Beartooth Hairpins

Another challenge quickly presented itself; old dogs don’t learn new tricks easily and that was the case with adapting to the bikes that were provided on this downhill adventure. My bike had one handbrake, which controlled the front brake and a foot brake. The handbrake frightened me and went against all that I had learned about never using the front brake alone. I feared flopping over the handlebars, which in this case reminded me of one of those old banana seat bikes with the wide spread handlebars. But, that was the least of my problems.

I couldn’t kick back to raise the left pedal as I always do. How could I start off? My right pedal was up and I had to think about starting off. Nothing to clip into or slide into for my foot. Yikes, it was like riding a bicycle for the first time. I was in the minority in this particular group as most of the others appreciated this cruiser style bike. For me, I experienced a severe case of retroactive inhibition. Even dismounting the bike was a real process for me. How set in my ways I am.

Not having my ancient helmet cam with me because it really does take two people to get it going, I decided to capture video using my still camera with the video function. I simply clipped to to my jacket using two large clamp-on style paper clips, which attached the camera strap to my jacket. I couldn’t really see where the camera was pointing and couldn’t even tell if it were running. Fortunately, I maintained an adequate distance behind the other riders to get good shots of the descent. The rain didn’t help much especially when the drops blurred the riders, but that was much better than the snow that fell on the top of the mountain.

Take a look at the footage here.

We took advantage of this excellent program when we did our cross country tour. This summer, we have hosted six cyclists. Five of them were doing
transcontinental tours and one was heading north to Canada.

We haven’t forgotten the generosity of members of the Warm Showers List and want to give back to the bicycle touring community.

If you would like more information, please visit the Warm Showers List.

The one real disadvantage for us with hosting fellow touring cyclists is that we want to start touring with them!!!!

We do hope to bicycle the P’tit Train du Nord in Quebec sometime this year.

We have happily hosted several touring cyclists who belong to the Warm Showers List, an excellent resource for long distance cycling tourists.
Living right on a cross-state bicycle route, we expect to get more tourists later this month and into August.

Coming soon.

So as of now, I have the first three weeks of the trips in sequential order. You can find them by going to the side bar and looking under the Find It tab.

Blogs are great if you follow along on a regular basis, but if you stumble upon one and want to read all of the entries, it is a bit of a pain. I promised long ago that I would arrange the trip on a page so that it would be easier to follow and finally I have started on that quest.

Simply go to the Trip week by week tab and choose a week.

We found more services along the road than we had expected, which made the day go by a little faster. Even though it was over 60 miles, it somehow seems shorter with some diversions along the way. We were most surprised by a very nice restaurant in Syringa, which wasn’t far from Lowell. That stop re-energized me.

We met a couple on loaded bikes just outside our motel for the night. The were heading from Missoula and had covered 66 miles so far that day. They said that they had a nice tailwind, which surprised them and since they were heading downward, they would attempt to cover another 30 or 40 miles this day. What happened to our tailwinds? We really had hoped for a push that would make higher mileage days a real possibility. Well, we eventually did up our average daily distance, but no thanks to tailwinds.

Even though I had seen so many photos of the area, the reality seemed so different than the snapshots. The scenery was definitely stunning and the thought of making a false move and going into the creek was even more mindnumbing. Lolo Pass gets more real every single day. Once we conquered that, we could relax a bit a find something else to occupy our thoughts. For me getting over Lolo would be a major accomplishment.

We hadn’t done any extremely long days just because of how accommodations fell. We would rather do a shorter day than do over 70 miles, especially considering our luck with the wind. We were thrilled on this morning when we stopped for breakfast in Pomeroy to see a loaded cyclist pull-up. We invited him to sit with us and he told us that he was doing the Lewis and Clark Route in segments.
We forewarned him about the road ahead, which for us was mostly downhill. A storm was forecast, so he headed to where we had just come and we continued on to Pataha, a tiny outpost in the wilderness. And what an interesting place this was. A singing local bought an old mill that he had dreamed of owning for a very long time. Not only has he restored the mill, but he has also used the property as part of his ministry. What was very interesting about the restaurant at this mill is that all meals are offered on a donation basis, something that we hadn’t seen before.

