Doug in Idaho

Lime Point Hike

2011-12-24T06:36:00.000-08:00

A few from our annual hike to check our Geo-Cache. SE Corner of Washington State. Looks like we have had about 22 visitors since last year.

Vertical Limit Tour - Day 4 - Final Pass and back to McCall

2011-09-23T13:34:00.000-07:00

We woke up to a lovely morning on our last day. It was a tad cold so we restarted our fire from the prior night and we all had an extra large helping of instant oatmeal. We had about 35 miles and one big pass to climb before making it back to McCall.

We headed out a little after nine with a moderate incline right from the start as the road was still paralleling the Secesh river. Within a mile we all stopped to remove a layer of clothing. The road was still washboardy in places so we were back to the zigzag riding style. Soon the gradient picked up and we left the river. All the while the views were becoming better and better. This was shaping up to be a very scenic pass and the weather was just perfect for viewing it.

SlideShow Day 4

Jen Putting finishing touches on the days bike packing work.....

Heading out of Campground.......

The climbing and the views begin......

Not sure why but my legs felt strong and I really enjoyed the climb.....

I think the pass topped out about 6800 ft....

Yeah, we made it!

Unfortunately what should have been a very fast and fun downhill wasn't due to extreme washboard road surface. In most places the entire roadbed was total washboard. Eventually we hit pavement about 5 miles out from McCall and then had a pretty easy cruise back to our cars.

We cleaned up a little and changed into some street clothes then headed into town for some grub and a beer before driving back home. It was a challenging but fun trip and was good to get out and get some camping in. Not sure I ever want to do the day 2 climb again but who knows. A lot of pretty country back there to explore but be prepared to work for it!

Trip Stats: 160 miles and 15,000+ ft of climbing.

Vertical Limit Tour - Day 3 - Morning climb and Water World

2011-09-22T17:27:00.000-07:00

I woke up a couple of times during night. Once to the sound of Jen trying to cope quietly with the pain from a big muscle leg cramp and once to the sound of a few rain drops hitting my tent. So, I was apprehensive what the next day would have in store for us weather wise. No need to worry as by the time we had finished breakfast and packed up our gear the skies were clearing. Our plan for the day was to ride into Yellow Pine around lunch time in order to score a burger for lunch. Then to continue on another 15 miles to a camp on the shores of the Secesh River.

Right out the gate though we had another pass to climb (Profile gap).........yeha! This climb was "only" 2000 ft so childs play compared to yesterdays ordeal. The gradient was pretty consistent and while not easy it was doable for sure.

SlideShow Day 3

Leaving camp........

Fargo near the top of Profile Gap Pass.......

While taking a break at the top of the pass we met some passing motorcyclists from Montana who were also on a two-wheeled tour. They were all riding massive dual sport machines with huge metal panniers. We shared stories of our respective trips. One rider mentioned how he put beer and ice in one pannier. This led to some envy on our parts. We wished each other happy trails and they took off the back side of the pass while we were putting on our windbreakers for the trip down the pass into Yellow Pine. When we started riding after them we soon encountered one of the riders stopped on the side of the road. I waved and rode on past him as I thought he was just adjusting gear. I guess he hollered at Scott that he actually had a flat front tire. Scott said he would inform the other riders if we encountered them.

As we continued our descent we entered what we started calling water world. We saw creeks, rivers, and streams everywhere along our route to our camp on the secesh river. We were all surprised by the quantity of waterways and the amount of water flowing through them this late in the year. All the streams and rivers were crystal clear. This was probably the prettiest part of the trip.

On the outskirts of Yellow Pine we finally met up with the touring motorcyclists....we informed them about their buddy 17 miles back with a flat tire. They were all bummed that they would have to backtrack so far in order to get him going again but were relieved he had not crashed. I didn't say anything but thought they should be stopping to regroup and status check a little more often.

Finally we made it to Yellow Pine.......and in time for a lunch time burger.....Woot!

We all had a really good burger at the Silver Dollar Grill and then it was time to head to the liqueur store next door for a bottle of wine to enjoy with the evenings dinner....

As we left town we had a miraculous experience. The road was still tilted yes, but only by 1 or 2% and in a downward angle. This strangeness continued for several miles as we rode along the East Fork of the Salmon River(?). How could this be. We felt like Superheroes flying down this sublime stretch of road!

Grins on every face........

We then reached the confluence with the South Fork Salmon followed just a mile or so later with the confluence with the Secesh river........

After this we turned and rode along the Secesh River for about 5 miles before reaching our camp for the night. This section of road was sandy and had a lot of washboards. We probably looked pretty funny as we zigged and zagged across the road trying to find the smoothest patches to ride on. We arrived at the campground and setup our tents in a nice area right next to the river. No sooner had we done this than a forest service truck pulled up and the guy walked over to us and told us we were not camping in an official camp spot and we would have to move our stuff to an official spot. Can you say perfect timing? Then as he started to leave he handed us a fee envelope. Not sure if he was just being nice or if he thought we would try to get away with not paying. By the way, I guess I am getting old but I remember when the fee for camping was $5 and not $10...hehehe! Of course the official camp sites were full of boulders and we had to do some searching to find flat areas to setup our tents. Scott and I just un-staked our tents and carried them full of gear across to the new area. On the plus side though this campground had toilets and even running water........yeha....no water pumping tonight. We arrived at 3 in the afternoon and so had plenty of time to setup camp and bathe a little in the river before making dinner and starting a fire. We all turned in pretty early as we had another big climb first thing in the morning on the last day of or ride.

Vertical Limit Tour - Day 2 - Long Short Day

2011-09-22T05:18:00.000-07:00

We woke around 7am to sunny skies and the relaxing sounds of the nearby river. We heated some water for our instant oatmeal and COFFEE. Steve does not drink coffee and brought a tiny little plastic cup about as big as a thimble for wine. All this makes me wonder about him although it does mean there is more for me. We then broke camp and loaded our bikes for todays adventure. Scott told us we would be climbing right off the bat up to a pass at aprox 9,000ft. He estimated this would be done over 17 miles. We started the day at only 2700 ft at the river so we had about 6,000 ft to climb..........woooohooooo!

We had 47 miles to reach the small town of Yellow Pine where we had thoughts of eating real food for dinner and camping somewhere nearby. That plan did not work out so well. We ended up doing the longest/hardest 30 miles of my life.

SlideShow Day 2 Pics

My Fargo in the early morning light all packed up and ready to go.......

We enjoyed some river views for a couple of miles before turning away for the big climb. We also enjoy river rafting and kayaking so we always like to evaluate rivers with those activities in mind. The south fork looked like a great river to kayak at low water......well except for the spots that would have really messed us up.......darn!

Scott on the initial part of the long climb.....

About a mile from camp we stopped at a small family cemetery of an early homesteader family. These people were cursed by some really bad luck....some brought on themselves. The father blew off two fingers from each hand when a shotgun he was holding went off. He Later became known as Three Fingers. One son was killed by indians after he declined to pay them for some work they did for him. Another son Froze to death while crossing a high mountain pass in winter. And yet another son was killed by a falling rock while riding in a wagon. Only one son died of old age.........

Ok now back to the climbing.......me still full of energy from breakfast....

After a couple miles or relatively mild gradient we hit a section that probably avg 15-17% grade. That combined with heavily loaded bikes and loose rocky road bed soon led to some hike a bike. I give Steve some serious credit here....he just refuses to get off his bike and just keeps churning on those pedals. I was amazed at some of the sections he was able to ride up......

Steve refusing to give up his seat......

After about a mile of this really steep stuff the gradient came down a bit and we were all able to return to pedaling and enjoying the scenery.......

Time was passing by much faster than our rate of forward progress. Around 11:30 we stopped to fix ourselves some PBJ's for lunch which provided a much needed energy boost. We stopped right near a wonder of nature ;-) See if you can spot it..........

Every so often we would ride past hunters or joy riders on their four wheelers......We sure got a lot of surprised/strange looks and comments as they saw us. I wonder if we were the first group on loaded touring bikes dumb enough to climb this mountain. About 1/2 way up the mountain we stopped at a small creek to pump some water into our bottles. Some of us took the opportunity to pick/eat some thimbleberries and gooseberries.......mmmmmmmmmm.

Now as we entered the upper 1/3 of the climb the temps that had been in the low 60's started to gradually drop. This was fine as we were working hard on the climb but I was wondering what it would feel like when we finally reached the pass.

More views from the climb..........

Looking back towards our starting point.......

Pretty meadow and small camp spot near the top of the pass...........

Finally at about 2pm in the afternoon we started arriving at the top of Elk Summit Pass at almost 8700 ft. I was first to arrive and leaned my bike up against the pass sign to snap a few pics. After I took a few pics a strong gust of wind blew through and caught my bike tipping it over. My bike then did another complete flip while rolling down the incline......doh! I was glad nobody was around to see that little screwup. I righted my bike and saw no damage had been done.....whew. I then put on my wind breaker as air temp was about 46 degrees and the wind was blowing fairly strong.....brrrrrrrrr. One by one the others arrived at the summit..........

So, here it was after 2pm and we had just arrived at the summit and covered only 17 miles! We were all thinking we were in for a much deserved treat of a long sustained downhill. Then Scott chimed in saying he thought we had another "little climb" ahead of us......what!!!! How could that be....we were at the high point in the area?! He pointed out a little notch in the ridgeline (Goldman Cut) a few miles away and said he thought our route would go through that.

The problem was the road between those two points went down before it went up. Oh well we all saddled up and started down off the pass. We were all pretty sweaty and the air was cold. Going down hill now without peddling all our leg muscles got pretty tight. I figure we dropped down at least 1000 ft from the pass before the road pitched back up towards the notch. My legs were not happy at all with this turn of events......oh baby it hurt bad.........oooooowwwwwwwwwww! I think most of us ended up doing a hike a bike on a majority of this 600ft climb to top of Goldman Cut.....even Steve!

By the time we all made it through the Goldman Cut it was after 4:30 and we had only done 20 miles. My dreams of making it to Yellow Pine for dinner and camping were out the window. It was now time to come up an alternate plan. We noticed a place call Big Creek on the gps maps and thought hey there might be camping there and it was only about 10 miles away. So we set off again and were finally granted some sustained downhill. As we approached Big Creek we started seeing some LARGE vacation cabins along with the corresponding No Trespassing signs. We were becoming concerned that there would not be any official camp spot in this area. But just as we were exiting the other side of the area there was a small campground. We pulled in only to see that it was mostly torn up due to some construction involved in putting in a bridge across a creek. The one good spot that was there was already occupied by some hunters............grrrrr.....now what? We contemplated just setting up our tents in the dirt road by the creek where the construction was going on but eventually decided to continue on to see if we could find something better. At this time we were all very tired and very hungry and the light was fading quickly. We rode for another mile when I spotted a faint 4 wheeler type path off the main road. I rode in and saw it led to a primative camp spot......YES! I waved the others in and we decided it would do. We quickly went about setting up camp, pumping water, and getting dinner started. Steve built a small fire pit and collected some wood. We soon were enjoying our dinner and the remaining wine while sitting around a nice fire. I think the 30 miles we did that day were the hardest miles that we had ever done.

Vertical Limit Tour - Day 1 - Three Passes and South Fork Camping

2011-09-21T05:50:00.000-07:00

Scott put together a loop route through the Payette forest starting and ending in McCall Idaho several months ago. We decided on a mid september date in order to avoid the extreme summer heat. Neither one of us had much familiarity with this area of the state so it would be a good adventure for everyone. As the date approached Scott started doing some more detailed evaluation of the route. He exported the route from the Garmin GPS software into Google Earth and then pulled up the elevation profile. The profile showed upwards of 31,000 ft of elevation change in little more than 150 miles! Needless to say we were a little concerned about this piece of information. I was pretty sure than number could not be accurate but still I was not sure exactly what we would be in store for us. Steve, our seasoned touring partner from Boise decided to join our crew for this adventure.

