Friday, August 6, 2010

Joy Riding

I confess that I feel some disdain towards "toy bike riders." That's what I call the folks who love their involvement in mountain biking or road biking as a purely recreation or competition pursuit, but would never consider transportation cycling. Previous commentary HERE.

Despite my "holier than thou" unrighteous pride, riding for the sheer joy of riding is a pretty nice pursuit.

I was fortunate this week to ride some new territory.

I'm an advisor for a group of Varsity/Venturer BSA youth (ages 14-17), and we did our annual "High Adventure" in the Cascade / Donnelly / McCall area.

On Day 1 we rode to Lower Boulder Lake, a few miles east of McCall. It was a pretty good poke for us amateurs; probably 3.5 miles of steady, unrelenting uphill to get there, followed by the steady downhill on the way back. It tested both our stamina and skill.

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The next day, my colleagues (who don't ride much in "real life") had had enough, but I needed more riding. So... I reconnoitered the area around our base camp near Donnelly, at the north end of Cascade Lake. It was sweeeeet!

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5 comments:

Clancy said...

Very nice. I am off this weekend to do a big family ride on the upper portion of the Weiser River Trail. Ages 5- 65 will be on bikes.

Bikeboy said...

Sounds fantastic, Clancy! I hope the weather cooperates... and it should. Spoze to be a bit cooler this weekend. Please report back!

Clancy said...

The trip was great. We completed an 11 mile trip from Strawberry Road to Starkey Hot Springs. There were no big mishaps and weather was fine. All four kids road the entire length. Fun times and definately worth repeating with the family again.

Few pics here. http://www.ratrodbikes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=29836

Clancy said...

The ride was great with no mishaps. This is probably the prettiest part of the whole trail. We started at Strawberry Road and stopped at Starkey Hot Springs. 4 boys, ages 6-10, road the entire 11 miles. We stayed at Evergreen Campground which is right on the trail, kinda close to the highway but not terrible. We dropped everyone at the top then drove to the bottom and dropped 2 cars for the shuttle. A few pics here. http://www.ratrodbikes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=29836

Anonymous said...

posted two updates under my google account and they don't show.

The ride went well with no big mishaps. All four kids (6-10) rode the whole 11 miles. We went from Strawberry Road south of the mill to Starkey Hot Springs. Definately a fun and easy ride for all.

A few more pics here. http://www.ratrodbikes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=29836


Clancy