jbsaulog

A well-used rest day

We didn’t plan for a rest day on this bike ride, but I’m glad that when the time came, we weren’t afraid or too stubborn to avail ourselves of it.

Foggy morning at the Mountain View Lodge.

John Barrett had decided to ride in the RV with Millie on Day 6, but Other John and Mary Jo started riding up to Flowery Trail Pass despite the morning rain and fog. At first, the weather was just foggy, and the road steep – maybe more steep the any of the previous five passes. But it was only supposed to be 10 miles to the pass.

Fortunately, it flattened out a bit at six miles, and even better, the pass was only eight miles into the ride. The skies even started to clear. But once we got over the pass, we hit the rain – or it hit us. With buckets of wet. The thermometer on Mary Jo’s bike showed the temperature had dropped to 63 degrees (it would hit 93 when we got down off the pass)

Then our faithful SAG team came by in the truck, and to my surprise, my sister surrendered quickly to the temptation of getting in the truck and riding the rest of the route.

So it was only 13.4 miles on a day we had been scheduled to ride 99.1. However, we are on very good terms with the person who put this crazy route together and under no obligation to do the crazy things he sometimes sets out to do.

The weather will be better another day, and a short ride Thursday meant more time at the Huckleberry Tent and Breakfast in Clark Fork, ID, which all of us highly recommend.