MOTIVATION
Most of my writing these days is scientific writing for my PhD, and it is common to begin a scientific paper with an Abstract that sums up the work performed in a paragraph and a Motivation which explains to the reader why they should care that the work was performed in the first place. I think I can give the Abstract for this trip in a single sentence: “Three friends who haven’t hung out in over a year decide to tackle a 350 mile bike tour through the backcountry of Idaho in search of hot springs and adventure.”
The Motivation? In 2014, when I rode my Lemond road bike across the country by myself from California to Maine, I took a pit stop in Missoula, Montana. There, I visited the headquarters of Adventure Cycling Association and perused their voluminous route catalog. I was hopeful that there might exist a dirt route across the country, since at this point in my tour I was absolutely sick of logging trucks running me off the road and listening to cars “whoosh” by me all day, despite my efforts to choose lightly-trafficked that went through farmland and forest. Unfortunately, no such cross country dirt route existed (although someone at ACA was incredibly helpful to point me to 100 or so miles of dirt forest roads to take me east out of Missoula), but the Idaho Hot Springs Mountain Bike Route really caught my eye. At that moment, I knew that it was only a matter of time before I tackled the route. 7 years later, I realized this dream with my good friends Esther and Dylan. Read on!
We opted for the lower loop of the >700 mile route; bringing us to a 350 mile bikepack trip over 9 days with 22k ft of climbing. The route is the Idaho Hot Springs Mountain Bike Route from Adventure Cycling Association (click here!).
Planning
I bought paper (actually they are a blend of HDPE- making them resistant to tears of both the mechanical and water kind) maps for the route from ACA (see link above, under map), Dylan and Esther downloaded a GPX file of the route, and we agreed that given our 2 week timeline for the trip, it made sense to shoot for the lower half of the route (350 miles, as opposed to the 700-something mile entire loop). From the blogs I scanned before taking off on this trip, it looks like most riders only perform one loop of the route (taking the Lowman cutoff) and not the entire route, due to similar time restraints. God bless the 9-5 and 10 days of PTO.
I initially debated whether to take my hardtail bike (Niner SIR 9) or my gravel/cyclocross bike (Squid). I ultimately decided to take my hardtail, because in my experience on the Great Divide, having wider tires is nice for absorbing some of the impact of washboard roads and floating over gravel and sand. Also, the cassette on my cross and hardtail have exactly the same range of gears (which actually surprised me) of 11 speed 11-42t, and both are 1x’s (only one gear up front) and with a 30T front chainring on my hardtail I would have an easier time getting up hills with my heavily loaded bike than on my 38T cross bike. Decision made. It was also really nice to have a dropper seatpost, which I had to exercise maximum proprioception when deploying to avoid smashing my tail bag into my rear tire. I eventually developed an intuition for how many millimeters I could drop the seat before it rubbed on my rear tire. Thank you Revelate Designs for making an extremely robust bag that could withstand my stupid flirtations with gear failure, just so that I could use my dropper on wild descents.
Once packed (see video at bottom of post for all the gory details of packing), I loaded up the red rocket (my tiny, pathetic, 1.6L 2-door Hyundai that struggles up I-70 but still pulls a hitch rack) and drove from Colorado to Idaho, listening to hours of TOOL and Sam Harris’s Waking Up Podcast. Esther and Dylan drove out from California and we met at an Airbnb in Idaho City. The day before our expedition was full of final preparations: I hose-clamped a Salsa Anything cage onto my fork, we decided to bring only 1 pot for cooking [saving weight and volume between the 3 of us], and Dylan and I decided to carry separate tents [greatly adding weight in hopes of better sleep]).
The Trip
The first day of riding was full of drama. We left the Airbnb in the morning and pedaled 6 miles on highway 21 to get to the start of the route. Dylan was leading the charge, and Esther and I nestled behind his draft as we plunged at breakneck speed into the sub-30F degree still air. This would be the coldest morning of our trip, and the physical shock of pushing the pace in such inclement weather left Dylan feeling like he had internally exploded. Once we arrived to the start of the route, we sat in the sunlight as his body collected itself, and later he revealed that in that moment he was petrified that he was the weakest link of the trip and would let us down.
