7/25/09

So a big thanks to the leaders from CUS 08 and their notes they've left for us because they have generated some excellent adventures. It starts out with our stay in Fossil, Oregon. A bustling metropolis of 456 people as of the 2000 census. We stayed in this tiny church that was famous for hosting cyclists, they even had stain glass windows that had depictions of bicycles riding up to the church (righteous) But the notes from last year mentioned that there was an excellent swimming hole that provided an excellent time for everyone on last years route.

We had a really nice late wakeup because that day contained our shortest ride of the trip consisting of only 31 flat miles to traverse. That day was alliance day, part of a spirit week that our sunshine chairs (Jenny and Christina) had helped spearhead. Alliance day pretty much meant a boys vs. girls day. The day started off with a surprised water balloon attack on the guys. Us gentlemen were outside minding our own business and then the girls unprovoked come and attack us with water balloons. Fortunately for us, I had just filled up my CPS Monster X Super Soaker and gave a quick retaliation, ever since my parents brought that gun to Jackson it has served a very good job at drive by soakings, a necessity in this Oregon dry heat. After that I drove a quick one into Fossil (my van day) and talked to the lady at the church we were staying at making sure to inquire about the water hole that had been mention. As it ends up the hole was called Ash Hole because it had been named after the Ash Family Ranch, the previous owners of the land that was now public use land. First the girls because they were the first ones in and then I took a shuttle full of guys. This worked out well, because part of the deals of alliance day was that each group was supposed to give a gift to the other group. When I picked up the guys, they had a stack of McDonald's happy meal boxes. Let's just say our gift to the girls consist us cutting a hole in this box and then putting the junk in the box. We walked up together with our boxes in hand and gave the dance and part of the song that was made famous by Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg, I think it was the best gift many of the girls had ever been given. Following that it was us just hanging around this refreshingly cool and deeper section of Butte creek. There was this big rocks that jutted in the middle of the stream, it was possible to climb up and get on top of it and jump off into a deeper section of the creek which several of us (myself included) decided to do. The best swimming hole so far on the trip with water at the perfect temperature and all to ourselves, the entire CUS route enjoyed a really exciting evening in the creek.

The next day also had a great stop thanks to the CUS of the past. It was mentioned that there was an orchard around mile 30 in Kimberly, OR. A town so small it doesn't actually have a population, just an elevation of a bit over 1000 ft. We went in the only building we saw, imagine a gas station that didn't sell gas, just the kind of things you would find inside a gas station. The lady said it was just half a mile out of our way so we decided to chalk the turn for others behind us and went on up. On arriving we found it was between cherry season and peach season so there was not too much picking to be had, but they had tons of amazing things for sale. There was this “fully ripe” peach bin that sold peaches for 75 cents a pound, I bought 8 peaches for about 1.50 and they were hands down the best I had ever had. As well as that I picked up some homemade cheddar and a slice of peach and plum pie each. Not only is the best food we've had, but this orchard had several resident dogs who loved attention, I feel like we've been so lucky to run across so many dogs during this trip, they're the most friendly folk you meet on the road and are great because I can talk to my parents and friends on the phone or skype, but a long distance relationship does not work as well with dogs. The orchard also had a bunch of amazing lounge chairs with a nice overlook on the river that went through the orchard. It was hands down the most delicious and satisfying lunch to date.

While on the topic of excellent lunches, we had a few auxiliary lunches today to supplement the official B&B lunch. Mr. Phillips, the father of Brian Phillips also known as B-Money has started tailgating with our route. He pulled up yesterday in the classic VW mini Bus fully road trip equipped and today he followed our ride and acted as a fantastic second support van. In the picture it's not hard to guess who is the owner of the VW Bus. He stopped us mid climb before lunch to give us drinks and some food including cheese, red bull and many words of encouragement as well as info on the terrain ahead, when you're on a 9 mile climb and you hear that you have less then a mile left it's more beautiful than angels singing and harps playing. When we got to the top of the climb, we could see Mt. Hood looming many miles in the distance (look closely at the picture). I'm not going to lie when it was first pointed out to me I let loose a colorful phrase that started in “holy” because it was just that intense. We've been going through flat land and rolling hills and then out of no where this massive mountain looms in the distance with the peak of it being hidden in the clouds, it reminded me of a snow covered mount Doom. Barbara, who arrived at the top a bit after me use the exact same phrase and then described it as looking like heaven, not quite Mt. Doom but same idea. After the official lunch we had another stop with Mr. Money and his awesome van topping of the lunch count at 3, a CUS record and with a great vintage flare.

