Day 9: Council to White Bird

88 miles
2500 feet of elevation gain

I wrote this on 6/21 but couldn’t post it since we had no internet.
Today started bad and it didn’t get any better. We left the RV this morning just as the rain started to fall. It then proceeded to pour for about 20 miles, and this wasn’t warm rain like 2 days ago, it was very cold and Dad and I were very cold. We probably hit the equilibrium point about 3 miles in, and by the time we caught up with Jim in New Meadows we couldn’t feel our feet. It took us a good half hour in the RV, after changing clothes, to warm up. If Jim hadn’t been around Dad and I probably would have gone to the nearest hotel and checked in for the night and then drank copious amounts of hot chocolate. That was only 25 miles into the ride.

I don’t recommend anyone ever tries to bike Idaho 95. Maybe it was worse because of Father’s Day weekend, but the traffic was horrendous. 85% of Idahoans drive huge vehicles and pull some contraption behind them. That was in addition to the trucks. After our warm-up break the weather was a little better, but the roads got worse. There was the traffic, and then there was the fact that there was either a ridiculously narrow shoulder, no shoulder, or a very rough shoulder. It was not a pleasant day and a big part of that can be attributed to the fact that the roads were so awful. It was a very stressful ride.

In addition to the traffic, rain and rough roads, Dad and I got hit by a humongous headwind part way through the day. It was so windy that we were pedaling like crazy downhill and only going about 20 mph. On the flats we were working really hard but only going about 12 mph. It was so frustrating, and we couldn’t just concentrate on pedaling because we had to be constantly alert for large vehicles or two-way traffic. AHHH!

There were a couple high points today. We saw a black bear during our uphill rain battle. That was really cool, even though we couldn’t see its face since it was headed into the woods. We also saw a baby fawn drinking from its mother. Another positive is that most of the truckers are really polite and give us lots of space. The same can’t be said for the motor homes and other vehicles, but the trucks were okay, and we would get a back draft off of them. In 3 days we’ll be in Montana.

Chris’s update – does anyone in Idaho drive a small vehicle? While most of the large vehicles were nice, some didn’t seem to notice that there were bikes on the side of the road. And nearly everyone was pulling something, boats, horse trailers, flatbed trailers, really trailers that contained who knows what, etc. With this said, I won’t ride hwy 95 across Idaho again, too many narrow roads in the mountains and too much traffic. When I get ready to ride cross country I’ll take the northern route.