We all met up in McCall (5,000ft) at 9am and did a quick breakfast before packing our gear on our bikes and heading out of McCall. The weather had taken a detour into fall just the day prior with predicted temps dropping from the mid to upper 80's down into the low 60's with some chance of rain. Our first day would be our longest mileage wise as we needed to travel 60 miles to reach the campground on the South Fork of the Salmon River. We headed out of McCall on damp pavement for several miles first enjoying the scenery along the lake then along the river that feeds the lake. Finally we started our first of 3 substantial climbs for the day up to Secesh summit at 6,400ft.

Our Route:
<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/51457364"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;McCall - Warren - Big Creek - Yellow Pine - Loop&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br/&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/?location=McCall, ID"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Find more Cycling Routes / Bike Rides in McCall, ID&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

SlideShow Day 1 Pics

Gearing up in McCall. A friend let us park at their empty vacation home.....
Jen and Steve cruising along the lakeshore......

Starting the climb to the first of three passes for the day (Secesh Summit).......
Taking a break to read about the big forest fires of 1994. This area has been hit hard by fires in the past two decades.....
After cresting our first pass of the day we descended into a valley with some vacation cabins / homes scattered around. Scott said we had another pass coming up and sure enough within a few miles the route started upwards again to an unnamed pass at 6600ft. This climb was harder than the first with a steeper gradient and soft energy robbing sandy soil. When I arrived at the top I stopped to chat with a couple on a four wheeler. I described our route for the day. They mentioned another climb coming up out of the Warren but said it was not as difficult as the one we had just climbed. Never trust people on motorized transport to give you an accurate assessment of length or steepness of a route! ;-)

So, after descending off the unnamed pass we approached the old mining town of Warren. As always I am amazed at the amount of landscape re-arranging done by gold mining activity......

Post office in Warren...........

More of Warren....it is somewhat of a fixer upper town.....

Right after leaving Warren the road started up towards Warren Summit the last pass of the day. We were all a little fatigued at this point and this climb proved to be the toughest of the day and also the highest at 7,000ft. Eventually we all made it to the top though and were treated to views of the South Fork Salmon river canyon and distant mountains.

Obligatory Fargo shot..........

We spoke briefly with a bow hunter who was trailer camping at the summit. He said we really lucked out with the weather as the previous night was quite stormy with much lightening, hail, and rain. He said he collected over two inches of hail in the back of his truck.....Yikes....that would not have been fun on a bike or in a tent.

Now we started our 10 mile descent to our camp on the South Fork of the Salmon River. We were at 7000ft and the camp was at 2700ft so we had a lot of elevation to lose. The views were incredible but the road was rough and rutted from the recent rain storm so we were forced to ride our brakes hard most of the way down.

Scott and Steve contemplating how we can possibly ride across all that..........

View of the road down to the river......

Looking back towards Warren Summit.......

Road Switchbacking down.......

Finally the river comes into view.......

A little history.......

We finally made it to the small campground along the river and quickly setup camp and started cooking some much needed dinner....Mac and cheese with ham. With a little wine thoughtfully provided by Scott and Jen

After cleaning up dinner dishes we spent a little time talking about the next days BIG climb as we stood around a nice camp fire. Then it was time for an early turn into the sleeping bags as we were all bushed.

Two Lookouts Ride

2011-08-22T05:57:00.000-07:00

Sean, Scott, and I braved one of the hottest days of the year so far and headed out to Troy Oregon to explore some new territory. A big region to the west of Troy just brimming with gravel and dirt roads. I put together a route that would take us by two fire lookout towers and net us aprox 60 miles of riding. We started the long long climb out of Troy around 9am. We were soon treated to wonderful views of the Wenaha and Grande Ronde river canyons as well as the Blue Mountains.

SLIDESHOW

Route:

Clickable Link to GPX file: File

Gearing up in Troy........

Let the climbing begin....

Wenaha River Canyon......

After about 15 miles of climbing we reached the first lookout tower. This was a an odd one compared to most we have seen as the living quarters where on the ground and the actual lookout was a no frills metal box with windows. The Tower was on the tall side and the first several steps had been removed to discourage visitors. We took care climbing as some of the steps that were left did not look to be in good shape. We eventually made it to the top and spent some time taking in the views.

After that it was another 13 miles or so to the next tower.

As we approached the 2nd tower we stopped and some historical road signs and there we noticed a big black dog lurking in the shade. We also found a note under the road sign that turned out to be from the owner of the dog. He wrote that he had lost his dog and if found to call the provided phone #. Sean just barely had cell reception so he called and left a VM for the owner. The dog was quite skittish but Scott was finally able to coax it out. We gave the dog a few bites to eat. As best we could tell the dog was planning on staying put so we continued on to the lookout tower.

This tower surprised us as it was actually staffed. We asked if we could come up and check it out and were told to come on up.

We chatted with the guy for a while and ate our lunches while we took in the views......

Then it was time to haul butt out to our next destination.....

We like to try to avoid out and back rides as loop rides are much more interesting. Unfortunately there was not through route that would make a nice loop ride in this area. I noticed a spot in my mapping program that had two roads separated by only 1/4 miles or so that if we could hike between them would make a nice loop route. I looked at the area closely in google earth and saw there was what looked like a very shallow canyon between the two roads. We all decided to ride out and take a shot at crossing the distance between. It was aprox 7 miles out to the end of the road we needed to cross over from. At this point the road narrowed down to a trail. The trail kept getting more and more overgrown with brush then basically dissappeared. A machette would have come in handy at this point. We finally came upon the canyon shown on google earth. It turned out to be much steeper than we expected and was heavily forested and had a lot of underbrush and deadfall. There was just no way we were going to get out bikes thru that so we were forced to turn around and ride back out to the main road. This entailed quite a bit of climbing in the highest temps of the day.

Bushwhacking.......

Now we were forced to ride back on the same route we came in on. We had a good time on this section as we had banked up 4000 ft and now we were using it all to get us back down to Troy.

Scott feeling the affects of long climb on a hot day. Notice the salt deposits....

Final descent into Troy and FOOD! Burgers at the Troy Cafe. Great ride with 71 miles and 6600ft of climbing.

Father / Son Summer Adventure

2011-07-31T19:45:00.000-07:00

Was finally able to reserve a solid week in my son's busy summer schedule for a week of fun in the outdoors. We started off by doing a 3 day float trip in our inflatable kayaks on the upper Grande Ronde River. Other than Bryce Flipping his kayak and having a little swim the trip was great and bryce and our poodle, El Jeffe, had a great time.

SLIDESHOW

Bryce in the Tomcat....

El Jeffe is not to sure about this whole deal....

Bryce with some Harry Potter for in camp entertainment....

After returning from 3 days on the river we headed out the next morning for the Columbia River Gorge for some hiking and camping. The Gorge is a paradise for anyone into outdoor activities. I am already planning a trip back as you can only scratch the surface in 4 days.

Out first hike was up Dog Mountain. This was quite a steep trail which was fine going up but put a hurt on my legs going down. Great views of the Gorge from up top though.

After dog mountain we hit a series of trails over the next few days visiting a few of the many waterfalls in the gorge and in nearby Mt. Saint Helens area.

Amazing Falls Creek Falls.....

Lava Canyon near Mt. Saint Helens......

Ooops only got this one shot of the mountain.....

Eagle Creek Trail and Tunnel Falls.......wowser!

Very Lush......

The Punchbowl...

Getting close.......

There it is.......

Mount Misery Loves Company

2011-07-02T20:28:00.000-07:00

Jen, Scott, and I completed our last Hell and Back 180 recon ride today. This was the Mount Misery / Blue Mountain section of the ride. We wanted to check road conditions to see if any deadfall or snow was still around that would cause us any problems on the big ride on 7/9.

We started at good ole Bogans Oasis and rode the 18 miles along the Grande Ronde river to Troy Oregon. From there we started the long sustained climb from about 1300 ft at Troy to 6200 at highest point in the Blue's. We all started off the day a little lacking in energy and that combined with the long climb and warmer temps caused us a good big of suffering. I picked the wrong day to ride the SS as I was sure envying the geared bikes today.

The scenery more than made up for our physical pain as we rode thru forested hillsides the views would periodly appear of the Grande Ronde Valley and the Wallowa Mountains in the distance. We had a long pedal free descent down the Rattlesnake grade. We cleaned up in the river somewhat and had a much needed dinner at Bogans before heading back to Lewiston.

Next Saturday is the BIG RIDE!

Pics.....

Only about 100 yards of snow and deadfall remain near the top.....

A Day of Firsts

2011-06-26T19:55:00.000-07:00

Short post...to tired to type much.

Great ride out to Winchester and throughout the Waha mtns outside of lewiston Idaho. We all had quite a day. I had my first SS hundy and Jen bagger her first century ride ever. Scott got his first century in aprox 15 years. Cherry on top was 9k of climbing for the day. Sean faded badly at the end and couldn't quite make 100. I think he had to puke or something (just joking of course.....hehe).

A lovely day with temps in the 60-70's.

Few pics.....

Riding the SS Salsa Selma today......

Hell and Back Training Ride II - Scenic Overload

2011-06-22T10:23:00.000-07:00

Sean and I wanted to get in one more long/tall training ride prior to July 9th "Hell and Back 180 ride". We decided to ride the first 65 miles of the Hell and Back route then cut it off and head back up the always fun RattleSnake Grade. This would give us 130 miles and aprox 11k ft of climbing for the day. The weather has finally started to warm up and we had highs in the 80's so this would be a good test for us dealing with mileage and some heat.

We started the ride a little after 6am from the Heller Bar parking lot. The morning air was very comfortable and the sky was blue with scattering of puffy white clouds. We both enjoyed the long steady climb up the Joseph Creek Canyon. The further we went the more rocky the road became and the wetter as well. With all our rain and now snowmelt the creek was spilling out onto the road in places. Since we don't get to trail ride often I enjoyed the maneuvering around the rocks and water.

Once up top on the Joseph Plains the road became extremely rocky for about 4 miles. This really slowed us down as we were both on fully rigid bikes. The scenery though more than made up for the road conditions....it was outstanding. To our left we could look down into Hells Canyon and see the 7 Devils mountains in the distance. To the right we could see into Joseph Canyon and to the snow covered Wallowa mountains.

After this section we entered a more forested area and rode alongside creeks and streams for many miles. Another great thing about this area is lack of people / Cars. We did not see a car for the first 51 miles of this ride.....sweet! With all our rain/snow the flora was intensely green....the photos are not doctored.

As we approached hwy 3 we both were running near empty on water. I had brought a water pump so we stopped at a small creek to fill up. I started pumping but something was not right with the pump and it was very slow to fill up a bottle. I think I sweated out more water pumping than the pump put into the bottle. With time going by we decided to press on with a small amount of water. Unfortunately we had 30 + miles to go before reaching a known water source. We were becoming parched when we came to a hwy maintenance station. The guy on duty let us use the hose there and we were able to refill before things became to bad. That water tasted so good!

After that it was a fun descent down to Bogans oasis on the Grande Ronde River. We both fueled up...me with Chilli Fries and Sean with a burger. Then it was time for the big climb up Rattlesnake Grade. On our last ride we both had cramping or near cramping issus with our legs. For this ride I was using some Nuun tablets and some Accelerade powder in my water bottles. Very happy to report that cramping was not an issue this time. Once on top we had a very fun descent down Couse Creek Grade and back to the car......great ride!

Pics..........

The Joseph Canyon.....

Joseph Plains......

Sean having some punture issues........

Trying to pump some water.......

Last shot......

Pushing the Envelope - My Ride with Captain America

2011-06-13T05:37:00.000-07:00

It's not everyday you get to ride with a superhero. Sunday Sean and I had planned on pushing outside of our comfort zones and get in a solid training ride for the big "To Hell and Back 180" endurance ride scheduled for July 9. When I rode down to the southway boat launch at 7am to meet Sean I found Captain America.....

The plan was to ride up hells canyon then take a right on Couse creek and climb the Grade up to Anatone. Then continue on down the Rattlesnake Grade and catch some lunch at Bogans Oasis. From there we would ride along the Grande Ronde river for 16 miles to give our lunch time to digest before the big climb up the Flora Grade. From there we would enjoy the fast pavement descent on Buford Grade before tackling the Rattlesnake grade.