7/21/09
I've been going back adding photos to older entries so feel free to look back on the older ones.

So lunch stops are great, something that everyone looks forward to in rides. But there are some lunch stops that have bonuses compared to others. To name a few, there was one lunch stop that had a bunch of picnic tables under some big trees near a river. The best part was this bench swing, it was attached to the branches of the tree about 50 feet up so the swing could swing out like 10 feet above the ground. I ended standing up with the swing and walking back as far as I could to try and get it as high as possible and then let it go. I laid down and fell asleep in front of this river on a swinging bench, I don't know how long I slept but it was amazing.

Another great surprise is finding fruit at lunch, there was the ride into Blackstone where lunch was at a picnic bench under a mulberry tree, I ended up eating more food from that tree then I ate from the trailer. Though the best was yesterday, lunch was actually at a gas station because out in the middle of no where there are not many great places to stop. But there was an apricot tree nnearby in someone's yard so people went over and started picking a few out of the overhanging branches. The guy game out and we talked to him a bit, he not only said we could take as many as we wanted but he got us trash bags and a ladder to help us along. Then while we were picking bags and bags of apricots there was a train that passed. It's cargo was hundreds of train cars carrying the propellers or blades of those energy producing windmills and they were absolutely huge! I have a picture and if you look close, one of the blades takes up 3 train cars! I don't think I've ever even seen these windmills closer then a few miles so their sense of scale is lost on me, but it was very cool having a closeup view.

7/20/09
So yesterday contained the most ridiculous ordeal of my life. We had a day off in Boise, Idaho a city that felt like it came out of no where. We had been going from tiny town to tinier town and then out of no where this huge metropolis shows up that is bike friendly and has all sorts of cool stuff. So I ended up waking up early on our day off because my internal clock refuses to let me sleep in, I'm just too used to 4 and 5 am wakeups. So John and I decide to find a disc golf course, we end up going to a course just a few miles away, a really nice one. Flat but nice pads and signs as well as really awesome pen drawings on the tables at several of the holes. We got back for that in time to tube the Boise River with about 20 of us, it goes near downtown and is very popular for floating. When we got there it was packed, it felt like a highway floating down the river because you could probably see 30 other floating devices at any point in time, but the river was wide and fast so you had some space. I enjoyed the relaxation of it, I ended up snoozing probably more then half the time. So pretty uneventful until this point.

I get towards the end and I'm resting my eyes when I hear fellow bike and builders calling my name to tell me that we're at the drop off point. In my drowsy haste, I jump out of the tube and come over to the side. I get up to the top of the bridge and Mark and Kira are like, “What is that???” in reference to a white bag now floating down the river. I had bagged my wallet in a white grocery bag to keep it from getting wet and I had forgotten about it when I jumped out, it was now floating down the river at a very quick pace. I start running down the bike path to try and intercept it at one point I jump in but the river was probably 200 feet wide (which was depressing) and no sight of it, so I figured I needed to go farther down river. I am sprinting at this point to try and make up distance and I jump back in the river. I see something white floating down fairly quickly so I make a dash in the river to catch it. The water was moving fast and getting fairly deep quickly, by the point I reached my wallet I grabbed it and had a great moment of success but at this point I was approaching chest deep water with a quick current.

