Toeur d’Alene

4 day bike tour. 250 miles. 10,000 ft elevation. Where do I sign up? 🙂 Team CycleManiacs, our core cycling group has been planning this Coeur d’Alene tour for nearly 6 months. Finally it is time to ride. We even had custom jerseys made. We named the event “Toeur d’Alene” — get it? 🙂

Emi and I hit the road early since it was about a 7 hour drive from Copalis Beach to Coeur d’Alene. We stopped in Ellensburg for lunch and to stretch our legs. A cool little town that is known for its annual rodeo. A historic Main St almost feels like you travelled back in time while you walk the downtown streets. Pita Pit for lunch. Last time I had Pita Pit was when it was all the rage in Tempe, AZ back in my 20’s 🙂 We used to hit up Pita Pit at work for lunch almost every day. Extra tzatziki 🙂 After Ellensburg, we passed through the Gorge in George. Home of one of the best music venues in the country. Again brought back some fun memories of a Labor Day Weekend several years back for Dave Matthews Band and Brandi Carlile with Collin and his homies from Willamette University. We stopped at the scenic overlook and realized our bike cover was not doing well in the high speed driving winds — already had a couple holes ripped in it. Whoopsies. I guess it will just be used for when we are camped. Lesson learned. Back on the road. The rest of the drive is super boring — long stretches of ranch and farm land. At one point, I thought is this what Coeur d’Alene is going to be like? I hope not 🙂 But once we reached Spokane, the forests, well more high desert Ponderosa pine type forests, returned. Speaking of Spokane — nostalgia moment — my only other time in Spokane was for the Washington State High School Bowling championships. Back in those days I was a high 190’s average bowler and actually led our team in scoring for the tournament but we didn’t fare too well, finishing around 20th.

We finally reached our Vrbo for the next week. It was stunning. A beautiful, old house in the historic district of Coeur d’Alene. The rooftop patio was sweet. Walking distance to downtown. A really great vacation rental.

 

Ride Day 1 – The Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes

Started the day off right with some excellent breakfast burritos from the Mexican Factory restaurant.
Well that is when we finally found the restaurant. Drove right by it and didn’t see it. Told Larry and Rod who were following us, well must be out of business. Decided to do one more drive by and there it was — a little spot, easy to miss. But it should not be missed — the food there is super tasty. Now with ride fuel in hand, time to head to Rose Lake and the start of our epic 4 day tour.

The town of Rose Lake isn’t much — a couple of mini-marts/gas stations, a church, and a few houses. Park, gear, up, and lets ride. Umm why is this road gravel? Ride With GPS, the bible of route planners, said it was paved…Hmmm. We spent a good 10 minutes deciding if we should stick to the busy highway instead of this unpaved, supposed to be paved, bike path. Let’s go a little further, maybe it will turn into pavement. Wow, luckily we made the right call. We were just on a side road and hadn’t actually made it to the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes yet. This is one of the biggest rails-to-trails projects in the country — 70 miles of smooth pavement through some of the most scenic wilderness our beautiful country has to offer. Bike porn.

Today’s ride was 70 miles from Rose Lake to Plummer and back. Spectacular views of Coeur d’Alene Lake. An amazing pedestrian bridge over Chatcolet Lake. We saw deer, raccoon, and a coyote. Geri would like to forget about the coyote — they are a bad omen in the Navajo religion. But it was a beautiful, healthy looking coyote — it eats well out here. Lunch at the park on the other side of the pedestrian bridge. Thanks to Sabine and Elaine for providing us food and support.

After lunch we rode through a recent burn area. Work crews were still downing trees that posed a risk of falling on the path. We had to wait while they were taking down a tree. When it came crashing down, Geri yelled “Whoa that tree just fell!” Ummm, yes Geri, when you take a chain saw to a tree that is the expected result. We love Geri 🙂

We rolled into Plummer, our turn-around spot. A Native American War Memorial greeted us complete with a large metal sculpture of a warrior on horseback. Very cool. A lady walking her dog was kind enough to take our photo with the sculpture. She said her dog, Tacko, was named for a Navajo phrase meaning “love is in everything.” Geri, who speaks Navajo, didn’t have the heart to tell her there is no such Navajo word 🙂

By the time we got back to the start, my butt was sore. Ha! But it was worth it, today’s ride was pure bliss. Drinks and food and good company back at the house made for quite the day.