15lunatics

Friday the 13th (day of the trip) only brought bad luck to one of the Trek vans when a concrete truck in a parking lot forgot how long his rig was.  The driver of the truck then drove off. A couple witnesses and a surveillance camera at the gas station gave the cops all they needed.  The van ended up in a shop for an alignment. Not much scenery today, mostly farmland but 10 or so miles through this gorge riding along the Jefferson river was pretty scenic.  Consensus today was that this ride was made tougher by yesterday’s beast of a ride.   I did see a full size billboard today that said “ Without a doubt, Jesus Is Alive”.  My first thought was why I hadn’t seen it on the news.  It seems like it would be a pretty big deal and I had watched the morning news.  I’ll watch the news again tomorrow and let you know what I find out.   Out.

Highest mileage day of the trip. The rest day helped a lot.  MacDonald Pass is at the Continental Divide which I just rode over for the first time and for those of you who I ride with, yes, I got a rock (had to be long and skinny so the word MacDonald would fit on it). What a nerd    Clearly not written by a trucker The goods.  Tailwind much of the day.  Trying to hang with another rider, Joanne has been a challenge. She won Ironman Kona in the 80’s and I don’t think she’s lost a bit of fitness.  I’ve nicknamed her bullet because that’s how she rides...when the gun goes off she’s gone. This led to today’s ear worm....U2’s Bullet the Blue Sky All in all a beautiful day in Big Sky Country  Out.

First rest day of the trip after 10 days and 838 miles and I feel a bit like the guy that called in sick but is not sick at all.  What do we all do when we play hookey?  Thats right, we do laundry, hit the local drug store and the bike shop. But after all the fun stuff is done we’ve got to get back to serious responsibilities so that’s what I did........ Thursday’s ride is the longest of the trip and takes us over the Continental Divide and into Helena, MT.  At least the last 10 miles are downhill. Here it is: I was looking for some inspiration going in to this ride and here’s what I found: “With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts”.  Eleanor Roosevelt “That’s going to leave a mark”.  Tommy Callahan

After riding over 800 miles in the last 10 days I think I deserve a reward of a great lunch.  Looking over the Clark Fork river in Missoula with a day off tomorrow.   So far team Trek has been fantastic.  These 4 work every single day from 6AM until after dinner.   Riding a bike 100 miles is tough but imagine spending 8 hours to drive 100 miles in a car.   Support trucks are stopped every 20 miles or so to refill bottles, serve lunch and reload on ride food.  2 of the guides ride each day with one hanging back with the slowest rider and the other riding in the middle of the pack or up front.  If there’s a mechanical issue outside of what the riders can fix there’s always a guide or truck nearby.  I broke a chain 2 miles from the truck on Tuesday so the next guide to come by gave me his bike and lowered the seat of mine and rode it like a kids strider bike to the truck and replaced the chain.  The other 2 guides drive the trucks with food...

Woke up to this today.  In case today’s 92 miles wasn’t tough enough this made it even harder to get motivated.  Also had 10-1/2 miles of grooved highway pavement on a steep climb with no shoulder and double dump trucks flying by so that was pretty cool.  At least I saw a moose after all of the road signs warning of it.  Tough to get a moose to stay put long enough for a picture but I guess I lucked out.   Easy 37 miler tomorrow into Missoula followed by a rest day.  I’ve got plans to do some sightseeing on the rest day.......laundromat, bike shop and CVS (you cyclists and horseback riders know why I’m going to CVS). By the way, if you comment I don’t know who you are unless you tell me.  Except for you “guy who doesn’t ride a bike”, I know who you are. Out.

Today was an eventful day with two flat tires, one broken chain and one wrong turn that added 3 miles to the ride but saying “Hey, I rode my bike 102 miles today” sounds way cooler than “Hey, I only rode my bike 99 miles today” Lewiston, ID.  A bunch of canoes welded together to look like an ocean wave....this art has been done to death huh. For the geeks Headed to Kooskia, ID tomorrow. The only bad thing is that we’ll be rolling in during rush hour.  Send Neosporin

Here’s a picture of a sign The wind was in our favor today. Cruised along at 32 MPH with almost no effort. Headed for Lewiston Saturday  That’s a picture of a sign   Pretty darn artistic if you ask me   Bicycle joke of the day (there won’t be one everyday, there’s just not many bicycle jokes)   A nerd and his new bike.  A nerd was walking down the sidewalk one day when his friend, another nerd, rode up on a shiny new bicycle. The first nerd was stunned by his friends sweet ride and asked “WOW,  where did you get such a nice bike”?  The second nerd replied, “ Well, yesterday when I was walking home minding my own business a beautiful woman rode up to me on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said “take what you want “  The second nerd nodded approvingly, “ good choice, the clothes probably wouldn’t have fit. “

When I hit my top speed of 45.8 mph one of the guides went by at 56.....idiot. As I coasted in to Lexington, OR I saw a large white building on the hill that had put one 4’ tall letter in each of a row of windows that spelled out HE IS RISEN.  I don’t know who HE is but that’s just bad grammar. Sorry no pictures today, the wheat harvest is over so they would just be pictures of dirt. Out

For the number geeks.......you know who you are (what it doesn’t show is the 8,100 feet of climbing).  One of the 2 Trek support vans on the Washington side of the Columbia headed towards our night in exotic Condon, OR.  They stop every 20 miles or so so we can refill our water bottles and eat.  Riding along in 95 degree heat today 300 miles into a 3,800 mile trip I remembered what Mom told Heather when she said I was riding across country....Mom said    “I should bake him some cookies”......yeah Mom, that’ll do it.  Out

Most difficult day of the trip is in the books.....2nd most difficult, yep, that’s tomorrow.   Todays ride forced several of the group into the sag wagon, hopefully a good nights sleep will get them to Condon, OR tomorrow, 100 miles away and another 8,000 feet of climbing.  Today’s ear worm probably needs no explaining...it was Deep Purple’s ”Smoke on the Water”. 

If you are not a cyclist this probably doesn’t mean squat to you but some of you data geeks might be interested.  Don’t let the speed shown fool you, that’s overall pace including stops.  Moving speed was 17.9 mph, maybe a bit “spirited” this early. Yes Mom (Heather), I will be good🤥 First 50 miles through the forest made today’s ear worm The Trees by Rush

The Columbia River, last water view for a while The beach at Astoria, OR  99 miles back to Portland

https://trektravel.com/trip/cross-country-usa-bike-tour/# It’s on Early morning sighting in downtown Portland—-homeless guy sleeping on the curb next to a $400,000 Lamborghini Aventador (I highly recommend getting one)........Keep Portland Weird??? Headed to Astoria to dip the wheels (of the bike, not the Lamborghini) in the Pacific before starting back East