It turned out to be a near perfect day for riding. We did somehow manage to encounter a stiff headwind most of the day but other than that and a little heat once in a while it was quite pleasant. The sun was out and mostly blue sky with puffy white clouds.

Capatain America and I ended up with 130 miles and nearly 10k ft of climbing for the day. This is my longest ride to date and beats my prior high mileage mark by 15 miles. I had some cramping issues and Sean had some near cramping issues climbing the Rattlesnake Grade. This forced us to get off and walk in sections but other than that everything went pretty well. We plan on doing at least one more big ride prior to the Hell and back Ride.

On to the pics...........

SlideShow

Saw this balloon doing what looked like touch and goes in the snake river as we left town.....

Up top and heading towards Anatone....

Lunch at Bogans. The motor bikers and old car enthusiasts were out in force....

The very green Grande Ronde river canyon.....

Climbing the Flora Grade......

Looking back down at the Grande Ronde......

Mandatory Fargo shot........

Me nearing the century mark....see fresh as a daisy.....

S. Utah Bicycle Tour - Day 6 (last): Hurricane to Saint George

2011-06-10T11:52:00.000-07:00

Day 6 - Time to close the loop and head for home.

Slideshow Day 6 Pics

We took advantage of the hotel continental breakfast before packing our gear for the last time and heading out. We had 4 people and the bikes in one hotel room so it was a little cramped. Not sure if they made any money off of us for $42.....

The morning was sunny and almost completely free of wind. A welcome change from the rest of the trip that was very windy for the most part. We were all in a pretty mellow mood and only had 32 miles with most of that being a gradual descent to Saint George. So we had a pretty easy day and no mechanical issues to deal with except a squeaky brake on Jen's bike as we headed out of town.

Scott fixing a squeaky brake....

Few miles of pavement heading out then the rest all dirt/sand/gravel until we hit the outskirts of Saint George......

In spots there were an inch or three of soft talcum powder like sand. This caused us some bike handling issues at first but we soon adapted and I actually enjoyed skiing through it on my bike......

We kept the pace mellow as we were not in a huge hurry for the trip to end....

Overlooking Saint George.....

Once we got back to town we got a quick shower in at the RV park and then loaded up the bikes and gear into the cars and headed to the Bear Paw Cafe for a delicious lunch before heading for home.

We all enjoyed the heck out of the trip and would highly recommend this route. I would really love to do it again in the fall when the aspens are turning color.

S. Utah Bicycle Tour - Day 5: Zion Park to Hurricane

2011-06-09T20:49:00.000-07:00

Day 5 woke us up from a deep sleep with bright sunshine and an almost cloudless sky. Could this be the day were Southern Utah lived up to its reputation for warm/hot temps. I sure hoped so as I was ready for some heat!

Slideshow Day 5 Pics

We all scarfed down some instant oatmeal with nuts and banana chips along with some coffee. We then set about breaking camp and tending to the bikes by washing some of the accumulated mud collected from the prior days adventure. Then we left the campground and headed for the official entrance to Zion Park.....

I had a good laugh as we queued up behind to giant luxo tour buses at the entrance.....

Then we were in and cruising on smooth pavement thru the visual wonderland of Zion Park.....

At about the half way point through the park there is a 1 mile tunnel that bikes are not allowed to ride through. We needed to hitch a ride with passing tourists who were riding in pickups. So we waited on the sidewalk close to the entrance to the tunnel and after as short wait we were able to get Jen a ride with with two couples in a small king cab truck. There was no other room in the back so the boys had to wait. We were finally all able to pile into the back of an official park pickup and started cruising thru the tunnel. The Tunnel had a few windows to the outside world cut through the rock and we were able to get some cool views of the canyon through these.

Tunnel entrance..........

Scott and I squeezed into the back of a pickup with three bikes....

After the tunnel the park vista's became even more spectacular and the road became a series of long descending switchbacks.........fun!

All to soon we left the park and had a few miles on the hwy before we turned off onto a quieter paved back road....

At this point Scott felt his rear wheel was wobbling and we stopped to have a look at it. Turns out one spoke was starting to pull thru the rim.....doh! He tensioned and trued the wheel the best he could and that seemed to help but we were all somewhat concerned that his wheel would fail at some point. After the trip Scott discovered he was only running a 28 spoke wheel front and back.....not a good setup for fully loaded touring. He is building up some new 32 spoke wheels now.....

Now is the point in this blog for the obligatory Fargo pics....hey what else am I supposed to do while Scott is working on his wheel???

Off on our way again we were approaching the section of the route that Adventure Cycling called "One of the worst hills you will ever see". Sure enough as we turned onto the gravel road we could see this monster in the distance. We all gritted our teeth and went at it as best we could. We all managed to struggle a ways up the hill but then a combination of steepness combined with loose rock and sand proved to much and the hike a bike began. Heck it was hard just trying to push the bikes up this steep steep climb.......

After quite a long hike bike the gradient finally mellowed enough for us to remount our bikes.......

Once we were at the high point for the day we stopped and at our PBJ's for lunch then it was an mellow downhill ride back to the hwy......

We cruised into a gas station/convenience stores and cooled off with ice-cream treats and cold beverages....ah that tasted and felt good on a warm day. Then it was back off onto gravel back roads into the town of Hurricane or so we thought. Turns out a LARGE golf course has been built over the top of the gravel route and we were not able to pick it up on the other side. If we had searched longer we probably could have figured it out but after the prior days ride we were not really up to more route finding issues today. So we got back on the hwy and had a very fast descent into town......

When we pulled into town we tried to find camping at one of the two RV parks so we could get showers in but the nice one was booked and the other one we did not want to stay at. So we ended up sharing a hotel room instead. It was only $42.....so quite a deal split 5 ways. We showered up and went looking for dinner. We ended up eating in this very strange restaurant. The menu was incredibly long and diverse and the prices bordered on outrageous. Then the owner and the waitress treated us like the first and maybe only customers they had ever had....it was a somewhat bizarre experience. The food was good but definitely not worth the prices we paid......oh well.

We did stop and have a nice yogurt desert while walking back to the hotel.....

The next day was to be our last as we left Hurricane and returned to Saint George.

S. Utah Bicycle Tour - Day 4: Duck Creek Village to Zion Park

2011-06-09T07:44:00.000-07:00

Ok long post for day 4.....Scott's alternate route to Zion Park.

Slideshow Day 4 pics

Why an alternate route? Well, because of our crappy spring the official Adventure Cycling Route for this section was still under several feet of snow. Scott picked one of several possible dirt routes heading south to Zion park.

Our group was shrinking down to 4 today as Will had work obligations back in Boise and could not complete the entire trip. We all had breakfast together then said goodbye to Will. He had dropped his truck here at Duck Creek as we all drove down to Saint George.

The rest of us packed our bikes and headed out under sunny skies. We came to the first turn off to a dirt road heading south and we pulled in to take a look at the Map that had been posted at the start of the road.........

If you look closely you can see little star marker at the top of the furthest right red road #5 along Strawberry Creek. Now Scott official alternate route had us taking one of the yellow roads south but heck we were here and this was looking nice so we decided as a group to take the #5 road south. For a while all was wonderful except for a strong headwind as we headed south.....

In the distance you can see the ridge we had to climb over as our high point for the day. We became a little concerned as we could see snow on the ridge. But we figured maybe the road was clear and kept going...

As we got closer to the ridge we could see more and more felled trees in the forest. We found out later that at this elevation there was a freak snow storm that had stuck to the trees and weighed some of them down to the point where they snapped.
We rode thru an area of cabins and could see that the deadfall was being cleared from the road and the properties but as we came to the end of the development and started climbing again we came to the end of the road for us......

We briefly considered trying to carry the bikes over and around the deadfall but suspected that the deadfall would extend for quite a ways with an unknown amount of snow still on the road as well. Carrying heavily loaded touring bikes over deadfall for possibly miles was not my idea of a good time so we abandoned that plan and decided to retrace our route back to the main road and go back to the original planned route. If you refer back to the map pic you will see a yellow road #65 along Swains Creek. This was the route we would try next.

We rode further east on the paved hwy and reached the turn off to Swains Creek. Again we were seeing the same posted map as the last road. We ate a snack and then headed into an ever strengthening headwind south on Swains Creek Road.....

At about 3 miles back we came to a fork in the road that was not displayed on the map...one route was marked as private and headed into a development of fancy vacation cabins. The other route was signed as D060 which did not match any of the roads we had seen on the map at the start of the road......confusion set in and we were unsure as to what route to take. About this time the local county assessor was passing by and we flagged him down to discuss our route. He told us that either road would work as they both met back up a few miles down the road. But he said that he doubted the road over the ridge would be passable due to snow and deadfall. He also mentioned something about a mud bog that we would need to deal with

This put a damper on things and started a discussion amongst our group on whether to return to the hwy and take a lower alternate route through Stout Canyon (far right blue road on map pic) or continue on the Swain Creek route and hope the road was clear. There was much disagreement among us on this with Scott adamantly wanting to continue and myself wanting to go to the other route with the Jen and Steve somewhere in the middle. Finally it was decided, or so I thought, we would ride back out and try the Stout Canyon route.

So I headed back to the main road at a good clip with a strong tailwind helping me along and arrived back at the hwy and waited for the others to catch up....tick tock tick tock...where were they? Later, I found out that Scott was in full pout mode and was not excited by the idea of more boring pavement with a side wind, and was riding more slowly than normal. Finally they came into view and joined me. Seems they had stopped to discuss further and Scott had convinced Jen to continue on the Swain Creek route we had just rode out of. I was somewhat shocked by this as Jen is usually more risk averse than that. We had more "discussion" about this and then a Remotal showed up (A Remotal is like a local, but they are a person who just has a vacation home in the area and don’t really know the area beyond the main road and their vacation home.). The Remotal offered all kinds of interesting advice and suggested that he had personally ridden the Swains creek route and it was lovely and that it would most likely be passable where strawberry creek was not The update from the Remotal convinced Steve to stick to Swain Creek route as well (which removed the pout funk from Scott, who again became happy). So I was like ok I don't think it will work but what the heck. At this point I entered a semi funk/pout state. So we retraced our route yet again.........grrrrrrrrrr and continued on past the point where we had turned around before. Of course by now many miles had been ridden with not much progress towards final destination of Zion park and many hours had passed......

Back to the pics........

As we approached the top of the ridge things were looking up and I was thinking we might actually make it over then we encountered the mud bog.....

Jen won first place for most mud collected and Scott came thru the cleanest.....

That was pretty much it though as we had made it to the top of the ridge. The problem now became the road we were on on the other side was fairly major with many spurs off to vacation homes. Yet the road was not on our GPS maps at all and we were not clear on how it connected back up to the route we wanted to get to Zion. We continued to ride around back there for a while with the road rising and falling but never really continuously dropping like we thought it would. We were all getting a little frustrated at this point. About this time a couple of 4 wheeler folks stopped to talk to us. Unfortunately they were also visitors to this area and did not have a clear picture of all the roads. They mentioned one route, Hays creek, that they had heard would lead to Zion but most of it was rough and through private land. This did not sound like a good idea to me. Well, not having a better idea at this point we rode to the top of this Hays Creek "road" and indeed it said entering private property and the route looked very steep with ruts and rocks. Hmmmmm we were not wanting to go down that route. So we backtracked yet again and continued on the road we were on. We came upon a fork in the road sign that said Zion and pointed to the left fork. Ahha we had found our way out we thought. We jumped on that route but found the road continued to climb and we encountered more signs that said we were entering private property....what?!?! Also the road started to look more and more like somebodies personal driveway and not a through road. Finally as the road continued to climb and shrink we decided to call it and head back to the Hays creek road and go for that. Note: we found out after we got home that we were on the correct route to Zion when we turned back to Hays Creek.

Saw this on one of the spur driveways....and in Utah no less....LOL!!!

Obligatory Fargo shot ;-) .......

