Weekend and Ramblings

Trail of the Coeur d'Alene

The Trail of the Coeur d'Alene is a pretty neat trail. Ended up biking 37 miles of it. 7.5 miles I did twice in the same direction. A blown tube was the main reason that I got to ride it again. I ended up getting a hole in my rear tire so one of the gentlemen that does upkeep on the trail gave me a ride in his little Mitsubishi pickup back to Harrison to get a new tire. Took about 45 minutes to get it all back together. After getting the wheel back on the bike I went back down to the trail to head out towards Cataldo. I met up with the group after they had turned around after about 15 miles. The weather was great for the ride. Kind of wished that I would have been able to get farther on the trail but I was glad that I did what I did.

Miles

So far this month I have ridden 430+ miles. I have not driven to work at all since the beginning of the month. I have driven on out of town trips but most of my running around town has been on one bike or the other. Most of my miles have been for just pure riding. I am going to try and do a century this month at some point. If I do not get it done this month then I will probably do it in August at some point.

MS150

And of course we can not have a post without the usually plea for pledges to support research and helping those with MS. On August 21st and 22nd I will be joining other cyclists from all over the state on a two day ride in the McCall area. Please help if you can either by donating money or donating time at the event. They are needing help in all areas to support the riders as they ride. You can either donate at my page. If you are going to be in McCall that weekend and would like to help out then you can go to the volunteer page. Thanks to all that help at this wonderful event.

Cycling

A couple of rants to end this:

1. Please do not ride your bike on the sidewalk at speed. If you are going to ride on the sidewalk please ride as fast as foot traffic. Bobbing and weaving is dangerous.
2. Please ride on the right hand side of the road.
3. Cars do not need to stop if I am waiting for traffic. I am not a pedestrian unless I get off my bike and walk it over to the crosswalk.

4th of July

What a weekend. It was a great time to go to McCall and spend time with family. Got in quite a few rides. Ended up going around the lake twice by myself. The second time was on the 4th when everyone was trying to get to the north end of the lake for whatever festivities were going on up there. There was quite a bit of beer flowing I am sure.

Rode to North Beach with Philip, Steve, Deb, and Rochelle (friend of Deb's from high school). Philip did very good. Thanks to Steve for teaching him a bit about how to ride on the way back. That is the most he has ridden in a day. The ride to North Beach allowed Deb, Steve and I to see what the condition of the road will be for the first day of the MS150 (August 21st). It was not to bad except for where a bridge is no longer paved and places where they put seal coat on the seams of the road.

Steve, Deb and I rode to Roseberry in preparation for the second day of MS150 (August 22nd). It was a nice 30 mile ride to see how the road was doing. The road was fine so we should have a good ride.