I rode sixty miles along the Lochsa River today. It was some of the most scenic riding since riding the Blue Ridge Parkway back in late May and early June. This was not nearly as strenuous either. In fact, it was all downhill.

It wasn’t downhill very much though. In fact, if you didn’t see the Lochsa River to the left of the road and see that the water was flowing the same direction, you might not have noticed that it was downhill at all in spots. But, over the course of sixty miles from the start to Lowell, Idaho, we dropped about 1900 feet in elevation. It was a beautiful, sixty mile tour. I shot some video that I hope you’ll enjoy:

Pat had scouted the region for lodging. She said the only reasonable lodging was in Kamiah, thirty-one miles further on highway 12. To ride to Kamiah would make this a 94 mile ride today and that would be the second-longest ride of The Dream Tour. So, on I went. It was fairly easy riding because highway 12 continued to parallel the river. Unfortunately, it also started raining. It rained all the way to Kamiah.

While we were getting things dried out, we made some phone calls. We had no cellphone service last night and it appears that Kamiah doesn’t have cellphone service either. So, we pulled out my pre-paid calling card and made some phones calls on the hotel phone. I checked in with Damon at Bayer HealthCare. I left a message so he knows where we are and that we’re OK.

Pat made a couple phone calls to our housesitter, Melissa, at home. One of our cats, Velcro, has been missing since the beginning of the month. Velcro has done this disappearing act before, but never for this long. Melissa has been scouring the neighborhood and the local shelters looking for signs of him. Pat is doing her best to help by searching the Salt Lake county animal shelter web site because they post pictures there of stray cats they have. A couple photos looked like Velco and that was the reason for us calling Melissa tonight.

Melissa said she would make a visit to the shelter tomorrow to check for Velcro. While we were talking with her on the phone, she told us that we have a new water heater! Apparently, the tank started leaking (unnoticed) several days ago. Then, yesterday, it began leaking enough that it was difficult to not notice it. I.e., there was standing water in the utility room. So, she did the right thing. She called the plumbing company whose name is taped to the water heater and they came out and diagnosed the situation. They said it was a leaky tank. (Thanks, Einstein!) It wasn’t repairable, I guess, so they installed a new one, removed the old one, and helped Melissa with the clean-up.

Total distance:	94.08 miles
Time:	6:02:14
Average speed:	15.6 mph
Maximum speed:	34.9 mph
Total calories:	7914
Average heart rate:	122 bpm
Maximum heart rate:	161 bpm
Total ascent:	674 feet
Total descent:	2852 feet
Ride profile:	(click on image to view a larger version)
Ride comments: The day started out cloudy and cool. The first sixty miles were a gradual descent to Lowell, Idaho. No rain, but I could see wet roads occasionally. After Lowell, the rain started and lasted all the way to Kamiah, Idaho. I was pretty wet by the time I got there, but still pretty comfortable.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 19th, 2006 at 8:52 pm and is filed under The Dream Tour, Bicycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.