Today’s Date: May 30, 2024

Today’s Start Point: Grangeville, Idaho

Today’s End Point: Lowell, Idaho

Total Miles: 47.86 Miles

Cumulative Miles: 897.6 Miles

It rained for a couple of hours in the middle of the night, but thankfully the equipment came through and I was dry as a bone. The only issue with the rain is that it takes longer to pack since you have to dry your gear.

The route was going to take me straight north to the town of Kooskia, Idaho, and then I would turn west into the Nez Perce Clearwater National Forest. Today was going to be easier for a couple of reasons: 1) I could either do 50 miles or 130 miles (I elected 50 miles), and 2) tomorrow is going to be very hard.

The morning was sunny with big puffy clouds, which added nice shadows to the scenery. The road to Kooskia, Idaho was perfect-country lanes in perfect condition with little to no traffic. This backroads approach took me almost all the way to Kooskia. As opposed to cattle ranches, crop fields stretched for miles on this high plateau. Grangeville and its surrounding environs is at approximately 3,400 feet above sea level.

The road twisted and turned, for reasons I could not determine since there was no river to guide it. There were slight undulations but nothing like what I experienced over the last few days.

That was about to change when I was about seven miles south of Kooskia. For four miles I dropped down to the town of Stites, Utah at an elevation of 1,300 feet. The only thing worse than my climbing is my descending. My Garmin was indicating the downward slope was 12-13%. The road was chip seal, so at times it felt like I was on ice. I believe I had the brakes on the whole way (note to self: have bike shop in Missoula, Montana check the brake pads).

The descent ended on a road that ran along the South Fork Clearwater River. The road led me to Kooskia, Idaho, where I planned to have lunch. Kooskia is on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation.

I ate lunch at a diner in town, with my bike sitting right outside the window. It was nice to sit down for lunch and take a break as opposed to mist days where I grab a deli sandwich and run (ride).

After lunch, I turned to the east and rode along the Clearwater River through the Nez Perce-Clearwater Forest. This stretch of road does not have many amenities for 100 miles, no gas stations and very few food stops. The campgrounds are described as primitive, with no water. By now you all should know I am not exactly Daniel Boone (or his Idaho equivalent), so I had made reservations at two of the handful of hotels so that I could leapfrog across.

This was going to be nice and relaxing, the road went up slightly over its 20 miles to get to my hotel. About a mile out of Kooskia, I laid my bike down (gently) so that I could get rid of some layers, because the river road and the slight incline increased the heat.

After stripping off the layers, I set out once again for the “relaxing” ride. Unfortunately, my bike cranks were now hitting my bottle holders, blocking me from turning the pedals. It turns out my dual bottle mount had slipped down and now was in the way of my cranks. I never thought that with all of the electronic devices and mechanical moving pieces on my bike that the first thing to go wrong was my bottle cage.

I pulled over on the side of the highway to see what had come loose. It appeared that one of the many adjustable components of the bottle cage was loose and the bottle cage had slipped down. Note to bike component manufacturers: please test out your products to see if they can be fixed on the road with a multitool, we don’t all carry long handled Allen wrenches in our pack. Because of the manufacturers stunning engineering prowess, I had to take the whole thing apart to get to the one screw I had to adjust. The process took me about 45 minutes.

Once complete, I was off like a herd of turtles (homage to Mom). The road, although lacking any shoulder at all, was nice and meandering along the river. Riding was a relaxing experience, although my shin started to hurt.

I arrived at my hotel which was situated right on the river. It’s a combination of hotel, cabins and RVs. It has a restaurant and store, the only one of each for miles around.

I am going to the restaurant later but as I write I am icing my shin. It feels much better, thank you. It better be, because tomorrow is an 84 mile day with 6,000 feet of climbing. In order to make it, I am trying to get away by 5 am.