Heading down Hays Creek on private land. It was somewhat steep and rough for fully loaded bikes but we had some fun in sections.....

As the road/trail started to level out a tad we expected it to become wider and more traveled but instead it did the opposite and we had a couple of gates/fences to climb over. We were all concerned about trespassing on private land and wanted to get out ASAP ....

Unpacking for fence crossing.....

All the while time was ticking and water reserves were getting low. We had pumps with us but did not want to stop while on private land. The trail continued to disintegrate and we were eventually riding thru a marshy meadow with only the faintest outline of a trail.....

At this point I was at the rear of the group and saw them stopped up ahead of me at a gate looking a wee bit apprehensive....uhoh I thought. I joined them at the gate and we were looking at a house with gates at either end......Banjo music from the movie Deliverance was playing in my head. I said, well we have no choice but to continue, so I opened the gate quietly and started walking my bike by the house with the rest following me. We made it thru both gates with nobody hollering at us or shooting at us so that was a relief and we continued on now on more of a dirt road than a marshy field.

Then in the distance we could hear an engine gunning loudly....ruhroh now what? We again had no choice but to keep going so that is what we did. We rounded a bend and saw a full size dodge ram pickup fully embeded in mud up to the top of the wheel wells with another pickup truck trying to pull it out. Severl men, women, and children were arrayed around the vehicles. We continued to approach and finally they saw us. We said hello and quickly explained our situation. For the most part they were ok with us being there. One of the guys was a little prickly but he was so focused on the truck that he didn't waste to much time giving us trouble. We wished them well getting the truck out but from the looks of it it would require much more than 1 pickup to get it unstuck. Sorry for lack of picks of this but I thought it would be unwise to start snapping photos at this point.

A short while after this encoutner we made it to the final gate an were back on public land.........YES! We were all quite relieved but still had unknown distance to go to reach Zion park and the daylight was starting to fade. We knew we could always primitive camp along the route so we pressed on. Unfortunately our 10 mile estimate of remaining distance turned out to be closer to 23 miles and myself and Steve ran out of water towards the end. The route presented us with one steep SOB of a climb after leaving the private land....this was a real killer as we were all very tired at this point. After that the route continued to rise and fall for what seemed like forever. Finally though we made it onto pavement and were on the final approach to Zion park........YES!

Then in the distance what did we spy but a campground with showers and wait for it...................a pizza place......SWEET!!! We quickly pulled into the pizza joint and placed our order while Jen made campground arrangements...then it was time to eat, setup camp, and shower. Then it was time for some serious sleep....what a day and adventure!

Zion Park in the distance....

Final approach to Zion Park and PIZZA!

The Pizza was actually very good........

Tomorrow we ride through Zion Park.

S. Utah Bicycle Tour - Day 3: Cedar City to Duck Creek Village

2011-06-08T07:46:00.000-07:00

The morning of day 3 saw us grabbing breakfast at a resturaunt then splitting into two groups. One group to do some food shopping and the other to take care of some bike fixing at a local bike shop. We were lucky to find a bicycle shop that opened at nine am but that was somewhat offset by only one person on duty and constant stream of customers coming in. Jen was in need of a new chain and was also in need of a remedy to some shifting issues she was having. After a couple of different options were tried it was solved by a new rear derailleur. I also got a new chain for a backup.

Slideshow Day 3

The day was looking perfect until we started to head out of town for the big climb up and over the Cedar Breaks pass. As we headed out of town the wind started to kick up a bit. Cedar City is at aprox 5500ft and the pass was aprox 10,000 ft so we had a pretty good climb ahead of us and at high elevation. I was apprehensive as to how I would feel pedaling a fully loaded bike at that elevation.

Heading out of town........

There was quite a bit more traffic than we had expected but for the most part everyone was courteous passing us. As we climbed the wind continued to increase and was mostly a headwind or a crossing wind.

The route had great scenery most of the way......

We stopped for a quick lunch at a roadside picnic area...yep more pbj's. After that I was eager to finish the climb and became the rabbit and was out front by myself. As I passed 8000 ft or so the road became a little steeper and the headwinds became stronger and my enerygy started to ebb. After some super strong gusts of winds I was forced to walk for a couple of short sections. I finally pulled off the road to wait for the others to catch up......

As the rest of the crew rounded a big bend and came into view I was pleasantly surprised to see them all still pedaling and not pushing....though I could see by there faces there was some good suffering being experienced....

I jumped on the tail end of the train and we continued towards the summit. A few mins latter we encountered a section with some severe side wind gusts. Sand was being blown across the road an one big gust sent us in all different directions across the road with Scott ending up in the ditch. The detour knocked his handlebars out of alignment. At this point we all dismounted and pushed our bikes thru this section. There was just no way to ride in that wind.

You can see the sand blowing across the road up ahead....

We stopped to fix Scott's bike and regroup. The wind was still strong but the gusts were not as bad and we were able to continue riding. We did not have to much further to go to reach the top of the pass.......'

We finally crested the pass (yeah!!) and dropped into a winter scene.....

This is where we were forced to leave the official route as the gravel roads we were supposed to take were still under several feet of snow. At this point we had a pretty easy cruise into Duck Creek Village our final destination for the day....

We decided to rent a cabin for the night......

We at dinner at a local cafe and called it a night pretty early. Tomorrow was a big day on an "alternate" route that Scott had come up with to get us down to Zion Park.

S. Utah Bicycle Tour - Day 2: Pine Valley to Cedar City

2011-06-07T05:06:00.000-07:00

Well, after an eventful first day we all went to bed thinking the next day would be better from a mechanical and weather perspective.....ummmmmm not so much!

SlideShow Day 2

We awoke to a scene more like winter than late spring.......

The good news was the sun was shining and the snow soon melted but it was a shock to see it when we woke. We cooked some instant oatmeal for breakfast, packed our gear, and saddled up for the days ride.

Aaaah the birds were singing, the sun was shining, and the sky was lovely blue...what could be better than pedaling a bicycle through that and on gravel even?

Then this happened.........

Jen's fancy brand spankin new uni-directional hi-tech chain snapped after only 44 miles on it.......doh! No worries though as surely Scott packed a spare chain.....uh no you say?....DOH! Luckily Scott is pretty good with the ole removing a pin and re-inserting it trick. Though we were not to confident that trick would work on these new chains. After a bit of a struggle he managed to get the pin in and the chain installed on the bike. The chain was now on the short side and since we didn't trust the chain to hold Scott suggested that Jen should try to minimize shifting and to try to keep her chainline as straight as possible. Jen, re-mounted her bike and started to pedal. Honestly I expected the chain to break again within a few mins but a minor miracle occurred and the chain lasted the rest of the day which was somewhat over 60 miles. Excellent job Scott!

So off we went again thru more beautiful scenery on nice gravel/dirt roads....

My first fully loaded tour with the new gen II Salsa Fargo....it did great!

At this point in the trip we ran into a routing issue with the Adventure Cycling supplied GPS route. It was wanting us to go down the middle of a canyon where there was no road or trail nor evidence that there ever had been such a thing there. Not sure how they managed that. We took the more major looking road and it eventually connected back up to the official gps route for the day.

We stopped for a lunch break of PBJ sandwiches and Will noticed an issue with the rack mount on the Gunnar he was riding........

The lower rack bolt had fallen out and this put to much stress on the frame mounting point causing the weld to fail. Luckily Scott had brought some extra bolts and misc metal fittings and this was an easy fix to make......

So, off we went again with the days mechanical issues behind us for the day......

We rolled into Cedar City and made camp at the KOA so we could get some showers in. We ordered some pizza that ended up being pretty crappy....oh well at least the beer was cold.....

Plans were laid to stop at a bike shop after breakfast for some new chains and shifting equipment for Jen's bike. Then it would be time to tackle the signature climb of the trip.

S. Utah Bicycle Tour - Day 1: Saint George to Pine Valley

2011-06-05T20:04:00.000-07:00

Six day tour of Southern Utah roughly following the Adventure Cycling Utah Cliffs Route. We had to improvise a detour due to the high portion of the route being under snow still. It turned out to be a more exciting ride than we had expected due to mechanical issues, weather, and route finding. All survived and all had a great time for the most part.

We got into Saint George, our starting point, late on Saturday and "camped" at the Temple View RV park. Don't recommend this place for tent camping as the grass area is lit up like a football field at night. We also had fellow travelers next to us who decided to keep everyone up til midnight......we returned the favor at 6am when we got up though.

SLIDESHOW Day 1 Pics

Jen, getting organized.....

The best way to start off a vacation.......

Almost ready to head out on our 6 day adventure.....Left to Right....Will, our touring rookie, Steve, well seasoned veteran tourer, Jen sporting a new Fargo for the trip, and Scott the gps/map master, and finally myself behind the lens the un-official trip photographer/beer gopher.....

First a stop and at a wonderful restaurant serving breakfast, lunches, and all kinds of specialty coffee and fruit drinks....mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Properly fueled up for the day we then headed out of Saint George via the town bike paths.....

From there we entered Snow Canyon State Park which was a great introduction to the amazing rock formations we would see throughout the trip......

After exiting the park we had our first pass to climb over......

At the top of the pass was a large cinder cone with one of the steepest hiking trails I have every seen running up one side. Look closely and you can see 3 people struggling up the trail....

Next we had a descent into the small town of Veyo. We pulled into a gas station for a pit stop and Jen informed us that her bike had a bad shimmy going down the hill. This was the maiden voyage for her new Fargo so she had not had time to really dial everyting in yet. I looked down at her rear wheel and the spokes on it were visibly loose....Yikes! Good thing the builder, her hubby Scott, was along for some roadside warranty repair.

After getting back on the road after the wheel repair we were stuck on a busy hwy for a few miles before finally dropping off onto a gravel back road only to be greeted by this obstacle....

I almost attempted to ride across but at last second thought better of it. I am glad I did as it was deeper with a stronger current than it first appeared to be. That attempt would not have ended well for me. Instead I gingerly started walking my bike across bracing the bike against the current and trying to keep my bike shoes gripping the mossy cement. We were able to make it across without incident.....

No sooner that I got back on my bike after the water crossing than my chain decided to snap. I have never had a chain break before but luckily I had remembered to pack a spare so we were all on our way a few minutes later.....

After the chain fix we had a nice section of gravel/dirt road along a reservoir. Day 1 gave us a strong tailwind for most of the day......

The weather was much cooler than usual in Saint George as the crappy spring weather seems to be impacting most of the western US. As we approached our days destination of Pine Valley at 6800ft it started to cool more and more and the dark rain clouds were gathering.....

Pine Valley Utah.....

By the time we all made it to Pine Valley we were all chilled quite a bit. The warmth and good food of the
Branding Iron Steak House was just what we needed..........

The plan had called for us tent camping at Pine Valley but with the forecast calling for overnight lows in the 20's we decided to check for accomodations at the only lodging in town, the Pine Valley Resort. Luckily we were able to stake claim to the last little cabin they had available. We quickly set about making ourselves at home.

The weather soon took another turn for the worse and showed us a taste of winter for a short while.....

Scott doing some more wheel fine Tuning on Jen's bike......

Will rigged a clothesline and shoe drying tree......

Dinner fixin's..........

After a late dinner we called it a night and hit the sack.......the next day we were to ride from Pine Valley to Cedar City

Enjoying the Rapture in Oregon

2011-05-24T10:42:00.000-07:00

Took a 4 day weekend to travel to Oregon for the Velodirt Rapture ride in the Coastal Mountains west of Portland. Fortunately the ride turned out much better than the actual predicted Rapture. I took the opportunity to do 3 other rides while I was over there. It felt wonderful to get out of familiar territory and see some new country.

Deschutes river rails to trails (38 miles out and back).......

Rapture Ride....70 miles with 7700ft of climbing. Surprised I was only one riding SS and almost everyone was on cross bikes....pinch flats were plentiful. I was spared that with the larger mtn bike tires. Thanks to the Velodirt guys for putting on the ride....everyone enjoyed the heck out of it.

Start at Flying M Ranch....

