Busy year

2017 was a busy year on the bike for me. Here is a summary of what happened:

• 6,097 total miles ridden for the year. First time over 6,000 miles.
• 1,012 total miles ridden in July. First time over 1,000 miles in a month.
• 712 total rides for the year. 102 more than the previous year.
• 145 miles ridden in one day. This was the first day of the MS Ride in September.
• 231 rides to work.
• I achieved 40,000+ miles ridden since July of 2008 when I started keeping track of my mileage.

Here are some interesting places that I rode over the year:

• Morgan, UT to Echo, UT - Rode up Highway 66 to East Canyon State Park and rode down Highway 65 to Henefer, UT. Rode past Henefer on a side road that paralleled Interstate 84 to Echo, UT. Finished the day with 26 miles.
• Fort Collins, CO - Rode over 130 miles over six days on the trails around Fort Collins.
• Green River, WY to Little America, WY - Rode on Highway 374 that parallels Interstate 80. Finished with 22 miles for the day.
• Poulsbo, WA - Did the longest ride of the Viking Tour. Finished the day with 62 miles.
• Hiawatha Trail - Rode down from the top and back up. Philip rode down and rode the bus back up. Finished the day with 30 miles.
• Trail of the Coeur d' Alenes - Rode the full trail on the first day of the MS Ride. This is by far the most miles that I have ridden in one day.

My goals for 2018 are:

• Ride over 7,000 miles.
• Ride more than 1,000 miles in 2 or more months.
• Ride the Hiawatha Trail again plus other trails in that area such as the Norpac.
• Ride part or all of the Weiser Trail starting in the North and working South and then work from the South to the North.
• Race quite a few Cyclocross races.

2017 MS Ride

Day before

Walked with Wendy to the Radio Brewing Company to have dinner. Got a little lost on the way but got to see a friend that works at the brewery. The beer and dinner were good and I got a growler of a Huckleberry Ale to bring home.

Day one – 145 miles – 8:27 hours riding

Sun coming up on the way to Mullan.

My plan was to get up early enough to do the almost 40 miles from Kellogg to Mullan and back before the start 100+ mile MS Ride. Things didn’t go to plan since we got an email that said that the 100+ mile portion was not going to be held due to the amount of smoke in the air. I went ahead and got up but it was a little later than the plan and I got out on the trail to head to Mullan. The air was crisp with a very noticeable chill. I did not check the temperature before leaving but found out later that it was 30 degrees when I started out. As I got closer to Mullan the sun finally peeked over the walls of the valley. This was a welcome sight since it meant that it would actually get warmer on the way back down to Kellogg. I stopped in Mullan to consume one of the baby food in a pouch things that I had brought along for the ride. I don’t remember what it was but it did taste pretty good. Got hooked on these when the grandson was here at the end of August.

Sunny but cold ride to Mullan.

On the way back out of Mullan there was a coyote on the trail. Of course I had to bark at it instead of yelling.

Stopped back at the resort in Kellogg to get warmed up a bit in the lobby and eat a little something. Wendy came by and we went back to the room so that I could get another pair of socks on and use the hair dryer to warm up my shoes.

The pirate rest stop at Cataldo.

Went back down to the start and headed out with another group of riders on the main part of the ride. During the ride I saw the usual herons, chipmunks, and squirrels along and on the trail. I did get to see one moose that was bedded down in the brush along the trail. Wouldn’t have seen it except there were two people looking at it as I approached.

Nice view of the lake from the trail.

Chatcolet Bridge.

The nice thing about riding the long ride is that there are rest stops every 15 miles. This is a nice way to get extra food into your body without having to carry very much. I really needed the extra food for the longer ride that I was wanting to do. I also didn't know if I was going to be able to go to Plummer from Harrison until I got to Harrison. In Harrison there was a couple of the volunteers for the MS Society that had a table setup that we could turn in our bib numbers in order to ride the 30 miles to Plummer and back. After turning in the number I made my way towards Plummer and at about the 90th mile for the day I had to stop and eat since I was starting to bonk a little. After that little rest I made it to Plummer and turned around and headed back to Harrison to get lunch and pick up my bib number.

