Jack's Bicycle Tour Across America 2006

Missoula - rest day

Had a nice slow day today. Did some shopping, updated this blog and hung out.

They are just starting a short summer session at the college. It was kind of crazy with new students trying to find things and asking me where things were as if I would know. The campus was started in the late 1800's. Turner hall that were are staying in was built in 1937. It has some great old architecture that you just do not see in the newer buildings. The dorms are not air conditioned so it was a little warm today.

We had Adventure Cycling's 30th birthday party today. About 140 people attended. It was fun to talk with a few of the riders that had done the cross country trip in 1976. I think they believe we are whimps for doing it as a support ride as they did it self contained. We sure could not do 85 miles a day average with a loaded bike. Most self contained rides across the US are in the 60+ day range.

You will see a change in day numbering on the blog. I started with day 1 as our first ride day and actually it was the official second day of the trip. (The first day was just a meeting in Seattle)I will start tomorrow with the correct day numbering off of our cue sheets.

Thompson Falls to Missoula - 101 miles

Our cue sheets were wrong, today was ONLY 101 instead of 121 miles. It was a great day riding along the Clark Fork River. The entire day was beside the river with one exception to avoid a gorge. The river is 100+ feet across in most places with heavy flow this time of year.

Cheryl decided not to ride today with her road rash and went into Missoula via car to get it looked at. I hope nothing like that happens to me as I would like to ride the entire distance.

We are staying at a dorm tonight as tomorrow is a rest day. Adventure Cycling is have a 30 year birthday party tomorrow night and we are the featured event. Their headquarters is located here. The campus is full of people so I should find plenty to talk to tomorrow. I am also planning on visiting the Adventure Cycling office.

Sandpoint to Thompson Falls, MT - 88 miles



Today was a constant up and down day. We ended up only 400ft higher than the start but with 5,600 ft of climbing. I saw a lot of white tailed deer and almost got ran over by one. It came within 5 ft of hitting me in the side. I came across a little fawn about 2 ft tall on the rode and shooed him off so he would not get ran over.



Today I spent some time riding with Jorie, a 22 year old college student, and her father. She has been doing bicycle trips since she was 14 and road a 4,000+ mile trip last year.



My other riding partners, Cheryl and Tom, had a little problem today. Tom cut to close to Cheryl's front wheel and caused her to crash. She lost some skin but otherwise is ok.



We were staying at a highschool again and I got to talk with some of the girls that were in a basket ball tournament. It is really neat to hear some of the small town issues compared to our big city things. I can sure see why some of these kids have a hard time adapting to a big university environment.

Spokane to Sandpoint, ID - 77 miles



The air had finally cooled off as we rode out of town. It had been very warm in the dorms and hard to sleep. We are now riding through pine forests and passing a number of lakes. Today we crossed the border into Idaho, ya our first state line crossing....



I arrived in Sandpoint early at 11am. Cheryl, Tom and myself got cleaned up and spent the rest of the afternoon in Sandpoint. The town is on Lake Pend Oreille. There is a waterfront with shops and restaurants. There is also a great beach to cool off at. The lake itself is over 1,000 feet deep in places and there is a US submarine base located on it.



The area is big on mountain biking with 4 bike shops to service 5,000 people. They have a bar with bike seats for stools.....



We were camping at a highschool and they locked up the building at 9pm. Made for an interesting morning with no facilities.

Spokane - rest day



Got up really late this morning at 6:30am. My usual rise time is 5:00am to be on the road by 6:15.



After my usual trip to Starbucks I went for a short ride along the Spokane River waterfront. There is a large falls in the middle of town. The picture is of the top of the falls area. This last weekend they had a national basket ball tournament, Hoops Fest, here with around 100,000 extra people in town.



The waterfront was really nice and quiet after everyone left town. I hung out people watching and enjoying the sights for about 2 hours. The collage campus where we are staying is also very quiet for the summer.



If you notice any misspelled words on the blog please ignore it.... I have a very limited spell checker on my PDA.



