Sandy Lane and Randy Cross
slideshow
“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.