Ponderosa State Park- Tuesday, July 10

Since our other riders were out of town, we decided to go toodle around Ponderosa State Park.

We parked at the Day Use beach area, and headed down the gravel road to the Lily Marsh parking area, where we caught the Huckleberry Loop trail. The Huckleberry loop is a nice easy loop for hikers & bikers both, but we wanted to try out the mountain bike single track that branches off the huckleberry loop. So at the appropriate little brown bicycle sign, we headed off.
Almost immediately we hit a steep rocky section that I almost was able to ride. Gordy blasted up with no problem, and we both stopped to breath on the more level section. Suddenly we were swarmed by mosquito's! Argg! Must keep riding! Single track, is of course, just that... a narrow, single track. This one weaves in between trees, over roots, up rocks, etc. It was fun and challenging. The hardest part was not sucking in mosquito's when I stopped to catch my breath. At some point the trail comes out onto the road to the Payette Lake overlook, which is a great spot to stop and enjoy the breeze before cruising back to the day use beach. 4 miles round trip, and sorry, no pictures. Here is a link for the park: http://www.idahoparks.org/parks/ponderosa.html

Rainbow Lake Ride - July 3, 2007

This was our biggest gang yet for a Tuesday ride. There were six of us. There were me, Jenni and Nina. Nina brought her two friends Linda and Lynn (probably spelling her name incorrectly). This ride was a blast and it is hard to remember all the funny and cool things that happened. I will try my usual routine of story-telling and see where that gets me. I'll start with riders and their bikes.
Linda was riding her (I believe it is a Specialized) hybrid with 700c wheels. Lynn was riding an 80's vintage Specialized Rockhopper (I think it was a Rockhopper). These two women rocked. Their bikes were of excellent quality but neither were really appropriate for the rough trail we rode. It didn't matter a bit. They ruled.
Randy is a physicist visiting from Oregon determined to ride as much as humanly possible during his ten days in Idaho. He was rocking his Marin Wolf Ridge. Go Randy go!
Here's the gang at the lake. The weather was fantastic.I must say that this trail was no smooth easy ride. There were very steep sections. There long sections of deep powdery dust. There were plenty of downed trees across the trail. There were rocks and roots and stream crossings. Not to say it was a grueling hell ride, but it was challenging for any novice mountain bike rider. It was also very fun, and there were lovely picture perfect bits of trail like this one:
It was while riding through one of these gorgeous meadows Nina burst into song, ala Julie Andrews and The Sound of Music. "The hills are alive with the sound of music!"
Jenni nearly fell off her bike laughing. Nina rocks.
Randy rode the most powerful steed among us and drove it with impressive abandon. He mounted up and attacked terrain the rest of us hiked. Occasionally he would crash with spectacular impacts audible from great distances. He was definitely the most skilled, experienced and courageous of the group, and I never saw a scratch on him.
Jenni rode with great skill and excellent judgement. Everyone handled themselves very well, except me. I made an idiotic decision that plagued my ride.
I decided to install my brand new clipless pedals on my mountain bike right before the ride. I removed the flats/clipless pedals that had served me very well on the 18 mile Little Ski Hill Loop ride. Turns out the springs on these new pedals are much tighter than on my other pedals.
Even adjusted to the loosest setting, it was hard to click my shoes on, and once on they wouldn't release! So I fell over and scratched my elbow (said some words rather loudly too). I fell over three or four times until my little brain became frightened of my pedals. I rode with nervous feet, scared a cleat would lock down and not release. When you make stupid mistakes and suffer miserably as a result, people will often tell you that it was "a good learning experience". Yeah, I learned alright.
When I find the washer that disappeared when I took off my old pedals, I am putting BACK ON my old pedals. I am going to break in my new pedals on next Tuesdays road ride!

Payette Lake Loop Ride

Gordy here narrating the story now. Jenni told of the Little Ski Hill 18 Mile Loop ride. What Jenni did not tell is how she took a spectacular endo which resulted in several minor flesh wounds and a total loss of my sense of humor. Jenni is healing up very well and my sense of humor was nothing to brag about in the first place.

It was Jenni's spectacular endo that prompted the choice of our next ride: mostly flat, mostly paved road around Payette Lake, starting and ending in McCall. Excellent ride for us novice bike riders. Joy.

This was our first ride with a guest! Our friend Nina (pronounced "nine-ah") and her K2 full suspension T:nine Trailhead. Nice bike. I put road tires on Jenni's Specialized Expedition, and I chose my Townie 7 speed. We parked at Lardo's (historical greasy spoon) and pedaled on down the road. We reached the North end of Payette Lake had snackies on the beach. Weather could not have been better.