We met some nice people who were helping with the onsite computers and networking. The were staying at the complex in a house next to ours. There are a few houses at the Pataha Mill, which basically function as hostels. It was a very convenient place for us to stay and spared us from having to cycle 70+ miles. We hope that we can return here again and spend some time.

Day 12/May 13

This was Mother’s Day last year. It started with the perfect gift for any mother, the climb up Alpowa Pass. Fortunately for us, there was little traffic to contend with. At the top of the pass, there was a nice flat and level rest stop. We seemed to be on top of a plain, but would go down for 5 miles after we left. This was a decent descent, which ended up hurting my hands as I seem to like using the death grip on steep downhills.

We should have made really good time into Clarkston, but our good friend, the headwind came up and held us back. Since we were only biking a short distance, it was more of an annoyance than a serious hindrance to our day. We arrived early enough for lunch and had time to wash some clothes and re-organize, something we seem to have to do on a daily basis.

Day 13/ May 14

Everyday we got closer and closer to what for me the most intimidating obstacle on this trip: Lolo Pass. We were getting into more desolate areas, with poor quality roads. We had heard much about the Swift trucks and that they were forbidden from traveling on Route 12 because they had caused so many accidents. We would be on Route 12 for a few more days and hoped that we could safely traverse these sections.

Orofino was a pleasant little town with a grocery store at the opposite end of town from where we were staying. We lucked out with accommodations because when we originally called, we were told that a golf team had taken up the entire motel. When we arrived we were pleased to hear that there had been a cancellation, so we did not have to worry about plan B. We have been lucky and have always arrived at our destination just after lunch time, so we never feel rushed like we did those first few days.

Tomorrow, we have to get an early start to get to Lowell. I had read so many journals about this stretch and imagined what the road ahead looks like. The scenery was always stunning although the riding may be a challenge as it is a long gradual climb just until Lolo Pass, where the climbing becomes more strenuous.

We stayed at the excellent Clover Island Hotel, which really helped us put some things in perspective. We were disappointed that the wineries were 20 minutes away – by car. Do you know how far that is by bike? Some other time.

Of course, we found some other diversions and headed to the local museum that gave us plenty of information about Kennewick Man, who was discovered near here by a boy who was trying to get away with not paying admission to the boat race, which would pass by on the river just outside our hotel room. We were intrigued by the museum and the story of this find.

That alone was not enough to satisfy us, so we headed out to the Sacajawea State Park, which had an extraordinary exhibit on this female legacy. We learned about the proper pronunciation of her name and a lot about the Lewis and Clark expedition. This detour was definitely a worthwhile one in spite of our disappointment of not visiting any wineries.

We bicycled a lot in town and headed to a good local restaurant back in town. We really wished that we could have spent another day here as we enjoyed this town very much. But duty called and we would have to push on.

Day 11/ May 12

We had a very pleasant ride today and could see the mountains looming large far ahead. How long would it be before we started cranking up the passes and have to challenge our untrained legs? We can’t use the untrained excuse anymore because we have already many miles on our legs. So far we have survived any challenge presented us. There has to be something that will hit us hard very soon.

We pedaled in the heat again with little relief from the sun. We noticed some huge vineyards, but passed by too early to sample any of the product. We eventually reached the town of Dayton and stayed in our first converted-trailer motel. This is a new concept to us. Basically a trailer gets divided into several sections. For some reason, I always assume that I am in an Easy Bake Oven and have heightened awareness of my surroundings in these structures. I think far too much about becoming a chocolate chip cookie as I bake in my metal surroundings.

At least, there is a nice brewery in town. Check out my visit with the brewmaster at the bottom of the original post.

http://www.portlandtoportland.com/invisible-snakes/

I can’t believe that I forgot to take a look at the hops plants.