Did another couple of rides on the return trip home. Did a 42 mile loop out of Mosier Oregon just in the Columbia River Gorge. Lovely scenery but my legs were not quite ready to deal with another 4k of climbing after the rapture ride.

Finally I did a short out and back along the John Day River where it flows into the Columbia.....

Finally a nice spring day (hell and back recon ride)

2011-05-01T18:38:00.000-07:00

I have lived in Lewiston for 14 years and this is the worst spring I have experienced in all those years. Wind, rain, cold and usually all at the same time. Today, May 1st, finally a sweet day and on a Sunday no less.....wooohooooo!

Jen and Scott drove over and picked me up in and off we went to Bogans at the bottom of RattleSnake Grade. Out goal was to enjoy the nice day by doing a little recon for our July 9th "To Hell and Back 180" ride. We wanted to experience the entire climb out of Troy so we would have a better idea of what to expect come the big ride. Of course we will be quite a bit more tired then after 105 miles than we were today but still nice to get a feel for the climb. Except for a 1/4 stretch in the 14-15% range the rest of the climb was 8-10%. So not to bad and the scenery is excellent.

After the long climb we did a loop back around up top and came back down to the Grand Ronde River about 11 miles from Bogans and the car. The only negative for the day was Bogans Oasis (our customary post ride burger stop) was closed for remodeling....bummer! Feeling the need for some good food I made a tasty pizza for dinner........ah good day!

On to the pics.......
SLIDESHOW

A few on the big climb out of Troy.....

Riding the Selma SS today.....

On the road to Mt Misery. To much snow to make it to the summit now...

Saw a couple of herd's of Elk....

Mt Misery in the distance.......

Artsy Fartsy?

Way up above the Grande Ronde River....

Very Fast descent back down to the river......

Post ride pizza......

Sunday Morning Fargo'ing

2011-04-03T16:37:00.000-07:00

Saturday was almost a complete bust with cool temps and howling winds. I did manage to get out for a not to pleasant 20 miles. Was able to practice my 45 degree tilt riding on a few occasions and see all the spring runoff debris floating down the very brown rivers.

Woke up sunday morning just before dawn to a much better looking day. I quickly packed my gear and made some tweaks to the bike and took off under sunny but chilly skies. Except for a some wind here and there it was pretty nice had a nice mix of gravel and paved roads. The scenery was excellent with some blue sky mixed with mostly puffy white clouds. I could see the Waha's got dusted with some fresh snow (will winter ever end?). Getting the new Fargo dialed in and is quite the comfy bike for longer rides now. Ended up with a solid 51+ miles getting back home around noon just in time for an afternoon of yard work.

On to the pics.......

New touring wheels from Mike at LaceMine29

Photogenic sky......

Fresh dusting of snow in the Waha's......

Umpqua River Trail Hike

2011-03-24T10:16:00.000-07:00

Noel and I had a short get-away to Roseburg area of southern Oregon. It is a beautiful area with many rivers and wineries. Though I didn't bring a bicycle we did get a hike in on the first section of the famous Umpqua River Trail. Next time I will be taking a bike as the trail looks like it would be a hoot on one.

Green green everywhere in all many different shades.

Pics......

A few pics from the Amazing Reusle winery north of Roseburg......oh, the wine was good as well.

Back on the Fargo

2011-03-12T14:26:00.000-08:00

I am back on my favorite bike and just in time for spring. After many miles of trusty service my original Fargo developed a small crack in one of the chainstays. Salsa took good care of me though and shipped me a new 2nd generation Fargo once they were available. I like the new color fine but miss the "funguy green" of the old model.

I just had to take a pto day on friday to take advantage of the nice weather and get the bike out for its maiden voyage. I swung by Scott's house to rub in the fact he was working and I was not as well as letting him try out the new bike. After that I headed over to and then up the spiral hwy and on in to Colton for a tasty lunch at the Sage Bakery.

Today (Saturday) turned out to be another nice day so I headed out early on the Fargo for an out and back to Heller Bar along the Snake River. Except for the head wind on the way out it was a nice ride. There is always plenty of scenic beauty to enjoy along this route.

All totaled I broke in the Fargo right with 130 miles over two days. Hopefully I can get it loaded up for a weekend overnighter soon.

PICS.........

Climbing the Spiral Hwy.....

Heading to Heller Bar.......

Enjoying the Brooks saddle and Jones loop H bars........

Helicopter hauling buckets of cement into hells canyon for somebodies cabin construction.....expensive I bet!

Sun, Mud, and Snow Ride

2011-02-21T16:38:00.000-08:00

Winter is hanging onto us this year much longer than it did last year. This kinds of leaves us with few options for rides outside the valley. We figured we should be able to get in 10-18 miles out on the Joseph Canyon road leaving from Heller bar though. At least we would get some scenery that we don't see every weekend. We would also be able to ride the first part of the To Hell and Back 180 route that we have planned for July.

As we drove down to Heller Bar we saw the snow level on the hills was even lower than we anticipated. Oh well we would just ride as far as we could then call it and head back. It was quite a change to ride this area with snow on the hills and with the sun out it was very pretty.

At about the 10 mile point the road conditions started to get muddy and then a ways past that we started to ride through snow mixed with mud. We decided to call it after 13 miles out as the snow started to get pretty deep. We had an invigorating(cold) descent due to the moisture we had built up in our clothes on the climb out. Our bikes and our legs accumulated quite a bit of mud which is unusual for us.....

did I mention that I hate mud?

On to the pics!

SLIDESHOW

Heading out of Heller Bar..........

First few miles are along the Grande Ronde River...

Scott as usual is struggling to keep up ;-)

Turkey's.........

Riding into Joseph Canyon......

into the snow.........

And more snow...turn around time....

Jen is dressed for success.........

Mutant Ninja Turtle?....

Mud......

Our Stats.........

Hells Gate Family Hike

2011-02-21T16:11:00.000-08:00

Had a nice hike with the family including the 3 mutts on Sunday. Lots of folks out enjoying the cool weather but nice sunshine. Mom and Dad even managed to put a little hurt on Bryce with our brisk pace.....ha you gota luv that! The dogs had a fun pissing on every sagebrush we walked by.

PICS........

Wind......What Wind?

2011-02-12T17:18:00.000-08:00

The Saturday forecast had been in a state of flux all week. The final reading the morning of looked like we would stay dry but with some intense winds. We had talked about riding from Bogans Oasis out past Troy Oregon to the Mud Flats Bridge over the Grande Ronde River. We decided to take our chances and head on down. Turned out to be a great decision as the wind in the river valley never did amount to much and we had nice mild temps for February.

One reason for doing this ride was to do some scouting of part of the To Hell and Back 180 ride we have planned for July. Scott really wanted to get a feel for how bad the suffering was going to be climbing the grade out of Troy up to Mt Misery. We ended up only riding up the first few switchbacks be were able to see that it should be doable even in a more exhausted state than we were today.

Anyway with the exception of a couple of testosterone fueled hill climbing sprints (stop that Scott!) it was a pretty mellow ride. We ended up with almost 52 miles and a well earned post ride burger at Bogans before heading for home.

SLIDESHOW

Route and stats:

Few of the Pics.........

Approaching Troy via the back route....

Heading out of Troy towards Mud Flats bridge....

Quick refueling at turn around pt at Mud Flats...

Heading back towards Troy....

Jen Climbing the Troy Grade.....

Troy from above..........

Dang...forgot a burger shot today!.....sorry.

Super Bowl Sunday Geo-Caching

2011-02-07T05:42:00.000-08:00

It has become somewhatof a tradition for us to get a good hike in before the big game each year. Scott, Bryce, myself, and our poodle El Jeffe started our hike up asotin creek. We were going to check out a couple of geo-caches Scott had setup several years back. Of course Scott being Scott his geo-caches were not along the trail but at the tops of the high ridgeline beside the trail.

So after hiking 4 miles up the nice trail it was time to start our scramble up the steep canyon walls to the top of the ridge. My son Bryce was none to comfortable with the steep up and steep down. He seemed to think he would become detached from the hillside and tumble down the cliff at any moment. This caused him to climb using all 4's. Scott and I kept encouraging him to stand up and walk normally. By the end of the last steep descent he finally started to loosen up a tad and was able to pick up the pace. I see I will have to expose him to more of this type terrain soon.

After checking the two geo-caches in a very wet snowfall we descended the other side down to lickfork road where we had a pretty easy hike back to the truck. We ended up with almost 9 miiles and a couple thousand feet of climbing.

SLIDESHOW

Pics.........

Along Asotin Creek.....

Starting the climb....

Jeffe had a great time.....

Geo-Cache being guarded by a cobra.......

The To Hell and Back 180 Gravel Grinder Endurance Ride 7/9/2011

2011-01-31T08:01:00.000-08:00

_____________________________________________________________________________
UPDATE 7/7:

Cue Sheet
_____________________________________________________________________________

UPDATE 7/6:
We plan on being at far south end of heller bar parking lot sometime shortly after 4am saturday. I will bring copies of the cue sheet. We will be in an older model white crewcab ford pickup with the license plate number 666D.....I kid you not! Will do a quick meet and greet and answer any questions then hopefully we can all head out promptly at 5......yeha!
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UPDATE 6/23: link to route .GPX file

Looks like we will have two water/snack stops on the course. One will be at aprox 60 miles out at the top of the last climb before dropping down to hwy 3 and the other will be located in Troy at the base of the last long climb up mt misery. I would still strongly recommend riders bring water purification equipment just in case though.
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Extremely scenic 180 mile mind/body bending endurance gravel/dirt road loop ride having Between 15-20k of climbing.

We will finalize the route in June once the snow melts but here is the current route in google earth format. GPX route to follow later. The route will take you along the rim of Hells Canyon, near the Wallowa mountains, down into and up out of the Grande Ronde River Canyon, and through the Blue Mountains. This route does not lack for scenery.......that will help to take your mind off the suffering!

NOTE: We are new at organizing this type of event so cut us some slack as we work out the details and kinks.

Google Earth Route
Route at Map My Ride
Event on Facebook

Post questions here or e-mail us at:

tohellandback180@yahoo.com

If your planning on participating e-mail us at:

tohellandback180@yahoo.com

Ride Details:

When: Saturday July 9, 2011 - 5am.

Where: Heller Bar parking lot aprox 23 miles south of Asotin WA on the Snake River. The route is in SE Washington and NE Oregon.

What: Aprox 180 miles loop bike ride with over 15k of climbing. The exact route will be finalized in early June. It may vary slightly from the route that is now posted.

Camping: There is a small area for camping in the dirt parking area of Heller Bar as well as a small RV park and a WA State primitive campground a few miles from Heller Bar (requires a WA State Vehicle Use Permit). There is more developed camping at Hells Gate Park in Lewiston Idaho 28 miles north of Heller Bar.

Signup: Let us know if your coming by e-mailing us at:
tohellandback180@yahoo.com

Rider Limit: Not a pay to play event so no limit on # of riders.

Cost: The ride is free but if you plan on taking advantage of 1 or more possible resupply points a $10-20 donation would be appreciated.

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This is NOT a bike race, there are some things you should know should you chose to ride. You are riding as an individual. That means YOU are responsible for YOU. No one else is responsible for you!!
**********************************************************************************************************************************************************************

You should also be fully aware of the following:

* Extreme remote biking on very low trafficked gravel/dirt roads.

* No commercial services en route (There MAY be two manned resupply points along the route….TBD).

* No cell phone coverage for most if not all of this route.

* You should have GPS with mapping capabilities to go along with the cue sheet we will provide (bring extra batteries). We will also have a downloadable GPS file available prior to the ride.

* You should carry all parts/tools needed to make common repairs to your bike.

* You should carry some type of water purification system as there will be several streams / rivers along the route.

* You should plan to carry all the food you need to finish the ride.

* You should bring a light with you just in case you don't finish before dark.

* You are responsible for you on this ride….there will be no rescue provided by the ride planners.

* You may encounter bears, cougar, rattle snakes, peacocks, extreme heat, thunder storms, and rednecks on this ride.

