Day 70: 82 Miles

Riggins, ID to Cambridge, ID

This morning was the first time my alarm has woken me up in weeks. I usually set an alarm just in case, but I’m up before it goes off. The time traveling yesterday did not help my sleep. We lost an hour by going back into Mountain Time from Pacific Time. My body decided it was still on Pacific Time this morning. The alarm went off at 5:30 but I fell back to sleep. I woke up again at 6:45 and got up. The group of 3 older guys were already on the road by that point. By the time I packed up my tent and had breakfast it was later than I would have liked. I got on the road at 7:45.

The first 25 miles of the day were miserable. It was all uphill through a canyon. It wasn’t anything steep, but it was constant uphill between 2% and 3% grade. That is flat enough that I shouldn’t complain, but with a headwind and poor road conditions it made for an annoying start to the day.

At mile 25 the road flattened out a bit as I entered a more tree covered area with some farmland. After 10 miles of some easy riding I arrived in the town of New Meadows where I found Stephen. He had also gotten up and out on the road before me this morning. We both grabbed some sandwiches from Subway and rested for awhile. By the time we started riding again it was after noon and the temperature was getting hot. Luckily we had 25 miles of mostly downhill to the town of Council.

Council was supposed to be our stopping point today. When we got there I texted Charlie to see where he was. He let me know he had gone ahead with Mike and Pat to the next town. Their early start to the day had gotten them to Council early enough to keep going. Stephen and I couldn’t let the old guys out do us, so we decided to continue on to Cambridge as well.

We took a quick break in Council to cool off and take in some calories. I had a chocolate mile and a Coke. It was so hot out I didn’t feel like eating anything, but the drinks were almost 800 calories, so I knew that would get me through the rest of the day. We met a large group of eastbound cyclists by the grocery store and talked to them while we rested. By the time we got back on the road is was after 3:00 PM and the temperature was above 95 degrees. It was not the best conditions to be riding in, but there was a stop halfway to Cambridge where we could cool off and get some cold drinks.

About 10 miles from Cambridge I felt something weird going on with my rear tire. It turns out I had a slow leak in my tube. I didn’t want to stop on the side of the road and change it out because it was too hot. I decided as long as I could make forward progress at a reasonable speed I would ride until the tire was completely flat. I luckily made it all the way to Cambridge without having to change out the tube. Once in Cambridge, Stephen and I decided to split a motel room and then grabbed some food from the grocery store that we could eat in the room.

Tomorrow is another day with a good amount of climbing. We will be riding through Hells Canyon which is supposed to get very hot. I will also make it to Oregon tomorrow, the last state of this trip.