I realized I was about 30 feet away from a dammed area of the river that had the excess water pour over the top of it creating about a 10 foot waterfall on the other side. I pretty much go with the current into the dam, there were logs pinned against the dam so I held on to those and was able to sit up on top of them. Unfortunately these logs did not go the extent of the dam, only a short section in the middle. At first I tried to scoot along the logs but the water was going so fast underneath them it was impossible to get past the pour over sections of the dam, so after about 5 minutes of trying that I just sat and thought, I was stuck on this dam and no clear way for me to get off without going over this waterfall. It probably would have not ended in death, but definitely me getting banged up a bit. This is where the fun starts. So I look over and I see 3 people sitting a picnic table, just watching me and they wave. I give them the shrug of the shoulders look that goes something like, “I don't know what to do”. The guy with them says something like he'll try and help, he grabs a big long stick and starts to walk out. Maybe he thought I couldn't swim or something, because the river is very easy to walk through at most parts, but because of the dam it was very deep where I was (10+ feet) and the current was very strong, so after about getting 4 feet into the river he realized his stick idea was not going to help. Once they actually realize I was really stuck and not just sitting there, they tell me they're going to get someone. 5 or so minutes later a park ranger comes by on his bike, he comes to the area of the dam nearest me and asks me if I'm stuck. “Yes”, at this point it was my hope that he would grab a rope, throw it to me from up river and pull me into the bank, that was really all I needed, I got so much more.

The park ranger yells to me (over the sounds of the waterfall) that people are on there way. 10 minutes later I hear the sirens, I think to myself, oh man they called the fire department and I think a firetruck would be blowing this out of proportion. This is where it gets ridiculous, within 15 minutes we have 2 firetrucks come, 2 ambulances, about 6 police cars and the worst of all, I see a news crew with a camera setup on the bridge behind me. Because of all sirens going on there are onlookers everywhere, probably close to 100 people on the beach where the original 3 where, then people on the bridge with the police and the news team plus others crowding on the bike path where I came in. There were about 15 rescue workers now on the part of the dam where the park ranger originally talked to me. What was funny is they were really upbeat, probably trying to keep me from freaking out but I don't think my situation was perilous and they probably recognized the serious case of overkill that had happened on my behalf. Honestly, the only thing that is going through my mind is how crazy I must look sitting on the dam with who knows how many onlookers and rescue workers watching me, also it doesn't help that from a distance the water looks very placid. So one of the workers yells at me they're going to boat me out, I then see a police SUV with a boat trailer attached go over the bridge and though seeing yet another rescue vehicle get called in to top it up to 7 police cars just adds to my sheepishness I am glad to see an end in sight. They end up putting a Jetski in the water with a inflatable raft that is tied to the back via a rope. They then proceed to turn around and back the jetski in my direction letting the raft get close enough for me to hop on. The guy in the raft who was controlling it with a paddle looked like the perfect rescue worker. He had the most incredibly white teeth and a huge grin and intense blue eyes. This guy could have been a model and here he was coming to my rescue, how perfect to top it all off. After getting on shore all of the bike and builders had congregated on the side and gave me a very warm group hug. I talked to the workers and they were very nice and just wanted to get my info, they didn't cite me which is great, I probably would have died if I got a ticket for that ordeal. After that I got to go on my merry way.

And yes, we found the news story online, of course it's completely wrong but there is a great picture of me in it.
http://www.kivitv.com/global/story.asp?s=10753837

I made 3rd top story :D

7/19/09
The Twilight Criterion was held in downtown Boise last night, my first professional race. They had professional womens and mens at night right at the beginning of the evening. Like I said this was my first bike race, but I don't think it will be my last. The way they're set up is they blocked off two full city blocks and race track was these roads around the blocks. The way the race is setup, they race for an hour and then after an hour, they race 5 more laps. It was fun watching the women seeing them blaze past, but then after the last 3 laps there were two that pulled away and the crowed started to get louder. The best was at the end on the last lap, we were at the middle of the straight aways so we could turn around and see down the street and catch a small part of the opposite side of the track. The women were neck and neck when they passed up, then we turned around to see how they were doing with only .5 laps remaining we waited and for a split second you could see two cyclist blast through the gap, one with a 5 foot lead on the other. The anticipation was felt in the air as everyone looked left and waited for them to turn the corner, it was neck and neck until the end and Kristen Armstrong who took first place for women's pro, her last race in America before she retires. No relation to the more famous Armstrong. The mens was even crazier, there were close to 100 riders and they averaged 30 mph speeds... for an hour. When the pack came by you could feel the wind. For most of the race they were a cluster, but for a few moments they were in a long pace line which was crazy. It looked like a huge snake slithering down the distance of the stretch. The finish was similar, it ended up two guys pulling ahead but this time they were neck and neck until the end, from our position which was fairly close to the finish line you could not even tell who won. Maybe if they make a track that has you going downhill the whole time I'll be able to pace 30 mph for an hour, until then I'll just take my time getting where I'm going.