Tomorrow we are back at it. Day 8 is a 121 mile day, uk...

Odessa to Spokane - 75 miles

Another beautiful start of a day. Unfortunately a 20 mph head wind start about 1 hour into the ride. This continued for the entire day slowing everyone down.

We traveled from the open farm land to the pine forests of the Spokane area. I used a lot of water today with the temperature in the 90's today. Tomorrow will be our first rest day to explore Spokane.

After about two hours I was up front again. When I arrived in Spokane to check in to the dorm I was told we had an emergency on the road. Later I found out that one of our riders had been hit by a car and killed. The rider was hit on the shoulder by a car from the rear at 70+ mph. Apparently the driver was distracted and just drove onto the shoulder. We had a group meeting to discuss the issue but I am sure there are a lot of emotions that need dealt with.

Vantage to Odessa - 81 miles

Today started out with a big climb out of the Columbia river basin to the farming country of eastern Washington. We seen potatoes, wheat, soybeans and mustard for 70 miles. Odessa is a small town about 4 blocks long. The traffic is bad, about 3 cars per hour.

I rode with a lot of different people today. It was great to hear about them and why they are riding this crazy ride. I think at this point I have ridden with at least half of the people. Some of our riders have toured all over the world and other this is there first time.

We have twin ladies that are teachers in the Seattle area. Their last day of school was on our meeting day. This is the first tour for them and they seem to be having fun stopping at every sign or store.

I spent some time in town talking with the locals. I talked with one boy who told me his grandparents owned the bowling alley but his grandma burned it down for the insurance money. He was in 11th grade with a class of 39.

We started the day riding through a beautiful valley towards Cle Elum. It was cool with just a little dew on the grass which reflected in the early morning sun. Cle Elum is finally recovering from being bypassed by the freeway so there were a few stores to visit for morning snacks. The ride today was mostly on two lane road with very little traffic. The ride took us from pine forests to sagebrush and volcanic rock by the Columbia River.



All of the group made it in today on their own. There was not as much climbing which helped. More people started earlier so I think that also helped.



I am starting to get to know some of the other riders. It is quite a varied group as you would suspect. One common theme seems to be that most are looking for a life changing experience.



We had dinner in a restaurant tonight, spaghetti, standard bike food... Camping was on a nice grassy area. The picture is of the power post next to my tent. I think the toothbrush makes it.

Denny Creek area as we went up the pass over the Cascades.

Seattle to Easton - 86 miles

This was a interesting day. We started out with about 60 turns to get out of the Seattle area, then a little freeway riding. Finially we move onto some great two lane with very little traffic.

Western Washington is very lush and green. As we rode accross the Cascades we moved into open pine country. The pass was just a little over 3,000 feet. Does'nt seem like much in Colorado terms but we started at 10 feet.

The group is very spread in age a ability. Age is from highschool to 60 +. Also a big spread in abilities. I was first in Easton by about an hour and I stoped a lot to look at things. Eight out of the fourty had to be saged.

Tomorrow is an easier day so hopefully everyone can finish on their own. I am looking forward to the next few days getting to know everyone. Tomorrow I will try to ride with the group insted of out in front.

We finished the evening with a salmon dinner and a map meeting to discuss the next days ride.

Only two weeks until we hit the road. Training is going well, mostly saddle time now with some hills. As you can see from the picture I have starting the packing process. The bike leaves for Seattle this Friday. With the tour being in the US it is much easier to purchase things so I don't need to pack for the entire trip. I have started to see EMAIL from the other members of the trip. The first email from a group member was concerning bringing power strips so that everyone could charge their laptops and phones. That sparked discussion from a number of the members. A few years ago this would have been very different.

The planning is almost finished. There are a few loose ends for the end of the trip in DC. Since it is so far out, August 8th, it will get finished on the road.

I will be leaving for Seattle on Saturday the 17th to spend a few days with my mom and sister prior to the start of the trip.