2010 Transcontinental Bike Trip

This is Amie reporting from Grangeville, Idaho! Today we're taking a rather unexpected rest day, and we'll be back on the road, headed toward Missoula tomorrow. Here's a quick recap of our experience since Council, and the unfortunate circumstances that have rendered us currently immobile.

We left Council after a typical, sluggish morning (even the boys beat us out...) and meandered slightly uphill through the Idaho woods for about 24 miles to New Meadows, ID. There, we found the guys having lunch at a picnic table on the side of the road. We even ran into the 4 boys from Washington, who were stopped in New Meadows doing bike maintenance. We lunched with our Ohio boys, frolicked for a while on an adjacent playground, and then continued our ride toward Riggins. Most of the rest of the day was downhill, as we followed the Little Salmon River (I think that's what it's called... an offshoot of the Snake?) as it poured through the hills. As we descended the woods gave way to more open, dryer landscapes and hundreds and hundreds of cows for the boys to yell at.
We almost stopped to play in "Zim's Hotsprings", but our detour proved fruitless, as they wanted 7 bucks a piece to go in the water! We politely declined and instead made our own stop along the river to have a quick swim before continuing down.
There was one other even between our swim and stopping in Riggins - Along our ride we had been seeing "Adopt-a-Highway" signs showing that the section of the 95 we were riding was sponsored by "Yahweh 666 Warning Assembly". We were confused until we stumbled upon their.... camp? On the left side of the road was a MASSIVE sign dedicated to Yahweh (and Yahuweh, who is apparently Yahweh's son), informing us that various other false prophets were spawn of Satan, that the end was coming... I don't know. We stopped and pondered the sign for a few, then headed down toward Riggins, passing hundreds of Salmon fishermen parked along the highway.

Riggins is a small town of population 410, but feels much bigger, since it is sustained by rafting and fishing tourism. Every building in Riggins seemed to provide lodging, food, fishing, or whitewater rafting. We found a beautiful little park, set into the hillside and overlooking the river. We ignored the "DAY USE AREA ONLY" sign, pitched our tents, and cooked up some delicious burritos for dinner. Then we enjoyed "family dessert", after our super savvy, deal-hunting boys found half gallons of ice cream for only a little over 3 dollars. I think we ate 5 between the 8 of us....

The next morning, ice cream digested, we tried again for an early start and failed, but less miserably than days past. We biked the 27 miles to White Bird rather quickly, since we were still following the river downhill. We climbed a little up toward White Bird, but were anticipating the giant 8-mile, 3000-vertical-foot climb we knew was about to start in earnest. We stopped for a snack in White Bird, where we were informed that there were actually two roads that led to the top of the hill - the 95, which we had been following and was carved into the side of a long mountain ridge, and the "old 95", which used switchbacks to go straight up the hill. Eager to avoid the massive trucks and rumble strips that had been plaguing our ride that day, we decided to opt for the old 95, where we might climb in peace and chat on the way up.
This started off as a fantastic idea. There were very few cars and we were making great progress. The road was chip-sealed, but we were moving so slowly it didn't matter. It was so hot that the tar holding down the chip seal was actually melting slightly, and little black bubbles were coming up between the rocks in places (I thought they were beatles for about 20 minutes). Then...everything went wrong.
I was rocking out to Lady Gaga remixes, as usual, when Chad and Jared fell back. I assumed it was one of their daily flat tires that seem to result from the massive load of gear on their back wheels. Unfortunately, however, it turned out that Chaz's rear derailleur had actually been ripped clean off his bike. Figuring there was nothing to do at that moment but get to the next town, we all hung out on the burning, melting road while Jared, hero of the day, turned Chaz's bike into a fixed-gear bike that might get him up and over the hill. After a long, hot hour on the roadside, we started rolling again. About 50 yards later Jared's spoke snapped (again), leaving him with a warped wheel. Chaz was already storming up the hill (walking), and the rest of the girls waited while Lucia checked in with Chad and Jared. We decided to split up and make our way to the top separately. Unfortunately, however, about 30 seconds into the resumed ride, I ripped my own derailleur right off my bike. The melting road had been causing gravel to stick to our wheels and fling off our bike spontaneously. We think that a piece of tar-covered gravel probably stuck to my chain. As I tried to peddle it through the derailleur, it got lodged, cemented the chain to the derailleur, and I ripped the entire piece off my bike. It also got caught in my spokes, bent both derailleur wheels, and ripped the cable housing out.
So then we immediately ate lunch, because I was already hangry.

While we were lunching, Jared finally comes up to meet us. Apparently he was "absolutely furious", which he made very clear by grinning sheepishly and being quiet. After lunch we split up and made a plan. Chad had already ridden ahead to Grangeville to scout. Lucia, Claire, and Tamara would also ride ahead and see what they could do/find. We had no idea where Chaz was. And Danielle, Jared, and I would walk our bikes up to the top of the hill, and hope to coast into Grangeville.
It was a long, sweaty walk. Halfway to the top we ran into Chaz, who had apparently set up camp on the side of the road, and had run into a moose.... Out of sight for about an hour he had already gone "into the wild."... Anyway we picked him up, walked to the top, rigged up my derailleur so that it wouldn't catch my tire, and made a terrifying two mile descent off the back of White Bird Hill. We hit the bottom where we could no longer coast, Jared and Chaz rigged my bike into a fixed-gear as well, and we finally peddled that last 4 or 5 miles into Grangeville, where our friends were waiting for us with ice water, donuts, and a place to sleep!!

Sunburned, confused, and without bike parts but in much higher spirits, we all went out to family dinner at a Mexican restaurant in town. There, we got the name and numbers of a few people to help us sort out our bike predicament. Also, ironically, one of the dollar bills with which I paid for dinner had "Yahuweh" written on it... After dinner, we biked out to an RV park and dirtied up their showers properly. Clean and fed, we returned to our city park and whiled away the evening.

This morning, Chaz and I went on a phone quest for bike parts. We are currently chilling the day away doing little errands, playing games, writing in our journals and blogging! Tomorrow, two new derailleurs and hangers are coming in from Missoula for Chaz and I, and there are people in Grangeville who can help us put them on.

More updates to come! Probably from Missoula or our cell phones. And now Tamara has some poems for you, which she likes to make up while biking.