“One of the things I discovered, and you're discovering too, is that you don't need to be a bicyclist to ride across America. You need to be an adventurer. The bicycle is just the tool.” - Dick Dexheimer, one of my Wednesday AARP Ride buddies who rode across America several years ago.
Some people only have the time to do part of the ride across America and ABB provides ride by segments. Eighteen people are doing one or more, but not all segments; so there are people who we haven’t met yet – maybe someone will join us tomorrow. Segment one ended yesterday and we said goodbye to DeLynn and Sally, both from Anchorage, Alaska.
Discussing this as dinner last night, I learned that Doug and Cindy Sage from Tucson signed up for the ride only 5 weeks before it started. Originally, Cindy was only going to do only one leg. She said “I’d really be bummed out if I had to leave now; I’m glad I signed up for the whole thing.”
One of the hassles to bike touring, even the luxury tour like we’re doing, is laundry. I’ve been washing my cycle clothes by hand every day after I get in. But you still need a good machine wash with hot water (to kill the bacteria). So that’s a good thing to do on your off day. The problem here at the Ramada, however, is they only have one washer and one dryer. So I got my laundry done at 5:00 a.m. today. By 6:00, there was a line.
In I’m planning a short ride today on the greenbelt along the Boise River. Also planning a stop at Starbucks (went to Lucy’s instead – great cappuccino); ‘haven’t been to a coffee bar in a week. I’ll also give the bike a good cleaning and polish and lube the drive train.
“Boise”, the state capital (see photo), is French for “wooded” – Boise is thus the City of Trees. There is an extensive system of bike paths, known as the Greenbelt; however, I’ve never experienced bike paths so rough. Every ten yards there’s a major bump, mostly caused by freezing I assume. You can’t go very fast at all, and you’ll surely get pinch flats if you tires aren’t properly inflated. We leave on one of these rough paths tomorrow; no one will be happy about that.
Segment two of the tour, which we begin tomorrow, is the longest in terms of days (9 days before a rest).
Day 9, 18 miles, 92 feet, 1.5 hrs
41 days to go, 651 miles so far, 3,017 miles to go
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