After polishing off a box of crackers (mostly by me) we headed South down the East side of the lake. Partially paved road and some uphill riding, nothing hectic to report. Saw the latest lake-side condos and cabins and outright mega-mansions under construction. Mostly we saw the reason why we live here, which is pretty trees, lakes and mountains. And nice fresh air!
Got back into McCall and the traffic of a lakeside tourist town in the midst of a tumultuous building boom. And it was along those roads that it was cemented in my mind why I prefer riding mountain trails. Some lady honked her horn and gestured angrily at us as she drove by. What reason could she have to angry with us? We were riding as close to the edge of the road as we possibly could. I was constantly looking over my shoulder to make sure we weren't about to be annihilated by a truck.
I read a blog of a very cool dude in the bicycle industry who said that people, even bicycle people, undergo a personality change the instant they get behind the wheel of a car. Crankiness, the nagging sense of being in a hurry, impatience, insensitivity to all others around your vehicle consume your mind. It just seems to happen.
I would rather challenge my mind and body on the trails in forests and mountains rather than take my chances on the pathways of 4000 pound death machines and their distracted pilots. I will now step down from my soapbox.
All in all it was a very pleasant ride and good exercise. We rode back to Lardo's, loaded up our bikes and headed home. Another Tuesday ride in the books.

Tooth-rattling Good Fun/ Long Little Ski Hill Loop - June 19, 2007

Gordy on the first downhill portion, before you get to Fish Lake. The road wasn't as rocky here.
Admiring Fish Lake. The two gentlemen fishing were the only people (and the only car) we saw all day.
Big Creek Meadow. From here you turn left and climb up the side of Red Ridge.
Lets just say that the longer Little Ski Hill loop in the Mountain biking McCall book is not one of my favorites. Parts of it were really fun, but over all the elevation gains & rattling over miles of rocks on the downhill portions, (OK and climbing over loose rocks!) just didn't balance out for me. On a full suspension bike it might have been better. We had absolutely perfect riding weather- nice sunshine with a gentle breeze that kept us from getting too hot or too buggy.

We found a nifty website that lets you upload your GPS recorded route to a google earth map & add pictures at various waypoints....as soon as we have time we will add that to this post in case anyone with a full suspension bike would like to try it.

Good things about the 18 mile loop:

1. Incredible wildflower viewing

2. The air smells wonderful up there!

3. The only car we saw was parked at Fish Lake

4. The sound of a flock of sheep baa-ing somewhere near by

5. Great scenery

Downside to the loop:

1. 1200 some feet in elevation gain

2. 1200 some feet in elevation gain over loose rocks that make it difficult to gain traction, and fly off your back tires creating a hazard for the person behind you

3. most of the downhill portions were over rocky terrain

We did not take quite enough water. I had my 72 oz camelbak + a 32 oz bottle, Gordy had a 100 oz camelbak. Both camelbaks were dry by mile 10. Lesson learned!

Kayak Day, Tuesday June 12, 2007

Our two daughters are out of school for Summer. We failed to arrange for their care so that we could go after the longer version of the Little Ski Hill mountain bike ride. No timely play dates, no babysitters, no nothing. So my experimental 7 speed mountain bike would have to wait for its test ride. No wait, that is my experimental single speed mountain bike that has been dismantled. Never mind. So we went to the North shore of Payette Lake for some 'yaking and relaxing. And that began with my own personal story of broke-ness, cheap-ness, creative-ness, frustration-ness, and pig-headed git-r-done-ness. What the hell am I talking about? Valid question.

We recently retired our 1994 Isuzu Trooper and bought a Honda Element. Reason I mention this? Our old Trooper had a Thule roof rack with a cargo box. Mounts that will allow us to put our rack and box on the Element? Hundred something something gang of money! But hey! One of our sales guys reps for Yakima! So then it would only be hundred-hunert-sumpity dollars for a whole new rack to mount the box on! My cheapity cheap-ness would not abide.
So I figure and drill and bolt and mostly I shout curse words. And after many cumulative hours of struggle I achieve success!

Thule rack solidly mounted on the Element roof! And with my trusty ratchet straps I was confident our two kayaks would stay on the rack even if we drove 100 miles per hour. All that, and I was only mildly grouchy! Okay, pretty darn grouchy. But I saved hundreds of dollars on extravagant outdoor gear automobile storage equipment without totally losing my mind! Or did I? I'll never tell.

So we drove to the lovely North shore of Payette Lake and unloaded all of our gear. We also unloaded our Doodle. That is we unloaded our Daisy Doodle. we unloaded our dog. And we didn't know if she could swim, if she would try to swim, if she would ride in a kayak, etc. We were concerned about how her little tiny dog brain would respond to the environment. So we took precautions, as outdoor gear purveyors should:

We strapped a foam pad around her body. She did not seem to mind. Excellent. And so we yakked. Of most photo-worthiness was Maddie and Daisy yakking.

And Lydia and I yakked.

And Jenni yakked

And we had lunch and it was a grand day out in the sun and fresh air and very good for our minds and bodies. And Lydia found at least ten bird feathers.