* Other gear you might wish to have along: Sleeping bag, first aid kit, Area maps, compass, lighter, spare tire, cool weather/rain gear, Toilet Paper, camera.

* The ride planners are also ride participants. No one will be at the start point after 5am. Please be at the start point by 4:45am at the latest.

* Ride T-shirt purchase option probable.

* If you have doubts on your ability to finish this ride you should not attempt it or have a personal bailout plan prepared.

Check back to this blog post or to the FB event page for updates as the event date approaches.

A few pics of parts of the route:

X-Country overnighter at Puffer Butte

2011-01-08T17:39:00.000-08:00

We have been talking about doing an overnight ski trip at Field Springs campground for a few weeks now. We decided to head up after work on Friday and do a little night skiing up to the warming hut out on Puffer Butte.

When we arrived night had just fallen and we could see right away the snow conditions were going to be on the icy side. We hoisted on our heavy packs and put on our skis and headed out with our head lights showing the way. We had a few false turns coming out of the parking lot....amazing how different the are looks at night. We all were struggling to various degrees trying to maintain traction going up the icy trails. My son Bryce was having the hardest time and our pace was pretty slow. With it getting later by the minute and our dinners still needing to be cooked in the wood stove at the warming hut Scott and Jen decided to push on faster in order to get the fire going sooner.

Bryce and I continued our slower pace with Bryce becoming a tad frustrated with the lack of traction. Finally I had him just take off his skis and walk up the rest of the way. When we got to the top of the butte the trail forked and I was not sure which direction the hut was. So, of course I chose the wrong way. By this time I had taken my skis off as well and our detour took us downwards quite a ways. With each step we would sink to mid calf and this was starting to wear us down with the heavy packs on. We could see a light between the trees once in a while which we mistakenly thought came from the hut. Finally I realized we were not getting any closer and the steepness of the trail was not what I remembered from our last visit. So we turned around and had quite the struggle retracing our steps.

We finally made it back to the top and started out on the other fork of the trail. Within a few mins I saw Scott heading back out from the lodge to check on us. We finally made it to the hut about 20 mins later. Scott had a nice fire going in the wood stove and Jen, doing her best grandma imitation, was sitting in front of it knitting a scarf.

I quickly pulled out some cheesy bread I had prepared at home and stuck it in the wood stove to heat up. That was followed soon after by the Hobo dinners I had prepared at home as well. These contained some nice Elk steaks from Scott's recent kill as well as the following ingredients: Onions, potatoes, yams, garlic, carrots, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, and sun dried tomatoes. The cheese bread was soon ready to eat and we un-corked two bottles of my wife's wine. Her famous pepper wine and some variety of red. This went great with the bread and dinner. It was all we could do to stop Brcye from eating all the bread but we managed to contain him. After about 30 mins the hobos were done and on the plates where they were quickly consumed along with the rest of the wine. For desert we had some muffins jen made along with hot chocolate spiced with peppermint schnapps..........mmmmmmmmmmmm!

By that time it was about 9:30 and we were all bushed so time to hit the hay. We all slept pretty good with Scott doing a nice job keeping the wood stove stoked with wood throughout the night. At one point around what I think was 11pm I heard voices of several people outside the hut but when I mentioned that in the morning nobody else admitted to hearing them....they were there dangit...I am not crazy!

After eating our breakfast and consuming our hot chocalate/coffee we packed up and skied back down the hill to the car in the beautiful early morning sunlight. I was the only one who managed to take a tumble on the slick trails. Brcye did great with an occasional assist from Scott.

Except for the bad snow conditions it was a great time.

On to the pics.

2010 by the Numbers

2010-12-29T10:29:00.000-08:00

Time to slice and dice the number for another year.

Several firsts this year:

Most mileage = 8285
Longest ride = 116.6
First time over 1000 miles for a month - 1088 in July and 1019 in September.
Started riding some SS for the first time this year as well.

Goals for 2011:

More multi-day trips
More rides with my son
Bagging an SS hundy (single speed hundred mile ride)
Completing 180 mile gravel ride in July (to hell and back 180)

Here are the complete stats for 2010:

Repost of 2009 totals:

Back to 2010:

My favorite pics from 2010

2010-12-20T10:06:00.000-08:00

Yep that time of year.

SLIDESHOW

The year started out with a January mileage contest between Scott and myself. I took it as a personal challenge to out crazy Scott. The last day of January we were both out riding in fairly crappy conditions trying to put the nail in each others coffins. We both happened to snap self portraits while out and about. I think Scott wins the crazy look.
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Super bowl sunday hike up to Scott's Geocache at the summit of Lime Hill.
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One from a solo ride along the Imnaha river in north eastern Oregon.....
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A few from a father/son/dog hike in Hells Canyon.
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An early spring group ride up Cous Creek Road......
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A weekend overnighter along the Salmonn River out of Riggins Idaho
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A rare trail ride along Asotin Creek
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A few from a trip I took with Steve to Moab
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From a loop ride up on the Camas Prarie near Grangeville Idaho
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Weeknight Ride in the Waha's
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Solo ride up Knotgrass road between Clarkston and Pomeroy Washington.
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Feeling the pain of my first SS ride up steep George Creek Grade.
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3 amigos ride near Kueterville Idaho.
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Father/son 3 day ride out and back on the Trail of the Coeur d'Alene's.
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Cooling off in a side stream in hells canyon during an august rafting trip.

Bryce finishing a monster climb in the Blue Mountains.
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Sean and Scott riding along Webb canal in the morning light.

Scott looking for a new homestead location overlooking the snake river....

Several shots from a late summer Waha ride.
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Scott on final approach to lookout tower near the 7 Devils mountains Idaho.
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Jen and Scott making the turn onto Campbell Grade.

From an early morning hike near my house.

Few from a ride along/above the Grande Ronde river.
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Scott and Jen heading up Campbell Grade and into the sunset.
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Solo ride on the Selma.
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Skiing at field Springs.
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X-Country Skiing at Field Springs

2010-12-07T08:29:00.000-08:00

Last year was a lousy year for skiing with little snow in our local mountains. I only got one outing in all winter. This year things are off to a very promising start with wet / cold weather starting prior to thanksgiving.

Bryce and I joined Jen and Scott for a quick trip up to Field Springs to get our first ski outing in for the winter. This was only Bryce's 2nd time on x-country ski's. It took him a little while but he was starting to get the hang of it by the time we were done. He did have a couple of comical face plant episodes on the downhill sections though.....Hey Bryce, bend those knees and keep your butt down ;-). A fun first trip!

A few pics:

Some downhill shots....notice the great form we all have.....

Playing Hooky & Taking Pictures

2010-11-05T20:09:00.000-07:00

It was on Tuesday of this week when it hit me.....I really don't want to work 5 days this week. We have been having some pretty nice weather and decided I best take Friday off to get out in it. Decided to have a fairly mellow ride pace wise if not distance wise. Slow down some, snap some pics, and enjoy the scenery. Decided the best scenerey I can get to riding from my house is good old Snake river Road, Cous Creek grade, followed by Weissenfels Ridge Road, and then back home. Came out to a tad over 65 miles.

Strange weather with cool temps down low both coming and going with quite a bit warmer temps up to at 3500 ft with some strong winds. Could have used a little more blue sky but for November it was great. Still some strong fall color along the river and in the canyons. It sure beat sitting in front of the computer at work all day!

Route:
11/05/2010 Route
Find more Bike Rides in Asotin, Washington

SLIDESHOW

Pics!

Heading out early this morning along the Snake River.......

Still lots of color........

Riding the Selma today.....

Time to climb......

Up on top.......

Strong headwind but great views....

View of the route up Cous Creek below......

Heading down Weissenfels.....

Full Moon Cloverland Ride

2010-10-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

We have been having fantastic Fall weather the last few weeks. It was looking like today might be the last of that though. We decided to head out for a Friday night sunset/night ride on the Cloverland / Campbell grade loop. Jen decided she wanted to reverse our normal route so we headed up Asotin Creek to the base of Campbell grade where we began the suffer fest up that steep SOB.

When your going down it as we usually do you know it's steep but nothing brings that into focus than trying to climb it. The first half is especially steep and the road is loose dirt and rock. I was on the SS bike tonight so that combination makes it hard to maintain traction when climbing out of the saddle. I had to dismount a couple of times and hike a bike on some of the steep/looser sections.

Scott spied a lil ratler about half way up. He was none to pleased that we stopped to look at him as he coiled right up and shook the little bit of rattle that he had. Once at the top of the grade we stopped to take a breather and put on our windbreakers for the descent back down Cloverland into Asotin. We were treated to a spectacular full moon low in the sky as we rode back. Nice was to finish of the great fall weather.

SLIDESHOW

Heading out on Asotin Creek Road into the setting sun.....

Jen and Scott starting the steep climb up Campbell Grade......

Cute lil bugger......

Scott in full suffer mode.....

Need to learn more about taking photos in low light........

Local Fall Color

2010-10-21T20:55:00.000-07:00

Nice after work ride today out past Chief Timothy Park. Got to get the riding in on these nice fall days as I think they are about done :-(

Snapped a few pics along the way...........

Riding the Bench

2010-10-16T21:08:00.000-07:00

The Grande Ronde Bench that is. Jen, Scott, and I headed down to Bogans Oasis this morning to try to catch some more of the elusive (in these parts) fall foliage and to get a taste of some new and some old back-roads. The morning was fairly chilly so we were all wearing thermal tights and riding jackets. The days of shorts is almost done for the year :-(

The first 11 miles of our route are right along side the river. The leaves on the trees and the grass along side the river had started to turn various shades of yellow, brown, and red. Fishing season is in full swing and we saw numerous drift boats, rafts, and fishermen in waders all along the river. Seeing that I wonder how any fish manage to make it past this gauntlet. After the 11 mile warm-up it was time to climb as we left the river and headed up Grouse Creek Road. This was a tough climb with gradient between 10 and 15%. We topped out at 3100ft or so then our route became more of an up and down and we came out of the forest onto a high bench above the river. From this area we had 180 degree views of the surrounding canyons and mountains.

After that we had a quick descent down into Troy Oregon where the Wenaha river dumps into the Grande Ronde. The town had more than triple its normal population as the fishermen and hunters had their RV and tents setup all over town. We had originally planned on a longer return route up the Flora grade but our desire for a burger at Bogans caused us to skip that option.

BTW, Bogans is getting a complete external renovation right now. I suspect they will be re-doing the interior at some point as well. All in all a great fall ride in the boonies.

Our Route..........
Grande Ronde Bench ride
Find more Mtn Bikings in Bogans Oasis, Washington

SLIDESHOW

The new look for Bogans Oasis.........

Wild Turkeys are taking over......

Heading out along the river........

The Trosties....notice Scott is now sporting the mountain man look ;-)

Climbing Grouse Creek Road....I think they are about to pass out.

Strike a pose....

Out on the bench....

Me in my camo wear..........

Descent into Troy......

Finally got some sun and better colors on our return along the river....

Time for a Chili Burger!

Clearwater Ride

2010-10-10T14:31:00.000-07:00

Sean and I met up at Cherry Lane Bridge for what was supposed to be a nice 50 mile loop along the Clearwater River follwed by a long climb up to the prairie farm country up top. I forgot to set waypoints on my GPS route though so the smart computer thought gee these guys are going the long way around....I can show them a shorter route! So instead of 50 we ended up with only 32.

Seeing the way Sean was struggling today I think that turned out to be a good thing though. One positive is Sean got to climb up Hanks Grade Road which is one long / STEEP SOB. Hanks grade varies between 12 & 18% and will put a good hurt on you. The fall colors are a little delayed this year it seems to me so we will have to get back out in this area in a couple of weeks to get some better scenery. Next time I will remember to put waypoints on my route.

Sean "enjoying" one of the climbs

Waiting for Sean at the top of Hanks Grade.....

Some rollers up top....

Great views the entire route....

There was some color...