However, he quickly rebounded, and I readily assumed the title of Weakest Link when less than 20 minutes into our 3,000ft climb my knee started giving me jabbing pain. I felt panicked and my heart sunk - my knee has always been my problem joint - electing to get surgery in 2019 after 8 years of useless PT exercises and sporadic periods of intermittent pain, the surgery didn’t help and to this day I feel like I’m in a constant battle with my knee. Esther and Dylan were far ahead of me at this point, so I knew that calling out to tell them I needed to stop would be futile. I pulled over, attempted to apply KT tape to ease the pain (it didn’t work - I was too sweaty) and swallowed a few hundred mg of ibuprofen. The pain didn’t really subside until we stopped climbing, hours later. Sitting atop the first mountain pass, munching on tortillas loaded with tuna (tuna became a staple of our trip), I felt so lucky to be finally performing this long-awaited trip with best friends, but also dreading the possibility that I wouldn’t be able to carry on, due to knee pain. I knew that if the pain got worse as we dove deeper into the backcountry, farther away from civilization, I would pose a liability to the group. The rest of the day felt bittersweet as I reveled in the scenery and company, but couldn’t hold back the dark cloud of thoughts that I might need to bail on this trip I had dreamed of for so long.
The gripping fear that I might need to hitchhike or turn around due to my knee pain, which presented itself on Day 1 like an unwanted, obtrusive party guest, was dissolved when somewhere along the 8 mile pedal from Troutdale to Featherville I tried raising my seat a few angel hairs to mitigate the knee pain. It felt great, so I ended up raising the saddle almost an entire centimeter and my knee pain was almost entirely gone. I felt so relieved! Lesson learned: make sure that you are riding the bike you plan on touring on in the weeks/months before your trip. I predominantly ride my full-suspension mountain bike at home, and my hardtail had effectively grown a coat of dust in the period leading up to this trip. It is likely that the saddle was too low to begin with, and if I had gone on longer rides on the bike before the tour, I would have realized the saddle was too low and could have avoided the pain and drama on the first day. Lesson learned.
Spirits were high as we landed in Featherville, our first “town” of the trip. The ghost town of Rocky Bar barely counted as a city, with its sign declaring “Today’s Population: 7”, where the 7 was a removable card that could be updated with that day’s number of visitors renting cabins. Cute. Featherville was a classic Idaho backcountry town - lots of ATV’s, conservatives (one shop, I should say the only shop, had t-shirts for sale that read “I identify as vaccinated”, and I had to acknowledge the wit), and kind people bewildered by our decision and ability to pedal hundreds of miles on bicycles while also toting our tent, water, and supplies.
Rocky Bar, ID. “Today’s Population, 7”
The weirdest moment of our visit to Featherville was when a gentleman was talking to me, Esther and Dylan about how incredulous he was that we were partaking in such an epic adventure, well, actually he was just addressing Dylan, and he shook Dylan’s hand and congratulated him on the effort, completely ignoring me and Esther. It felt awkward, especially since the trip had been my idea and Dylan apologized to me and Esther after the fact. Another strange moment was when someone camping near us one night asked which of us were dating, and when we replied “Oh, we’re just friends”, the camper winked at Dylan and told him that he was a lucky guy to be traveling with “two beautiful women”. It felt uncomfortable, and I concocted an idea that the next time someone asked us if we were dating we should just respond that we are Mormon and in a happy arrangement. Much to my disappointment, and probably for the better, this opportunity never arose. For the rest of the trip, I called Esther “Beautiful Woman” and we had a good laugh about the whole encounter.
The way our mileage was working out (about 40 miles a day, 10 miles more than what we had planned), we hit a 3,000 ft pass most every day. For Dylan, the most memorable and fun pass was the pass from Day 1 - Thorn Creek Butte - whose descent flowed and swooped for endless miles and yielded amazing views, if you could peel your eyes off the buckling dirt road for a split second. My favorite pass was Old Galena north of Ketchum; because much of the climb was on fun singletrack trails and I’m a Real Mountain Biker these days (aka my 50-mile endurance days are over, and a 6 mile stretch of technical terrain is where I thrive). The views from all of the passes were extraordinary, and our glimpses of the Sawtooth Wilderness Area made me vow to return to this area to explore deeper into the Sawtooth Range.