The ride back to Kellogg was very nice and I was glad when I got there after being on the bike for that long of a time.

After dinner and the evening MS rally we soaked in one of the hot tubs. That sure felt nice after all of the miles on the bike.

The view on the way to Burke.

Day two – 51 miles – 3:07 hours riding

I like the second day of the ride since we have the option to ride up Burke Canyon to the old mining town of Burke. After the long day the day before the tops of my thighs were just a little sore but I figured that 50 miles wouldn’t be too bad to ride with them hurting. I did not rest very much on this ride since I wanted to just keep the legs moving as much as possible.

Almost everything you need to know about Burke.

Thanks

I want to really thank all of the people that donated to the MS Society. Your donations will go a long way in helping those affected by MS.

Finally

Well, I guess I had better update this blog again before the MS Ride happens for 2017. Here we are in July and I have covered over 3,000 miles so far. My longest ride so far has been about 70 miles in one day. The winter really knocked down my riding time since I pretty much just rode back and forth to work with not very much extra miles put in.

Philip and I took a trip to see Monica in April and I was able to bike from Morgan, UT to Echo, UT. It was interesting to find out that the route I rode had been used in the Tour of Utah several years ago. I rode quite a bit in Fort Collins over the week that we were there and then I got to ride from Green River, WY to Little America, WY on the way home. It was a pretty straight stretch of road with a pretty neat history to it.

Philip and I got to ride the Route of the Hiawatha Trail in June with a group of other people. I rode down and back up and it was especially fun to ride through the tunnels. The trestles were pretty neat but I did not like the heights.

I did a little bit of riding in McCall near the end of June and most of the rest of my riding has been on roads and trails around home. I can say that a lot of gravel has been ridden the past few weeks around here.

The ride that I am most looking forward to other than the MS Ride is the first ride pulling the bike trailer with grandson Erik in it. He and Monica will be in town in August and this will be such a cool experience. I remember pulling her and Rachel in a bike trailer when they were wee little ones.

I will go ahead and post the link for my page at the MS Society to round out this post. http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR/Bike/WASBikeEvents?px=4939697&pg=personal&fr_id=28274

Thanks so much for checking in to my blog.

MS Ride - Better late than never

I need to really start these things earlier. You would think being around college students would help me get one simple blog out right after a ride.

MS Ride - Day 1
After waking up in the Walmart parking lot and getting dressed for a day of riding I drove to the start area in Kellogg. The rain came down and it was not going to let up. I almost didn't want to ride but I just thought about all the people that I would be riding for.

I started out about 10 minutes early just to have a clear trail. There were several others that took off before me and I did catch up with some of them. It was a pretty uneventful ride until I went past the third rest area. I came up on a momma moose with two little ones standing right in the middle of the trail. I figured the best way to get her to move was by making small clicking sounds and to move towards her very slowly as not to bother her to much. She and the little ones decided to move down the trail and wander off into the brush. I hurried up past her just in case she decided that she did not like the situation. The only other wildlife I saw was a couple of herons later on. It was pretty darn wet and I think all of the animals were trying to stay dry.

I made it to Plummer and turned around for the trip back to Harrison for lunch. Stopped in Harrison for a quick lunch and got back on the bike. I started to feel pretty miserable so I ended up getting a ride from Cataldo. I did 96 miles for the day in a pretty good downpour.

MS Ride - Day 2
Since my shoes and some of the other clothing that I was going to use were still pretty wet I decided to bag riding the second day in Kellogg. I ended up having breakfast with everyone else and waited around for the start of the second day. After everyone started the ride I ended up getting in the car and driving home. I did ride about twelve miles in Moscow to kind of have a second day of riding for the MS Ride.

I would really like to thank everyone that donated money to help fight MS this year. I feel bad that I was unable to finish out the whole ride this year but next I will be better prepared for next year.

MSing the bike

I had my first ride after 24 days of rehabbing a sprained knee sustained during basketball. This has been a very hard time for me since I use my bike to commute to work on a daily basis. I have been getting rides to work, from work, and walking most everywhere else. The hard part about today was getting my right foot out of the pedal without to much twisting. I am still going to do the MS Ride on the 17th and 18th of September and I hope to do all of the mileage on each day. If not I will appreciate being able to be on my bike riding for a great cause. Donations can still be made on my National MS Society page.

