Bike Across America – Day 14

Sunday, July 2, 2017

Start: Pocatello, Idaho
End: Idaho Falls, Idaho
Mileage today/cumulative: 67 / 991
Elevation Ascended: 726
Weather: Sunny, 59° at start; sunny, 79° at finish
3D Relive Video (approx. 1 minute)

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday: head winds and crappy roads. Today: little wind and nice farm roads. There was a slight dreaded east wind when we left Pocatello this morning but we tricked it and headed north toward Idaho Falls.  This was also our first day with a total elevation gain of less than one thousand feet. We were pretty happy about that after yesterday’s slog, so everyone in our group agreed to an active recovery pace today – not too fast, not too slow, keeping our heart rates low and comfortably spinning our legs. We were all looking ahead to tomorrow’s ride over Teton Pass (elevation 8,431′), so nobody wanted to go hard on today’s flat stage. It was a low key and entertaining ride, especially when our friend Nikki taught Bev the Potato Song and my wife kept tormenting, oops, I mean serenading us with the chorus.  It goes like this. You’re welcome.

Today was our last full day in Idaho. We didn’t have any expectations about this state, other than potatoes. There are a lot of those but we also saw the Snake River, beautiful gorges, cool waterfalls, and a wide variety of livestock. We met very nice people who gave us lots of encouragement, even while openly questioning our sanity. We’ll put Idaho in the rear view mirror tomorrow afternoon but we won’t soon forget it (at least until Minnesota or wherever we’ll be in another 14 days…).

Wyoming and the Grand Tetons await, so it’s time to rest up. Tomorrow is guaranteed to be epic!