7/18/09

Stanley Idaho, population 100. Let's just say it's not the social scene that attracts people here, but there are definitely attractions. We have been talking to people on the road and they've been mentioning the sawtooth mountains a lot and how stunning they're supposed to be. The whole ride into Stanley I was waiting for them, I kept asking bike and builders around me if we thought we had hit them yet and I kept coming to the answer that maybe they're ahead. We were in a canyon and it was beautiful and the terrain surrounding us was very nice, but not striking. So when we're going along and we finally roll into Stanley and pull up to our campsite. It hits us, there are the sawtooths, you can even see the many little points on each ridge that give their namesake appearance, and yes... it was stunning. It was the best campsite view I had ever seen. So later that evening, Jen mentioned to me that they were people playing ultimate on a field nearby. I looked over and saw a sight for sore eyes, a pickup game of ultimate. I wasted no time and ran on over quickly making friends and being put on a team. Looking around at the group I noticed there seemed to be very little continuity between the age groups, there were kids from 10 years old up to guys who looked to be in their upper 20s. As it ends up nobody actually knew more then a few other people, it seemed to be just a random group. Some were work friends, some were family in town at a nearby lake, some people just showed up like myself. Either way it was excellent, after ultimate I taught everyone in and out as well as I was taught a new game of tiger tag, an excellent rendition of the classic. I just remember a moment as I was laying down (part of the game of tiger tag) and I was looking around. I was here with 25 people I had never met before but yet was having a blast with people half my age and some quite older then me. Nobody knowing each other, but here we are in lush grassy field in the middle of this gorgeous mountain valley in Stanley Idaho. An excellent moment of Bike & Build. The excellence didn't stop there, two things came with that night, the stars and the cold. As the sun started to set it was a gorgeous sunset with amazing colors only made better by the nearby mountains. After the sunset as the light faded over the horizon, the stars just went from good to better to amazing. There was no moon that night and not a cloud in the sky, about an hour after the sun went down the milky way became visible in the night sky, it was breathtaking. I remember seeing the milky way two summers ago near the Grand Canyon on a road trip and it was my goal to see it again during Bike & Build, up until now we have had some good nights for stars but our local galaxy had not made an appearance yet and it finally did. Check it off the list!

Then the cold settled in, nothing like camping and being able to see your breath in the morning, I woke up thankful for every piece of thermal gear I owned. Fortunately it warmed up quickly, many opted to find shelter until it warmed up but I decided to keep going. Laura, known for make seldom stops also decided to not wait around and wanted to make headway in the 90 miles we had ahead of us. It was a brisk morning and we passed a sign that said Ponderosa Scenic Byway and it smelled like christmas, beautiful pine forest for miles and miles. Then we saw signs of a previous fire, there had been a huge forest fire in 1989 and now it was was a lot of short vegetation but there were the these burned trunks shooting out of the ground all along the steep hills surrounding us and it went on for miles and miles, I can only imagine the flames that came from this fire. There was a sign that showed details of how a firestorm was created in this fire, that there was enough fuel and fire that it developed it's own weather patterns. There was a column of fire that was hundreds of feet high and created 30-40 mph winds upwards that would have embers float miles away which is why the fire was so difficult to contain, intense. But it made for some really cool scenery. The best part of this was the Payette River, we followed it most of the day though pine forest and pine forest remains. The water was a intense color of blue and was very nice. We came to a point where there were some rapids and a hot springs that emptied into the water. We were on the wrong side for the hot springs but we jumped in the cold section and it was very brisk but exactly what we needed in the heat. I ended up falling asleep on a rock for I don't know how long and then we woke up and headed on into Idaho City followed by the best root beer float I had ever had.

