Hold Tight and Fly: Segment 7: Ride Day 38

Route: Mountain Home, ID to Boise, ID (First Presbyterian Church)

Distance: 45.3 miles

Riding Time: 2 hours: 43 minutes (8am to 11:15pm)

Average Speed: 16.2 mph

Max: 27.7 mph

Weather: Just peachy: A little headwind... which was counteracted by our stellar pace line work today. Not to hot... until after we arrived. A few sprinkles of rain but nothing too exciting. Some wonderful clouds to keep things cool.

Extra-Special Bonus Stats

Current Elevation: 2730 feet

Elevation Change from yesterday: - 416 feet

Population of Boise, ID: 212,000 people (Wow! State capital and the biggest city in Idaho! I'd say this is a pretty great spot to be for the weekend!)

Today was another good, short biking day. We got to sleep in until almost 6 this morning and then we got up packed up and my chore team started cooking up a hot breakfast for the crew. (Note: although I was slightly grumpy about this, it did get us out of laundry duty later in the day) Afterwards we had a good short ride that involved seeing lots and lots of sagebrush and mountains in the distance (I think we are into the Sawtooth Range by now?). We did some very gradual climbing for most of the ride with the last several miles sailing downhill into Boise.

Unlike the past several days of biking alone, I spent all of today’s ride working in pace lines with some of the other bikers. This was partly because of a good little headwind we were riding into but also just because it is good to shake things up a little and try something different every now and then… and the guys that I biked with were just great. So I spent the first 20 miles with Pete, Nate, John, AJ, Steve and Alex and we took turns “pulling” (leading the pack and cutting through the wind to make the ride easier for the rest of the crew) for up to 2 miles at a time. Then I spent the second 20 miles with Steven, Alex and Ben working in a pace line and switching leaders with every mile marker... with great dramatic flair, just to keep things interesting. It was a hoot... and we made it into our town to the church in what felt like no time at all. We had a bite or 30 to eat and then walked down the street for showers at the YMCA (just one block from the church) and then I settled in for yet another nice long hour nap. Lovely.

Alright so on a different note, when you spend a long time with the same group of people in very close quarters, a whole new vocabulary tends to starts to emerge. For our group it includes words like these:

Scott-Up! or Scottie! - lit. "take a drink from your water bottle now because it has been at least 5 minutes since your last drink" (This is used many times a day and is used in honor of Scott Harrison who rode with us during the first segment and reminded us often to "Keep Hydrated
ZerOmph (za-romf) - lit. "Zero mile per hour crash" - Mark (This is mostly used to refer to what happens when you are almost at a stop on your bike and spontaneously fall over due to a failure to unclip your pedals in time)
Sweeee-peee! - This is another word for a member of the biking pair that follow up the pack every day and make sure no one gets left behind or stuck fixing a flat alone. More commonly known as "Sweeps" or "Sweepers."
Peanut butter - ok, so this isn't a new word, but boy howdy do we ever have lots of it. This is thanks not only to Earth Balance's generous donation of cases upon cases of delicious natural peanut butter but also because it seems like just about every church we have visited has provided us with this in some form: Peanut butter cookies, peanut butter pie, peanut butter buckeyes, creamy peanut butter, peanut butter pancakes... mmmm... Peanut butter: the perfect protein source.

In addition to new words, you also tend to develop phrases or stories that become absolutely hilarious when strung together or used often in different contexts. Blame it on the Chinese food, or perhaps the lower altitude (too much oxygen), or .... but tonight's supper was absolutely hilarious. I joined Tom, Sue, Melissa, Kert and Landon and we walked a few blocks away to a delicious Chinese restaurant for supper. We should have been perfectly well behaved and instead we laughed harder than I have ever seen some of these folks laugh. There were red faces and tears and probably more stares then we have gotten in a long time… and we do tend to get a lot of stares anyway, what with wearing electric orange all the time and spandex and all that.

"At my age I can chick anyone I want... on a pink bike." – Tom
and later… “Those nasty girls on the East Coast Ride were chicking me all the time!" – also Tom
"I'm the only 10 I'm aware of." – Tom, commenting on his inability to rate any chocolate malt he has consumed so far above a 9.5.
"This is how I talk in real life." - Kert

"How many friends do you have?" - Sue
"If you hear a little girl curled up crying tonight on the floor beside you, that would be me." - Kert

Alright, so there is a little window into what the night before a rest day sometimes looks like around here! Awesome. And now it is way-past time for sleep. Yay! Love sleeping. Goodnight, friends! Oh, but here are a few pictures first, of course:

Good morning, Mountain Home!

Bikes in the sky.

One good-lookin' pace line!

Our bikes sleep in the basement at this stop. :( Oh well, at least they don't have to stay outside.

Aaaaand the laughter begins. :-)

Yum. I've been dreaming of green beans ever since I started hearing rumors of beans coming out of amazing gardens back east. I miss fresh vegetables so much!