Idaho rides--Part 1

Monday's 61 mile route took us through a beautiful rocky valley. The group headed out at a strong pace and I had to ask to make sure that my new bike computer was displaying the correct speed. I usually feel like I'm working a lot harder when it tells me I'm going 19 mph. I suppose the gradual downhill had a lot to do with it. I had a flat tire about 45 minutes into the ride and it was a few minutes before Gerry and Mike, the sweeps of the day, came up. Gerry was glad someone finally slowed down. "We couldn't keep up." It was above 100˚ in the afternoon but we were indoors and the church we stayed in had A/C.

One adventure on Monday was doing laundry. The local laundromat in Superior, MT was closed on Mondays which sent the laundry team 15 miles down the road. Long story short, the machines didn't work real well and there wasn't enough time to dry everything before it closed. After we got back from a great supper served by the Methodist church, we hung all the still wet laundry on the outfield fence across the street. A special treat later in the evening was the refreshing all fruit smoothies provided by Paul and Mary. They live near Superior and we had met them the day before at a church in Missoula.

Tuesday we rode from Superior MT to Kellogg ID. There aren't many route options in Montana and the locals had told us there was some serious road construction along I-90. Paul and Mary called around for us but weren't able to get specific information about the condition/width of the shoulder. After we all headed to bed, they took Melissa, our great leader, to see the route for herself. When she got back to the church, she redid part of the route. It involved more climbing, but no one minded as the new route led us through a thick forest and we had the road basically to ourselves.

The second climb of the day was on the shoulder of I-90 but was fairly short. At the top we crossed over into Idaho and I looked forward to the descent. The cement road, however, was in poor condition with plenty of holes. I did hit 40 mph and actually passed an RV.

At the bottom of the descent we got on a bike path that ran the rest of the way to Kellogg. It followed the Coeur d'Alene river and about 5 miles from our final destination I found a nice spot to dip my feet in to cool off. Others soon joined me.

We made our home in Kellogg in the middle school for two nights since Wednesday was a build day. The Fuller Center Covenant Partner there took good care of us and made sure we had plenty to eat and drink.