7/16/09
So the parents found a way to intercept Bike & Build, once again. First time at Jackson and now on our way from Idaho Falls to Arco. My dad took my non B&B Bike and decided to trek with us, though not the most scenic ride, it was picked because due to it's flatness. Alas, I'm shocked he didn't want to take Teton Pass with us, which ended up being more then 10% and getting closer to 13%. It was really fun getting to ride with the pops, telling him stories of what we've done so far. He got a taste of the daily life, including a lunch stop with the (in)famous PBJ sandwiches and Gatorade. Along this trip in the desert, where we didn't see a living thing the whole day and not a single building for many many miles. The land was completely flat except for a few out of place looking mountains that just dotted the landscape, my personal favorite being one that had intense looking switchbacks leading up to the top. It made we wonder, what was the mountain doing in the middle of the field and why would someone bother to make a road to the top of this mountain. Speculation led to a wizard inhabiting the top of the mountain. But further down the road was a nuclear reactor, it was listed as a national historic site for being the first electricity producing nuclear reactor in the world. We had heard that it was a good stop during the ride, so I made a point to stop by it. From outside it looked like a tiny building, but once you went in it was pretty huge. Some of the highlights of our self guided tour was the control room, it was exactly as it sounds. Millions of dials, levers, buttons and lights, all labeled with jargon that sounded straight from Star Trek, the best of them being a huge red button in the middle of the dash board labeled something to the extent of “main reactor shutdown”, I'm guessing the panic button. Then we continued on and saw the Mark IV core which was the housing where the actual nuclear energy was released and then channeled throughout other parts of the reactor. It was amazing, because at this point this is when the Star Trek references were just too much. The font on the the core itself just looked like something out of the Next Generator, and the fact that it was the Mark IV, what a great name. Then we went to the room where the core was stored, the main reaction chamber. The picture is us looking out of the chamber, you can see Courtney and Kira melting through 3 feet of glass. It might not sound terribly exciting, but getting to hang out in a underground (nice and cool) nuclear power plant was an excellent way to break up the ride. It made for lots of sweet pictures just because there were so many gnarly looking pieces of machinery and equipment.

Moving so after a fun ride to Arco, we moved on to to Challis, population 900. The host was amazing, giving a great dinner with included a fantastic Quinoa dish which is a vegetarian favorite since it has so much good protein. But then after filling up, I realized they had amazing desserts so I ended up getting a second dinner in sweet, but it was so good. The best part of this host was Diane Wetherbee, she was a local church member who helped provide some of the dinner. But she invited us to her house out on the outskirts of town where she lived. About 10 of us decided to go and we all got in the back of her truck and rode out to her place. Upon arriving, we were attacked by 7 or 8 super friendly dogs. I seriously have never seen so many dogs come out of nowhere. It was awesome, it was almost a dog overload. Then we went inside and she showed us how she made cheese from the milk that she got from her cows. So we proceed to the backyard already impressed by the dogs and the cheese, and there are 4 day old baby goats, cats, chickens, and cows. We all ended up getting to milk penny, a somewhat nervous but friendly enough goat. It was pretty amazing thinking that I had drank plenty of milk in my day but never actually retrieved any of it myself, it was an awesome experience. But we decided just milking in to a pan was not enough, we had to go a step farther. Dan had the idea of getting some fresh milk straight from the source, so he did it. He milked some milk right into his mouth and said it was fantastic. So we all jumped on the fresh milk train and after a short while, we all had gotten some nice fresh milk right from the goat, delicious. We ended talking to the son for awhile, he told us how they raised cows and butchered the cows themselves. I was really impressed, the idea of getting all your eggs, milk, cheese and meats from your own backyard is a pretty legit way to do it, maybe I'll see if I can get a milk cow in my apt next year.

