miles I could between that mountain and myself. But Bogan’s is 50 miles away. Sure enough it was raining when we left Friends in Enterprise. Not heavy. And it was warm. Dave and I took off our jackets and had never put on the leg warmers. And, could that have been a tail wind?

At Bogan’s everyone was convinced the rains weren’t coming. Lee said he’d drive on home. Didn’t think we’d need any emergency sag. The optimism was palpable.

Made me nervous. Even more so when I rode through the first light drizzle on Rattlesnake. In short sleeves and shorts, the rain still had no punch. And then a second light drizzle made me stop to wipe the sweat from my eyes. The last five miles saw wet pavement and a fine mist of rain keeping me fresh like a head of lettuce. I felt more like a rutabaga most of the way up Rattlesnake. Of course, Dave and Sean hurt me here happily.

But they were waiting at the top. We were counting on that long descent to be easy, fast, and fun. We were Robbed. Robbed, I say. Shortly past Anatone the wind cought us in the faces. A few miles on it was joined by a bit of driving rain—big drops—not many but big and oh, so wet. Combine that with a wicked gusting cross-wind that pushed a bike around the road and you’ve got just about all the fun you can stand.

Sean stopped to put on the rain gear. I rode on and Dave joined me. Sean had been out ahead of us in this wind anyway and he caught us or nearly did by the time we reached Asotin.

The bend that takes you west at the top; of the grade nearly stopped me. I had already slowed from the 20s to the teens. I expected that wind to moderate as I descended but it never did. It hit us in the face all the way to the Zip Trip where Dave and Sean and I enjoyed cold drinks and salty snacks before heading down to the boat launch to meet everyone as they arrived.

Strangely the wind had stopped at least at Southway. For others the wind hadn't been so strong and had had no moisture. Now the sun broke through a little here and there and we chatted, tired but content. I found it hard to leave but I needed three more miles and a shower.

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As I start home to finish my century in sunshine, a line of black clouds lurks silently low against the southwestern horizon. I feel a drop as I come in the back door. In an hour the clouds will darken the sky, rivulets will fill the road and puddles will form in the ditches.

Ah, Joseph. We’ll see you again next year.

It's 8:30 in the evening and I'm just pulling into my garage. It has been a long day, though a beautiful one with a great ride.

"Plummer to Kellogg." That was Gary telling us what ride he wanted to lead for 2010 last spring. We put it on the calendar.

Because we'd asked for a Lead the Ride suggestion, I felt like I'd have to do this one. It isn't my favorite ride. As a ride it is physically boring. I rode 108 miles on Sunday and climbed only about 1000 feet. That includes the seven miles from the Bridge on Lake Chacolet to Plummer. This thing is flat!

And it is a long way to drive for a ride especially when you plan to ride a century.

But it is beautiful. It is a signature Rails to Trails success attracting cyclists, hikers, birders from all over the country. If you live in Idaho or Washington and ride bikes, you should have done this ride at least once.

Time was we'd make a weekend of it by overnighting in Kellogg. That creates a logistics problem managing luggage. That played out after a year or so. But Gary has put this thing back on the map.

This really is a great club ride. Harrison is about 15 miles from Plummer and makes a good lunch spot. Several of our group planned to ride past Harrison until they had 25 miles and then return. Because it is an out and back, this route affords the opportunity for all levels of riders to join in.

Gary tried to make things interesting by falling off his bike a couple of weeks ago. For a time he was questionable for his own ride. As it was, he hadn't ridden since the fall.

He did great to Kellogg, but the return trip began to hurt him and he began to compensate so that now he had body parts that weren't injured complaining by the extra use.

Donna was a trooper. AT the Snake Pitt she clearly wanted to stop and eat, but we talked her into going on to Kellogg.

Lee had run up the Spiral Highway on Saturday so he found himself played out.

On top of that, Gary's promise of a tailwind return was a lie. Lie!

Of course Dave rode as though he had a tailwind chasing down first Donna, then Chris and riding on through them. And then we hit the first of what seemed to be endless long straight stretches directly into the wind.

Aeorbars! Get up to speed, switch to a lower gear, get into the aerobars and go.

At Harrison, I called for a stop. I fully intended to get my ice cream and I planned to ride back with Donna and Gary to Clarkston. I wanted to wait.

Dave and Chris rode on, while I ate my giant ice cream cone. At the end of the season the ice cream stores are unloading stock. When is a scoop not a scoop? When it is really only a half-scoop. Seriously that's what the girl said. The second scoop was bigger still.

Linda had turned back with Russ and Laurie and the Riddles and Skinners. Her plan was drive the pickup home leaving me to ride with Gary. But she'd developed a cold and left the pickup taking a ride with Russ instead.

I didn't get that message and found myself waiting at Harrison and then riding in with Donna and then waiting again at the pickup. I'd stashed a bag in Gary's truck.

Gorgeous Day! I didn't even mind the wait.

For the Ride of it!

Corrie

"That wasn't so bad," Bill announced on our way back from Asotin. "I was afraid of that ride," he added.

Bill's been working out and losing weight and thinks the extra leg work has made him stronger on the hills. He kept saying he was climbing faster than he had previously on the same slope.

Three Summits is an annual club ride (note club! Where were you guys?). Mike calls this a training ride for Joseph. Bill's talking about riding all hills this week and then backing off. I'm of the opinion that two weeks out of Joseph is too late to make any difference in your Joseph ride experience.

Maybe it was the labor day weekend or the fact that the wind was already whistling when we left the boat launch at 9 am, but Bill and I found ourselves alone. Dave was on the coast; Chris is mia; Mike and Nicky in Spokane. Linda did Anatone yesterday, Clvoerland today on her own-Spiral tomorrow? We'll see.

Bill was pushing me a bit on Spiral. I had takne Mike seriously about using 3Summits as training for Joseph, so I did a century yesterday. Winchester was perfect on Saturday at about 70 degrees.

I tried the CuldeSac road return for the fun of it. I don't think I want to try riding up that hill. It is about 10% for a mile at the bottome and then relaxes to 7 or 8 percent. Not bad for descending but the sealcoat is pretty rough. You aren't gong to want bomb down this thing either.

Just to make it a real test, I rode back over WebRidge instead of going out to 12. I saw very little traffic except for the bits I was on 95. Labor day weekenders were already at the lake, I guess.

So my legs objected a bit to climbing the spiral highway this morning and the wind out of the west shook me up. Bill claimed it didn't push him around. I'm timid about downhill to begin with and I entertained a couple of thoughts about telling Bill I was done for the day.

But this was Bill's first attempt at Three Summits and he showed not a moments hesitation despite the wind. AS it turned out Cloverland and Anatone were both more protected from the worst gusts of wind.

With temps staying in the 60s most of the day, we had a pretty comfortable ride.

So Bill conquered three summits. Congratulations. See you on the Joseph Ride.

PS I think I'm ready for Joseph whether I trained on 3 Summits or not. Somewhere near the bottom of the Spiral Highway I passed 100,000 miles of cycling since I started keeping an electronic log book on April 24, 2000. Over 9,000 of that came this year.

For the Ride of it. Corrie