The hot springs were phenomenal - those that we stopped in, at least. We bypassed more than half of the springs we passed, since in the middle of an 80-something Fahrenheit day the idea of plunging our sweat-soaked bodies in hot water was less than appealing. However, if we were able to camp at a hot spring, that was high heaven. The experience of gazing up at the Milky Way while steam rose into the cool night air and you realized you were sitting in a completely natural pool of water and surrounded by mountains was satisfying on a deeper, soul-nourishing level. Not only were our muscles rejuvenated by the mineral water, but our souls. There’s something about sitting on the ground, or in a body of water, for an extended period of time that fills me with a sense of belonging and ease that is a far cry from an extended sit in a car or a desk chair.
I think I took the dirt fire roads for granted, until we entered the Lowman Cutoff. Somehow I didn’t notice from the map that the 58 mile cutoff was entirely on pavement (the solid versus dashed line indicating pavement versus dirt eluded me), and the bird calls and creek dips we were accustomed to were starkly replaced by 80-mph Escalades whooshing by and the accurate assessment that my tires were not optimized for travel on road. I felt inefficient as I pedaled my mountain bike for hours along a road shoulder that I would have whizzed along, had I been on a road bike. At least I could lock out my front suspension. Dylan and Esther were feeling fast that day (who am I kidding - they were faster than me every day :)) and we had agreed to meet up at a building called the “Sugarloaf Lodge” which we had misread on the map as much closer than it actually was. Hours later, we met up, and it felt good to be united with friends.
During my solo stint on the road, I realized how much I enjoyed their company, and perhaps I had also taken that for granted. 58 miles of pavement alone with the sound of my Schwalbe Hans Dampf tires making love to the tarmac reminded me of my evolution as a bike rider away from road riding towards dirt and backcountry riding, and the pleasure that comes with having friends along for the ride. I still enjoy my solo tours, but there is something special about sharing the jaw-dropping views and sometimes jaw-dropping encounters with locals with friends. That night, we stayed at a hot spring and wandered into the sleepy town of Lowman in search of pizza and were treated to amazing live music, chambongs* and a bar whose walls were weighted with taxidermy bear, elk, and deer, much to our resident vegeterian’s dislike.
*Chambong, noun (definition from their website): “A device used for the rapid and enhanced
experience of sparkling wine / champagne consumption”.
It was a magical night, and a fitting finale to a day that reinforced my growing sense that interactions with nature, but also with people, are where spirituality happens. I don’t know if that’s the right word- “spirituality” - but there was a feeling that sitting there that night with Esther and Dylan, after pedaling up and down mountains under the blue sky and boughs of fir and pine, that beholding live music while old ladies with smoker’s cough and too much eyeliner took our picture and smiled at us, in our crazy bike shoes and technical fabric in a town of flannel and Levi’s, that maybe life would be okay. It was better than ok - I wanted to stay in that moment forever.
The next day we returned to dirt (sigh of relief!) and realized that we could make it back to Idaho City that day and conclude the trip if we desired. We were not ready to be reunited with our cars and reality, so we decided to make it a short day and camped somewhere in the dirt about 12 miles from Idaho City. Our last night was a little melancholy, and the first night that everyone kept to themselves before dinnertime, perhaps because the realization that our trip was almost over was hitting us and we wanted to prolong the moment. Esther laid on the ground and read her book “Rings of Saturn”, Dylan fell asleep adjacent to a giant log, and I scrambled up a hill on foot to gain perspective and sketch the scene of our final night of camping. That night, we finished the flask of whiskey and probably ate instant mashed potatoes.
Pedaling down highway 21 to find where we had parked our cars 9 days prior, the air temperature was at least 30 degrees warmer than that very same stretch of road when we left for the trip. We were in good spirits, our bodies were strong, and I was already wondering when my next bike tour would be. Another amazing bike tour in the books, and I’m so grateful that Dylan and Esther were able to pull off this trip this summer with me. Here’s to another trip, soon!