We rode 85 miles today from Prairie City to Mitchell with a really, really big, steep, tall, ugly, hard, hot, humongous, mountain to climb, and to make matters worse they were putting down chip seal on about 40 miles of the ride today so we were riding in loose gravel, but we made it and are sitting in the city park where we are camping. The first thing Kathy did when we got here was pull out the watermelon that was in the fridge of the RV and cut it up, and we ate it, whooooeeeeee that was good after that ride. I tried to talk the lady driving the pilot pickup to put my bike in the back and drive me through the gravel section, but couldn’t get her to do it, and I used my most pathetic, and pleading voice.

Well only 3 more riding days left in this 61 day, 3,200 mile bicycle trip. It has been super awesome, I have gotten in good shape, lost 30 lbs, read a bunch, wrote a bunch, prayed a bunch, and got totally revived and renewed for another year of amazing ministry.

Today we rode 70 miles and we climbed 3 mountains, one after the other, each was over 5,000 feet in elevation, and each one had about 2,000 feet of net climbing. It is a grind to the top of each one, but then comes the payoff with a great high speed ride down the other side. Yesterday I put in a new set of 8 sprockets on the rear wheel of my bicycle with many more teeth than the old one, which means I have a lowered geared bicycle, and it was very apparent today going up these hills, lots of power. We are sleeping in the Baptist Church in Prairie City tonight. Brandon Smith who was on staff at JBC for several years attends this church and works with the Youth, took us out to dinner tonight, and it was super! Tomorrow we will bike 85 miles to Mitchell with one really big, monster mountain to climb. We are getting close to being done with this trip, 3 more days. I am preaching this weekend at JBC, I hope I haven’t forgotten how!

Today was our rest day, but I worked on my bicycle most of the day. We drove 40 miles in the RV to La Grande to a bicycle shop, there wasn’t one in Baker City, and I bought some different pedals and shoes, the old fashioned kind that you aren’t locked onto the pedals with. I decided that I had fallen down to many times to think I was ever going to get coordinated enough to do it right 100% of the time, and I am getting to old to fall over on my bicycle, and expect not to get hurt one of these times. I also got a new set of sprockets for my rear wheel that are lower geared for riding up all the hills we do. On my old set the big sprocket had 26 teeth and on my new one the big sprocket has 34 teeth. On the back the big sprocket is the lowest gear, so I should be able to get a higher cadence and more mechanical advantage and power going up the hills. As I got started working on it, I realized I needed a special tool to get the sprockets off, so being an ex-farmer, I did it the farmer way, I got a hammer. I did finally get it off, and then I didn’t do a very good job of remembering where everything went as I took it apart, and I couldn’t figure out how to get it back together. To really complicate the process the little round bearings inside the wheel fell out, and I wasn’t sure how to get them back in. I could get them in but they just fell out again when I was putting something else in. I was starting to get irritated and frustrated and 3 or 4 other words as well, when Tom suggested we eat dinner and relax a little, he had barbecued pork chops, and made mashed potatoes and gravy. While we were eating I googled on my IPad “How to service Trek Shimano rear axle” and watched several You Tube lessons on how to do it. I then went out and had it all done in 30 minutes, super! Well tomorrow we ride to Prairie City, 60 miles with 3 passes to climb with over 6,000 feet of accumulated climbing. That will be the real test for my bike remodel job.

Today was a very tough day of bicycling. We rode 85 miles with over 6,000 feet of accumulated climbing, and it was very, very hot to boot. The first picture is me dunking my shirt in the Powder River to keep me cool for awhile. I tried to pay attention to traffic as I took my shirt off, so as not to cause any wrecks!

We had a number of mountains to climb as well as several really fast descents. Before one of them there was this sign (photo)which made us really excited about the upcoming speed. I nearly had a major wreck on both of these descents. On the first one a bee stung me right on my upper lip while I was barreling down the hill at about 30 mph. When I let loose of the bike handle to kill the bee I started to wobble wildly, but I grabbed the handle again, quickly before I went head over bicycle tumbling down the road. On the second descent I had taken off my helmet and put on my baseball cap so I could dunk it in the water to help keep me cool, well on the way down this hill again going about 30 mph my hat flew off, as I reached up to catch it, My bike again went crazy, and I was sure that I was getting ready for a ride in an ambulance, but I managed to get stopped and I did get my hat.

As we rode into Richland, Oregon we road up to a cafe intending to eat a bite of food. I was so distracted with all the bicycles around the restaurant that I totally spaced unclipping my shoes from the peddles, and as I got close to the restaurant I started to put my right foot down, but to late I realized my foot was locked onto the pedal and because of that mental lapse over I went with all the bikers in the restaurant watching me crash to the ground. I sprained my right wrist, scraped my leg and hand but I cleaned those up in the bathroom, and I am OK tonight.

We are in Baker City tonight and will have our last rest day here tomorrow. It has a very nice swimming pool, hot tub, and great internet, so it should be a very nice day of recuperating tomorrow.

The short video included is me riding up an 8% hill. Hills that are this steep I walk some and bike some, but I always eventually make it to the top. Sort of like life, keep plugging away, and don’t give up or quit, and sooner or later you will reach the top.