STP and beyond

I must say that the Seattle to Portland (STP) ride is a very well put together group ride. There was over 10,000 people on the roads between Seattle and Portland over two days. It was amazing looking at all of the bicyclists when there was a straight stretch of road. I am going to do this ride again next year.

Wendy and I left Moscow on Friday morning to drive to Poulsbo to stay the night with my sister Deb and brother-in-law Steve. It was a nice night of checking out their new place, eating dinner, drinking some homemade beer, catching up on old times, and getting ready for the first day of the ride on Saturday.

First day recap:

On Saturday morning we gathered all of our things and got them into the rig so that Deb could take us to the ferry terminal. We were catching the early ferry in order to make it to Seattle to join in with the other riders who started at the University of Washington campus. We rode our bikes onto the ferry and parked them at the designated bike parking areas and went up into the passenger area to rest up before the long day ahead. When we got to Seattle we followed a group of riders off of the ferry up and over to where we were going to join the other riders. The ride up the city streets was okay but riding down some of the streets was pretty interesting. I am just glad that there was no moisture on the roads otherwise it would have been a slippery mess.

I rode with Steve most of the ride but went out on my own after a bit after every rest stop. He had not ridden his bike very much over the past few years so he was not moving as quickly as he had in the past. He just told me to go on. I am so used to riding by myself that it was weird having so many other people riding at the same time. After a couple of hours riding Wendy and Deb let us know that they had taken off from the house and were going to meet us in Centralia to setup the tents and just hangout until we got there. Centralia is the midpoint of the ride and it is where most of the two day riders stay at. The rest stops were spread out every 20 miles or so. Every one of them that we stopped at had tons of riders there getting water and food. Steve was really starting to hurt at the last rest stop but he pressed on. I made it to Centralia and was wandering around with Wendy when Steve came in. We found the showers to get all clean and then found food to get all fueled up. Wendy and Deb had setup the tents before we got there and that was nice to have done for us. We played quite a few games of Crazy Eights before settling down to bed.

Statisitics for first day: 97.2 miles, 6 hours 22 minutes riding time, 9 hours 29 minutes elapsed time, 2167 calories.

Got up Sunday morning had a nice pancake breakfast and got ready to ride. Steve said that he was not going to be able to ride that day. This day was spent riding and stopping at most of the rest areas. I really had no reason to stop very long other than getting more water and food.

Statistics for second day: 104.6 miles, 5 hours 47 minutes riding time, 6 hours 45 minutes elapsed time, 2171 calories.

Next big ride that I have is the MS Ride on the 17th and 18th of September on the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes. Donations to the MS Society can be made on my MS Society page. Every donation helps those suffering from the effects of MS.

Overdue, STP, and Bike MS

Just a little slow getting an update going for the year. Biking has been going good. Don't feel like I have been getting in the miles I want but I am farther along than past years. I have been off the bike more days this year than in the past. The longest stretch was a weird hip/pelvic injury that meant eight days of not riding since the bike seat pressed right on the spot that hurt. It sure feels much better now and it sure felt great to get back on the bike.

I did the Just for the Hill of It climb in Whitebird this year. The weather was very nice and warm with a slight breeze. I felt that I did a very good job by coming in 15th out of about sixty other people that joined in on the fun. Nothing like a 2200 foot climb to make your heart and lungs have a great workout.

The STP (Seattle to Portland) Ride is a little over a month away and I am truly getting excited about doing it. I am doing it with my brother-in-law Steve and we are doing the two day event which means doing 100 miles on the first day and then doing 100 miles on the second day.

The only other ride so far on the docket is the MS Ride on the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes in September . This will be my ninth year riding and I want to really thank my sister Deb and brother-in-law Steve for getting me going in riding for this great cause. I rode off and on before my first MS Ride but when they asked me to ride in 2008 I really started getting more into riding. I am now up to over 30,000 miles since July of 2008 and have no intention of stopping.

To donate to the MS Society you can visit my personal donation page.