Solo Selma Saturday

2010-10-02T19:08:00.000-07:00

Couldn't make it out today until almost 11....work was cramping my style. Scott, Jen, and Sean were all doing other things this weekend so it was just me and Selma today. I mapped out a nice loop of 55 miles starting in Asotin and heading up the snake river. Exiting the pavement on good ole Couse Creek Rd. By the time I was heavy into the long climb it was quite warm....borderline HOT. I was dripping sweat off my helmet at a pretty good flow rate. Enjoyed it very much though....great scenery, Minimal traffic, and a nice loooooong climb.....ah perfect!

Stopped at the top to add some fuel to the engine. Roasted sliced sweet potatoes with garilic powder and cayene pepper along with some pepper jack cheese. And for desert.....dates with walnuts and almonds........mmmmmmmmmm! Then it was on into Anotone and then down Meyers ridge road. This road either has two much gravel or no gravel and to much dust. The hunters were out in force and the traffic in both directions while low by pavement standards was still more than I am accustomed to on the backroads in the area. They all kicked up quite a bit of dust as they passed by. Next it was a quick descent down George Creek grade and back into Asotin. I got my first and only puncture of the day on Main Street in Asotin......go figure. The sealant in my tubeless tires sealed it up by the time I reached my truck ;-)

Pics!

Getting artsy fartsy on the pavement down to Couse Creek....

oh yea my legs are a blur!

My new beer mirror.....becks of course for my wife's last name ;-)

Just to prove I can take a pic without a bike in the frame.......

Ok....enough of that...back to the bike pics!

Ahhhhh the lovely Couse Creek Grade....

Up on top and heading to Anatone..........

Serious Industrial strength gravel grinding.....

Last one.........great ride.

6000 ft / 60 miles / 6 hrs

2010-09-26T19:44:00.000-07:00

Scott and I headed out for whitebird before dawn today to do a loop ride climbfest that Scott had mapped out on his GPS software. Problem is our first scheduled turn of the day turned out to be onto a private road so we had to adjust our plans a tad. Worked out just fine though as we had a great route and still had plenty of climbing. The temps were perfect most of the day and our route was mostly through shaded woodlands between 3000-5600 ft in the mountains between the Salmon and Snake river canyons. When the trees parted we were treated to incredible views of one or both of the canyons. We made a detour up to an old abandoned fire lookout to put us over 6k of climbing for the day......Woot. When we returned back to our starting point We had 60 miles in 6 hrs.

We got cleaned up and piled in my truck where we made a quick trip into Grangeville where we both had monster burritos and beer. Great way finish out the weekend.

SLIDESHOW

Morning climb out of Hammer Creek near White Bird Idaho...

Nearly full moon..........

Much of the route was thru nice shady forests....

The white thing is a camera hogging butterfly.....

Climb to the lookout tower.....

View into the Snake River (Hells Canyon).....

Time for the long descent back to the truck......

Selma Shakedown

2010-09-21T16:36:00.000-07:00

Well, Mr. SuperE (Eric K) got me hooked on the single speed setup as the way to go. Since then I have been jonesing for the lovely Salsa Selma as my new SS sled. Bad part was Salsa has discontinued that model and I could not find anobody with a medium in stock. In desperation I started down the the list of all the Salsa dealers in the country sending out e-mails asking if they happened to have one laying around. I got a hit at a nice bike shop in Portland called Cyclepat......woot!

So the boxed the frame and a Niner carbon fork and sent it off to me. Once it arrived I started moving parts of the Karate Monkey frame. Got it all put together last night but to late to take is for anything longer than a neighborhood spin. Luckily I am off work this week and so today was able to take it out for a nice long ride up Asotin Creek. I intentionally set out to hit every bump in the road I could find....WOW what a smooth ride for a fully rigid bike. The threat of some nasty clouds caused me to turn around after 27 miles out.

A a few pics of the Selma......

Perfect Day In The Waha's

2010-09-12T18:45:00.000-07:00

Wow....it just can't get much better than this! Perfect temps, sun, blue sky, fantastic view, fun terrain, and friends.....ooooohlala!

Jen, Scott, and I headed back up into the Waha's today to finish what we started last weekend. Our goal.......make it out to the end of the "road". The first 6 miles is nice forested gravel road but then the views open up and the road narrows to double/single track. Dodging rocks, branches.....descending/ascending steep rocky sections.....what's not to love about that?! We made it all the way out and it was well worth it. We sat and ate and tried to take it all in.

Then it was time for the fun but tough return journey to the truck where Scott had stashed some brews for us to enjoy.......Perfect!

SlideShow

Heading out....

Da Monkey.....

Lunch with a view.....

Feel the burn.....

Gravel Grinding Over Labor Day Weekend

2010-09-07T05:32:00.000-07:00

Three nice rides this weekend with friends on the back roads around the valley. A lot of climbing and great scenery.

Saturday - ride with Jen and Scott up Couse Creek rd with a detour off the very very steep Edeburn grade.....ouch! Then a fun / fast descent down Weissenfels Ridge Road.

Sunday - ride with Sean and Scott out past Manns Lake then UP Flat Iron Road to Waha Lake and then down via Waha road and Rozenkrantz.

Monday - was a relatively short ride with Jen and Scott out to the Waha breaks area overlooking the Salmon and Snake River Canyons with the 7 devils and Wallowa mountains in the background. If you want to overdose of scenery this is the ride for you!

Hope you all had a great weekend as well.

SLIDESHOW

Saturday

Heading up Couse Creek Road

Feeling the burn on EdeBURN Gulch Road.

Pretty sky on saturday......

Starting our descent of Weissenfels Ridge Road.......

Finally have a jersey wilder than Sean's....

Sunday

Scott on a loaner bike from Sean due to mechanical issues with his bike....

Climbing Flat Iron Road....

heading back.....

Monday

Overnighter on the Tucannon River

2010-08-24T05:15:00.000-07:00

Fall is rapidly approaching and Bryce is starting soccer and school very soon. We needed to get one more outing in before his schedule becomes full. We headed to the northern side of the Blue Mountains approaching from the Dayton/Pomeroy area along the Tucannon river. This is a pretty area with a paved road running some 28 miles off the hwy along the river. The road the turns to gravel and branches out to several different areas in the Blue Mountains.

We camped at The Last Resort RV park as I like to get a shower in after riding. We setup camp and were on our bikes by 11am. We rode south on the last 9 miles of pavement and then continued on the gravel roads riding to the end of the Panjab branch. About 36 miles or so round trip. There are many small campgrounds along the river and quite a few trailheads in the area. Seems to be a popular jumping off point for horse packers. Will have to get back out here to check out some of the trails. I don't believe they are open to mt bikes though so it will have to be by foot.

After we got back to camp and got cleaned up Bryce and I played a little catch with the baseball and several games of horshoes in the pit the RV park had setup. Then it was time to make some dutch oven pizza. Pepperoni, sundried tomatoes, onions, and pineapple......mmmmmmmmm. Oh boy it turned out great, I even managed to get the crust just right.

Monday morning we broke camp and drove up into the gravel road area where I planned a 32 mile roundtrip ride along Kendall skyline drive to camp Goodman. I didn't realize though that there would be a monster climb between us and our destination. Bryce was a trooper and worked hard to make it to the top. It was a pretty serious climb. This took a good chunk of our energy and time for the day. Once up top on the roller section on the ridge line I realized that our plans would need to be adjusted. We decided to turn back after about 9 miles. Bryce certainly enjoyed the downhill direction much better than the up.

Short but fun trip.....I saw several other roads I want to explore and at only 80 or so miles from Lewiston not to far to drive for even a day outing.

SLIDESHOW

Flora & Fauna ride

2010-08-21T17:14:00.000-07:00

Well, after a spectacular July on the bike August has been somewhat of a struggle. First there was a 5 day rafting trip that was followed by a week long bout with some germs causing sore throat, headaches, and coughing. Then just a few days ago I had a wreck caused by a deflating tire combined with a turn. This left me with some minor road rash but no major damage. Today I finally felt well enough to do a longer and more difficult ride.

I decided to drive the Karate Monkey out to Heller Bar on the Snake River and take the backroad up to the High country north of Enterprise Oregon...up above Joseph Canyon. I got a nice early start to beat the heat and have some nice light for photo's. I have done part of this route a couple of times before but forgot how steep and long the climb was. I think I averaged about 160 bpm for most of the outbound leg.

I stopped a few times along the way to treat myself to some ripe sweet blackberries. On the way back I surprised a small black bear who was also dining on the berries. I managed to catch his back side on film. I was nice and left a lot of berries for him to chow down on though. On the ride I also saw Wild Turkey, Elk, Rattle Snakes, and Big Horn Sheep. What I didn't see was a lot of people....only had one car encounter on the entire trip.....Woot! :-)

The Route.....
08/21/2010 Route
Find more Bike Rides in Rogersburg, Washington

SLIDESHOW

Crossing the Grande Ronde River.....

Elk Herd.....

mmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Up top........

The competition for the blackberries....

Heading home...good ride.

Bryce - Clipped in

2010-08-01T18:57:00.000-07:00

After last weekends ride on the trail of the CDA's It was clear that Bryce had pretty much outgrown his Raleigh. So what's a dad to do....buy a new bike for a kid still growing like a weed.....nope not a good plan. Ahhhhhh I have a Fuji full sus bike that I seldom use and it has a fairly low standover height......Winner!

I told Bryce I would like him to try riding this bike today on our ride up Asotin Creek. He was pretty excited about this as the Fuji is a very visually interesting ride. Switches, cable, suspension, disk brakes, graphics galore.....lots of stuff for a kid to get excited about (dad to...truth be told). The Fuji has Shimano clipless pedals on it so we had to spend some time this morning teaching Bryce how to clip in and out. It took him a few try's but eventually he got the hang of it. Have to see how long before the inevitable happens and he forgets he is clipped in and comes to a stop and falls over......we have all been there.....lol. Added bonus he can now wear my shoes as well. I am sure that won't last to long though.

Anyway nice 30 mile round trip ride up Asotin Creek this morning.....we both had a good time.

Pics..........

Clipping in.......

I think I can see the calf muscles popping.......

Rest stop at Headgate park..........

Bike Corn............

Local Fauna..........

Cherry on Top

2010-07-31T15:33:00.000-07:00

Today Dave and I did a century ride today that put a great finish on my best month of cycling ever. I finally broke the 1000 mile mark in a month after coming close on a couple of occasions. I finished with 1088 miles......WOOT!

Dave put together a great scenic loop that started in Lewiston took us through Juilieta, Kendrick, Deary, Troy, and Genesee. This was my first time climbing the long grade out of kendrick up to Deary as well as some new backroads between Troy and Genesee.

07/31/2010 Route
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A few pics.........I think i did a nice job of capturing Dave's best side ;-)

Potlatch "river"..........

Trail of the Coeur d'Alene's

2010-07-26T12:43:00.000-07:00

My Son Bryce and I had a nice 3 day trip on the CDA trail this past weekend. We had some great weather....lots of sun and warm temps. We did 55, 61, 50 miles over the three days and made it all the way to the end of the trail. Bryce did great and really enjoyed himself. I can see that Santa needs to bring him a bigger bike for xmas now though. He is almost as tall as I am.

The trail is amazing....very scenic and the pavement and overall condition is outstanding. I wish our Levee trail here in the valley was in that nice of condition.

The first day we rode to Cataldo and made our camp there at an rv park right on the CDA river. Very pretty spot except its close proximity to the hwy which has some serious truck traffic. Thank gawd for earplugs is all I can say! We ate our meals at the one and only business in town the Mission Cafe.

The 2nd day we made our assault on the summit (end of trail at Mullan). We spotted a mother moose with calf in one of the swampy areas right next to the trail. We stopped to watch them for a while. The mom gave us a short glance then when back to submerging her head in the pond looking for food. After reaching the end of the trail we turned around and pedaled back to the old mining town of Wallace where we stopped for some much needed lunch.........pizza. Then it was back to our camp in Cataldo

The final day we broke camp and headed back for our starting point at the trailhead in Plummer. With a stop in Harrison for a giant scoop of icecream.

On to the pics!.......