Tonight we are camped at Woodhead campground on the Brownlee Reservoir on the Idaho side, which is the Snake River. I bought a one day Idaho fishing license and some jigs and went down and fished for Crappie off the dock for awhile, no luck, so I am going to go back this evening and try again when it is cooler.

Today’s ride was good except Kathy’s bike broke again. We worked on it for several hours at camp but couldn’t get it to work. It has a 9 speed internal rear hub transmission and it quit working. We will be in Baker City, Oregon tomorrow and have a extra day there as a rest day so they are going to a bike shop and see what they can do.

We had a couple of really long, 8 mile and 10 mile, down hill runs today, I was going 25 to 32 mph most of the time. Of all the different parts of the trip these “down hill runs” probably have the most potential for accidents because of the speed and how much more careful you have to be. Most of the time when we are really going fast I have this incredibly strong urge to scratch, pick my nose, look in the mirror to see if anybody is coming, or to see how far back Cliff is, look at the speedometer to see how fast I am going, or turn and smile at the driver in the car that is barely able to pass me, but it is super important not to take your eyes off the road even for a second, keeping the bike on the road, watching for rocks, bolts, truck tire pieces, and pot holes. I sometimes wonder what I would look like after sliding on the pavement for 20 feet, that would sure make for some exciting pictures for my blog!😀

I messed up and put 52 on the last blog, it was supposed to be 53, blame it on the 104 degree hot pool.

I am not sure how successful this blog will be. I may fall asleep any minute while writing this. We are camped at ,”Zim’s Hot Springs, at “New Meadows, Idaho”, they have two pools and in the first pool the water is 104 degrees and in the second it is 95 degrees. I spent an hour in the pool and I am very relaxed and sleepy, so we will see how this blog turns out.

We rode our bicycles 76 miles today, and 2/3’s of those miles we were following the Salmon River up stream all the way to the source. It is a very beautiful river that looks a lot like the deschutes River even with large groups of rafters floating it. As I said we followed the Salmon river upstream so most of our riding was up, though it was a reasonable degree of steepness so it wasn’t a killer.

We have been seeing a number of bicyclists who are doing the TransAmerica, an official, across the U.S. bicycle route that thousands do every year. We have talked to a number of them, which is always fun. There were a couple of “old guys” at our camp site last night who were riding the TA route, and they were very enthusiastic about our route as well.

Tomorrow we are riding 77 miles with lots of hill climbing, so it is going to be a tough day. We will camp next to the Brownlee Reservoir on the Idaho side, and then the next day we will ride to Baker City, Oregon, getting closer!

Well we are close to being finished, and we have not had a single flat tire, that is a first for any bicycle trip I have been on in the past! Several of you have asked how my neck is doing. It is doing quite well, stiff at the end of a day, but not the pain I was having at the start of the trip. My neck muscles are getting in shape and also a friend sent me some muscle liniment that really works well. I am feeling good all over, neck, butt, legs, hands, and arms, all good.

We haven’t had cellular or WiFi for a couple of days now so you have been missing me😀! We left Lolo Hot Springs and bicycled along this river called the Lochsa River all day long yesterday, it was very beautiful. We then camped at “Wilderness Gateway Campground”,which is right next to the river. The sound of the river was loud, but sleeping in my tent 15 feet from it was awesome. I wished that I had thought to get an Idaho fishing license before we got to camp, because it looked like a great trout fishing river, and we saw people fishing in it as we bicycled next to it. Today we left “Wilderness Gateway” and rode along the Lochsa some more for 51 miles, and then Kathy’s bicycle broke, some screws that held the pedal on to the sprocket broke. Tom had gone on ahead with the motorhome, and we had no cell service where we were, so Cliff and Kathy started walking pushing their bikes, and I took off on my bicycle hoping to get cell service pretty soon. I got to the town of Kooskia, and they had no cell service there, but the local tavern had WiFi so I went in there and ordered a cup of coffee and called Tom using WiFi. He answered and I asked him where he was, and he said he was in Kooskia across the street from the Selwig Tavern, so I walked out and waved at him. By the time we got Cliff and Kathy picked up and Kathy’s bicycle fixed the day was shot, so we rode our bicycles for 51 miles and rode in the RV for 25 miles, and now we are in Grangerville, Idaho at the “Bear Den RV Campground”. The 25 miles that we rode in the RV included a very, very big, huge, steep, awful, killer, mountain and as we drove up it in the RV, with the engine in low gear and laboring, I silently prayed, “thank You Jesus for breaking Kathy’s bike.

Today we rode from Hamilton, Montana to Lola Hot Springs. It was 65 miles and though it was very cloudy all day and cold, it didn’t rain very much on us. The first 40 miles were on the “Bitterroot Trail”, a paved bicycle trail. I love riding on bicycle trails because you can enjoy the scenery and the ride so much more when you don’t have to be keeping track of traffic. Also, most bike trails are fairly flat so the riding is much more relaxed and casual. When we finished the trail we had a 25 mile ride up toward Lolo Pass. Even though it was uphill the entire 25 miles it was never above 6% grade, and so we handled it pretty good. Overall it was a very nice day of riding.

As the name implies there is a hot spring here so we went and sat in it. It was very hot and felt so good. I sat in it for so long that my legs were rubbery and I thought I was going to have to find someone to help me back to the campsite, but I MADE IT. I sure am hoping that tomorrow is a day without rain.