7/12/09
So today we conquered the might Teton Pass, 10% grades for several miles, the steepest climb yet. I really enjoy the big climbs because everyone get so pumped for it and everyone waits at the top, then we have sweet celebration with the whole troupe included. On the descent our boy John hit 55 mph, though I kept it at a cool 50.6, my personal highest speed yet breaking 50. A ton of fun, but the real blast was yesterday during our day off at Jackson, I called around several rafting companies looking for a good group rate and Dave Hansen's Rafting came through and gave us a good deal. Our time was locked in at 3:30 on the snake river. We were going to get the white water tour with our raft guide, T-Bone. Originally we had it set up that we were going to have two 8 person rafts for the 15 of us, but in a miscommunication we ended up getting one 16 person raft. At first I was bummed for that since everyone wouldn't get a chance to paddle. But as we went down the river it was a lot of fun having a boat with all of our group in it, it became the party boat on the river. There was a moment when I got to sit on the front of the boat, he said you couldn't really do that with an 8 man raft because you need all the paddlers so by having an bigger boat I was able to be the figurehead of our Bike & Build Boat, and of course we had a session of going bananas. (I'm in the top right)

7/5/09
So theres a group of us who are currently sitting in the Steaming Bean in Steamboat Springs, CO. It's the day after the 4th of July and we're waiting for the cattle drive through town at 10 o'clock. Apparently they're going to herd a lot of cattle right through the middle of town, I'm not sure why or what is the reason, but everyone is really interested to see what this piece of local culture is about. Another reason is we're having our first camping outing tonight, it's hard to believe we've managed to get close to 3000 miles across the united states and this will be our first night camping. When I was doing research on this town I was looking at google maps and I was stunned to see how tiny it was. The campsite we're staying at is part of the city park, and it has a drop box that runs off the honors system for payment so I'm thinking this campsite might seriously just be a plot of land on which to put a tent and nothing else. But Steamboat has been awesome, UMC provided an awesome BBQ for the 4th of July with veggie burgers included and they were fantastic.

It seems as though we've hit the end of the Rockies, but though they are over with they are not forgotten. Some of the most majestic rides I had ever been on. Three out of the past four days have consisted of long hard climbs the whole day that just wind everyone but they always end up with a amazing descent into the town we're staying in. There is no better way to end a ride then to not have to pedal the last few miles, by far the most memorable was Trail Ridge Road. This was the day that many people have been anticipating, I personally had been anticipating this for the whole trip. Just a little fact, trail ridge is the highest paved road in the United States and it goes right through the heart of the Rockies. During this whole ride we were climbing up mountains to the point we were actually riding through snow and you could see a herd of elk and of course snow top mountains behind every turn. Though the scenery was one of a kind which made for amazing pictures, the best part by far was the group dynamic that day. Generally people separate into groups based on the speed they want to take that day so we very seldom have a big group riding together. But on the day of trial ridge, the front groups decided to wait for the later groups at the visitor center. It was so fantastic because even though it was one of the most physically demanding days with the climb and the altitude every person made it and when sweep (the safety caboose who stays in the back) rolled into the visitor center everyone went nuts. Babs drove up with the van and started blasting music, people were dancing, the bananas cheer made appearances as well as a beautiful stretch/meditation exercise led by Aaron. It was the first time the entire group was together on the road. Then, after all that climbing, it was finally time for the payoff. The decent on trail ridge was nothing like I had ever experienced, it was downhill switchbacks for 13 miles, I think I averaged well over 30mph without even pedaling. During this whole time, you could see beautiful mountains and forest in the background, very awesome. One more thing about Trail Ridge, the people we're so awesome. Generally drivers are less then friendly to cyclists, we've seen our fair share of mean drivers, but it Trail Ridge was an escape. This was the first time that drivers we're encouraging us as they were driving by, I got more thumbs up and encouragement from cars on Trail Ridge then I've gotten this whole trip. One guy even leaned out the window to point out a bunch of elk up on the hill to our left and then say some encouraging words, thanks dude.