SlideShow

Trailhead in Plummer Idaho.......

Approaching the pedestrian bridge over lake CDA...

Fun roller coaster feeling descending from the top as the path stairsteps its way down....

Many miles of swamplands with water lilies and abundant bird life....

Bryce took this great pic of our camp in Cataldo......

Bryce after a very quick dunk in the river.....

Moose on the loose!...

CDA river......

Victory! End of the line in Mullan....

Refueling stop in Wallace.......

Neat trailside backyard......

Heading back to Plummer.....

mmmmmmmmm Icecream in Harrison.......

Morning Mission Creek Ride

2010-07-18T17:11:00.000-07:00

Was on the bike before 7am this morning. My legs felt somewhat dead probably from the long hike yesterday. Still a very pretty place to ride. I had forgotten how rocky the trail was in spots. This years rains caused a couple of blowouts and some more trail erosion (ruts). The grass was super tall which made it hard to follow the trail and spot rocks.

At the top I took a left on McCormack Ridge Road and went to the end. Then reversed course and returned via Slickpoo Road (luv that name). The views from the top of Slickpoo are incredible.

mission creek
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Still lots of flowers along the route....

4 creek crossings......

Views from Slickpoo!..........

Red Bird Canyon Hike

2010-07-17T18:20:00.000-07:00

Been wanting to get down this trail since Scott and I had to abort our bike ride down it last winter due to extreme mud. The trailhead parking lot is about .5 miles in on redbird road just after the 21 ranch.

Picked a pretty hot day for it but still an enjoyable hike all the way down to the snake river. Felt odd coming out at the river and see houses and traffic just on the other side.

Saw a few deer, a bull snake, and a fair amount of bear dung. Lots of ripe and tasty apricots down at the old homestead area close to the river. Still a little bit of water running down the creek bed. Legs got a little tired towards the top on the return trip....to much biking and not enough hiking I guess. Would make a decent bike ride probably a tad rocky for a hard tail but with a full sus bike would be a piece of cake.

Round trip of 10.5 miles at 3hrs and 47mins and about 2200 ft of climbing on the return. Good day for exercise as I got 33 miles in on the bike this morning.

Geared up with the ipod this trip........

The Canyon.....

the upper section was thick with GIANT yellow star thistle....

Some nicer flowers as well though.......

A fair amount of shade on the lower third of the trail....

the somewhat muddy creek......

civilization across the river at the end of the trail....

A tasty snack......

A goodly amount of sweat was produced on the return journey...

Rolling Rolling Rolling

2010-07-11T19:49:00.000-07:00

Scott put together a route up on the prairie for us today starting and Winchester and looping around through Keuterville and back. This was mostly new country for Sean and I and I was looking forward to seeing the mythical town of Keuterville.

We met up and Scott's at 6am and were on the road for Winchester a few mins after that. The forecast was for upper 80's and light winds.....ah perfect. I decided to take my new SS bike and see how I would do on that on a longer ride. I put in my longest ride ever on Saturday at 116 so was wondering how my legs would do after that.

Little did we know that we were heading into the heart of Roller country. Roller after roller....rollers on top of rollers.....rollers that sometimes looked more like cliffs. I have never been a big fan of rollers but after riding 60 miles of almost nothing but rollers I doubt they will phase me much anymore.

This area of the prarie is very lightly populated and has a neat mixture of wheat, grassland, canola, peas, and forest. We also lucked out and had an amazing display of wildflowers. I don't think I have even come close to seeing this many flowers on one ride before.

We even managed to get off the gravel roads on two occasions and do some more trail like riding. The first was took us off the main roads and onto a gated off double track dirt trail that led to an overlook of the Salmon River Canyon. The trail went through forested areas as well as field full of white daisies. The 2nd was climbing to the top of the cottonwood butte via another gated of trail. This was a super intense climb of about 1200 feet in less than 2 miles. I had to get off and hike a bike in a couple of spots as it was just to steep for me to turn over the cranks on the SS. Once up top we had a semi hazy but good view of the Camas Prarie.

By the time we got back to Winchester we had 60 miles and about 5k of climbing. We were all fairly toasted but very pleased with the new ride and with the cold Beer!

Keuterville Prarie loop
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SLIDEWHOW

Morning on the prairie........

Rollers (?) ...............

The SeanMan.......

Scooter.......

Me (Gunner)....

Flowers were everywhere.....

What, no gravel?.....

Climbing Cottonwood Butte....

Lunch at the summit.....

Artsy Fartsy with the new SS....Luv it!

Smiles all around......

Red Zone

2010-07-06T17:53:00.000-07:00

As in that's where my heart rate resided for a lot of the ride I did today with Eric Kopski (aka Super=E). I let Eric pick the route today only telling him that I wanted something between 60 and 80 miles. We met in Asotin at 8am and headed out with me riding the Salsa Fargo and Eric on his SS Superfly rocketship 1. We headed out asotin creek and then turned left at cloverland and the big grade. That is when my extended stay in the red zone began.

I was able to hang with Eric for maybe 1/4 of the Cloverland Grade climb then he steadily pulled away from me as I had to dial it back a notch. I was thinking that I had to save something for the remaining 90% of the ride! Eric slowed at the top so I could catch up and off we went again on a redzone excursion on the gravel backroads behind cloverland.

As we were approaching the Snow Park area a silver Mitsubishi sports car piloted by a moron careened around the sharp bend in front of us. The car was going way to fast and proceeded to fish tail violently in front of us then head ass backwards into the ditch where it almost flipped over. We saw two young gals in the car and they appeared to be physically ok......mentally not so much. As we rode past in front of them the gal gunned the engine and spun her tires trying to extricate themselves from the ditch. I held out my hand for them to stop as they likely would have run us over if their tires had gotten a grip. A friend of theirs drove up to them in another vehicle so we felt free to continue on without offering assistance. We figured their moronic behavior deserved some penalty time anyway....lol.

As we approached the snow park I could feel my legs tire with the constant effort and I fell behind again. Luckily soon there after we turned of onto a side road that had more up and down and this allowed my to get my 2nd wind. Eric showed me some good areas to pick huckleberries later this summer. We stopped at a spring fed creek to fill up a couple of water bottles. The weather up top was near perfect with the sky a deep blue and a few puffy white clouds here and there.

We enjoyed the side road with some fast downhill sections that I LOVED after the sustained climbing from Asotin. We then turned off for the main road thru the area heading for the lookout tower and the return route down Asotin Creek Road. The trip down was fast and fun but with the heat coming on strong as we approached Asotin. Looks like summer has finally arrived.

I ended up with about 81 miles for the day and a vast hunger for dinner, beer, and a nap........Thx for the Ride Eric and my sustained visit to the Red Zone ;=)

Here is my collection of pics of Eric's back.

Can o George Creek WhoopAzz

2010-07-04T12:13:00.000-07:00

Been reading Eric's (Super E) Blog and done a couple of rides with him this year. As you may or may not know Eric is really into the Single Speed thing. He got me thinking that hey that is something I would like to try before I croak. So I recently put together an SS Surly Karate Monkey on the cheap by getting a used frame off e-bay and recycling some orphan components I already had.

Yesterday I took it for a short shake down cruise to hells gate park and got it dialed in pretty well in terms of fit. Eric e-mailed me and told me the true test of SS gearing, etc is to tackle one of the steep climbs to see how well you do. So I headed out early this morning bound for George Creek Grade. George Creek is one of the steepest climbs I know of and it always puts a serious hurt on me even riding a geared bike. So, I was a little apprehensive thinking about taking on this beast on a single speed.

The run up to the grade is on a straight stretch of gravel road that has the George Creek hill right at the end of it. This gives you plenty of time to see exactly what is in store for you and contemplate your fate. The Climb starts with a bang as right off the bat it goes up.......no gradual start here.

I like to climb out of the saddle a lot on my geared bike anyway so figured I would do almost the entire climb standing on the SS. The first few hundred yards I was thinking that this wasn't so bad but then shortly my RPMS started to fall and I began to use my arms and midsection to pull up on the bars as my feet pushed down on the pedals. Shortly I could feel myself approaching max BPM on my ticker. I could also feel my forearms start to get pumped up. Woah, my arms said....we are just supposed to be along for the ride.

My fantasy of making it to the top without stopping came to an end about 1/5 of the way up the hill. I had to stop!.....I un-clipped and got off the bike and hung my head over the top tube sucking in great gobs of air.....whew! Sweat was running down my face and I briefly considered turning around but decided the heck with that. I got back on and continued up the hill. I had to stop 4 more times but I eventually made it....wooooohoooooo!

I can see how this single speed thing will force you to become a stronger rider. The uphill really works your muscles hard and the flats and downhills makes you become proficient at high cadence pedaling. Not quite ready to give up on my geared bikes but throwing in a few SS rides will be a nice change of pace.

George Creek Grade in the distance.........

Panting like a dog......

View from the top.....Woohoooo I made it

Knotgrass / Peola Loop

2010-07-03T13:37:00.000-07:00

Been wanting to do this loop ride for some time now just always something else came up to push it back. Once you get off the hwy portion and turn on to Alpowa road you pretty much have the place to yourself. I don't think I saw a car in either direction for almost 20 miles. The climb up Knotgrass Grade Road is long and fairly mild (4-8% grade). The surface is very good in general with only about a 2 mile stretch of the extra chunky gravel. The outstanding views give you plenty to look at during the long climb. I think the route topped out at 4100ft or so then you are treated to a super fast descent all the way into Clarkston.

I will be doing this route again.

knotgrass loop

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SLIDESHOW

Start of Knotgrass Grade Road....

This guy came over looking for a treat but I had already eaten my apple and he didn't seem interested in almonds and walnuts.....sorry.

Still a lot of wild flowers up top...

On Peola Road heading down.....

Bryce on Couse Creek grade

2010-06-26T16:42:00.000-07:00

Lovely day for a ride up Couse Creek road. I have not taken Brcye on any serious climbs yet. I keep meaning to take him over and do the Spiral Hwy but haven't made it yet. I kind of like keeping him off the pavement and away from traffic as much as possible so I thought hey Couse Creek is just as much a climb as the Spiral and it is gravel as an added bonus.

I don't think Bryce had any idea what he was in for. It is a long 8 mile climb with about 2400ft of vertical gain. He started off quickly and my older muscles were not yet warmed so I was like...hey wait for me. It wasn't long though til the constant uphill began to slow him down some..... ;-) At about the five mile mark I started hearing some grunts coming from him. These grunts steadily increased in volume as we continued on. As we approached the summit he sounded somewhat like a grunting tennis player. He made it ok though and he is pretty proud of his accomplishment. We both had a blast on the fast swooping descent.

I will have to start getting him out more frequently so that eventually he will be able to carry more of the gear on our bike tours.......shhhhh don't tell him.

Woooohoooooooo!

Weeknight in the Waha's

2010-06-23T14:47:00.000-07:00

Impromptu ride last night up into the Waha's with Carol, Sean, Jen, and Scott. We rode out towards the end of the road past eagle creek. The flowers were in full bloom and with incredible views of the Snake, Salmon, and Grande Ronde river canyons. Everyone really enjoyed it.

SLIDESHOW

Wallowa Reality Check

2010-06-23T05:16:00.000-07:00

It sounded like such a good plan 3 months ago when Tom and I were discussing our spring backpacking trip. With snow pack at 50% of normal and spring approaching I thought a nice 4 day hike in the Wallowa's would surely be possible by June 20th. Problem is mother nature decided she had other plans and served up the coldest and wettest spring since I have lived in Idaho.

Tom and I went into denial mode and decided to give the hike a try anyway. We did modify our original route which had us hitting high points of 8500 ft for a lower trip along the Minam River. Problem is we still had to make it across the first ridge to get down to the river. We made it up to 6400ft before the snow made hiking and trail finding to difficult to continue.

We decided to make camp in a semi clear meadow right next to the Lostine river. Bryce and I were bummed out because we could not find enough dry wood for a fire. I had even remembered to bring marshmellows! Well, we enjoyed the short time we were out. Bryce and I will try again later this summer.

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