Coeur d’Alene Cycling Tour – Ride Day 4 – Nine Mile Dam

Posted 3 years ago by Mike

Our last ride day. Bittersweet. While I love riding, after 3 long, challenging rides, my legs and butt needed some R&R. But not yet. Larry decided to drop and do a solo ride to Wallace, Idaho, so he and Elaine could explore the town he grew up in. Larry saw elk on his ride and we just saw farm land 🙂 This route disappointed over the first 10 miles or so. Just farm land and a big climb on the side of a busy highway. However, once we reached the Spokane River and picked up the Centennial Trail, the rest of the ride was filled with spectacular views of the river and the canyons it carved out over millennia.

We rode through downtown Spokane and all of the college campuses located here. Surprising to see this many colleges in a small-ish town — Gonzaga, Washington State, Eastern Washington. We stopped at Dick’s Drive-In for burgers and shakes for lunch. I thought it was the same chain as the Dick’s in Seattle, but my Seattle friends harshly corrected me. Yeah, the Spokane Dick’s is nowhere near as good as the Seattle Dick’s 🙂 After lunch we continued to cruise through Spokane, stopping at Upper Falls and a giant Radio Flyer wagon turned into a kid’s slide. The tires were nearly as tall as me.

Once outside of Spokane we continued along the Centennial Trail all the way to its end at Nine Mile Dam. From there we continued on to the finish along a narrow, windy, hilly road through some nice forest. Even with moderate traffic, I really enjoyed this part of the route — the speed limit was low and the forest and rocky hillsides made for some tranquil scenery.

We finally reached the finish and the end of our epic Toeur d’Alene. That night we celebrated with some amazing BBQ from a local food truck. Larry picked up the tab. Larry’s generosity knows no bounds. We are glad to have him as a friend. Hopefully we will reunite with him and this group of great friends again in the near future — maybe on a bike tour in Portugal — hint, hint 🙂