The Seanman's Domain

Flat Iron Road in June

2010-06-24T20:41:00.000-07:00

Today, I went out and did one of my favorite rides on Flat Iron Road. I'm unaware of any road that has been more poorly named. There ain't nothing flat on Flat Iron Road. The moment one hops onto it the percent grade is immediately 15 percent and sometimes gets as high as 20. There is even one section of road that at least as you are going up it feels like a good mile and it must average around 12-15 percent.

I did not bring enough water with me on this ride leaving two water bottles on the counter when I left but I had 4 liters in my hydration pack and I just finished the majority of the climbing when I finished it. Made it home without being overly dehydrated.

Today was a warm day here in the valley and there were a couple of spots on the climbs where the heat started to get to me. It's very bad when you are moving with the wind while going up hill as you don't get a breeze at all and the sun just bakes you. Thankfully, these sections did not last long.

Due to all the rain we've had in the Inland Northwest this spring, things are more green than they would normally be.

This was a much more enjoyable ride than the thrashing the Nurse Eric gave me yesterday!

Steptoe 2010

2010-05-10T06:30:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, Jen, Scott and I started with the bike club on their trip up to Waiwai where Nikki delivered lunch to them. However, we three peeled off at Steptoe Canyon and climbed up to Uniontown, over to Genesee and then we went down Coyote Grade.

The weather finally gave us a decent day. Heading up the river we had a nice tailwind, even on our mountain bikes we rode close to 20 MPH without much effort. The rising warming air also gave us a tailwind going up the Canyon. On top things were a bit cooler with a wind coming out of the the north. I had to put my long sleeve jersey on. Scott showed me a new road over to Genesee, Cow Creek, how I did not know about this road I don't know but I do now.

The most amazing part of our ride was from the top of Coyote Grade back to the boat launch. I was hoping we would go to Lapwai and then climb to the Orchards from there but Jen was being wimpy so we decided to go back to Lewiston directly on 12. This is one of my least favorite places to ride as there is so much traffic on this road.

So when we decided to ride 12, I got out in the lead, made sure that Scott and Jen were hooked up to my rear wheel and went like hell to try to get off that road as soon as possible. Scott and I figured that from the top of Coyote Grade back to the boat launch it only took us 50 minutes. We actually got there ahead of the rest of the bike club. With coming off of Coyote Grade and maintaining at least 19 on the highway I'm sure we averaged well over 20 MPH on this leg of the trip.

Scott, Jen and I thought maybe we ride again together in the future, but we'll see.

The Lenore Ride of 2010

2010-04-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

Here in the Lewiston Valley there are a group of 5 of us who enjoy doing some back roads rides away from all the traffic. However up until a few weeks ago we 5 have never all assembled in one place to ride. We finally did and today was part 2.

I really enjoy these get togethers as we all share this common bond and all have similar levels of ability. Today, two of my part time co-workers, Bryan and Aly joined us. Bryan is head of computer security for Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories and Aly works most of the time at the Palouse Clearwater Environmental Institute. They both have fun coming to the store and working but we consider them to be very very valuable assets that help us get through our busy times of year. So I was very pleased to have them riding with us today.

I've done a few short rides with Bryan the last few years but had never done a long one today so I was unsure how he would do. To top if off he was using a cross bike as opposed to a mountain bike like the rest of us. His bike did not have the low gears that the rest us had (Not that I never need to use low gears given my powerful tree trunk legs). He did suffer a bit on the major climbs but otherwise did well throughout most of the ride, he got tired of seeing all the uphills we could see and would let out a grown each time we saw one.

I've never ridden with Aly before but know her to be a very accomplished cyclist. She has ridden from Idaho to Montana, just came back from a bike tour in New Zealand and is also an accomplished mountain bike racer. She seemed to do just fine on the ride too. She mentioned that she was not in good enough shape to do the ride but I never saw any evidence of this. She rode as well and suffered as well as any of the rest of us I thought. Those who know Aly know her to be a very positive person and we all enjoyed having her on the ride with us as well as being impressed with her riding abilities.

We started our ride, riding next to the Clearwater river to get a warm up over several miles before we began the major climb up to the Camas Prairie of Idaho. This was about a 2000 foot climb over just a few miles. Very, very steep. Eric and I were riding up the hill which had many turns. My GPS was often reading grade percents in the low to mid teens and occasionly into the 16-17 % range. When going around a corner we'd often lean our bikes just to see if the road was going to get any less steep. One time we were looking hopefully for a break when we came around a corner to our disbelief we could see the road was actually getting steeper! We both spontaneously and independently of each other let out a laugh when we saw this. When we hit that section of road my GPS amazingly read a 20% grade that means stupidly steep. I was glad to be able to keep up with my friend going up this hill as he normally kills me on these kinds of climbs.

When we reached the top we dealt with a bunch of rolling hills (rollers). I tend to really enjoy these, I enjoy the hard effort up and then the break when you go down the other side before heading up the next one. Scott and Doug claim to hate these but today those rollers were starting to get to me, I could have done a few more but not many.

We all made it down our very steep descent safely and enjoyed a nice warm down back to the cars.

Thanks Bryan and Aly for joining us, we hope to see you again.

Lee's Klemguard Ride goes well!

2009-10-11T18:36:00.000-07:00

Lee Bauer planned a ride starting out of Klemguard Park today. He took us on a number of backroads. Carol and I were expecting a nice easy ride. When we arrived Lee told us he picked this area to ride because there are bigger hills there are
by his place in Uniontown. Lee provided us with some great scenery, plenty of trees and great views from the tops of hills. At one point we hit a dirt road which I was excited about. Turns out there was a ton of puncture vine here and I mean a ton. Mike Riddle got nailed and we had to spend some time fixing his flats. Everyone else got through pretty easily. I lost some air pressure but my sealant got me through without too much trouble.

Carol started the ride a bit before everyone else so no one would have to wait for her at the top of the first hill, which was maybe the toughest one of the day. She also spent quite a bit of time waiting for Mike and me as we had to spend the time fixing his flats. She wants it known that she had to do the most waiting on this ride!

Misson Creek July 2009

2009-07-26T16:39:00.000-07:00

The Mission Creek ride holds special meaning for me as it was the ride that I met my wife on in 2001. The club has not done this as a group for some years now too. Mike Riddle tearing up his knee on the ride probably did not help matters. I often do it as a partial ride with my dogs, gives them a different place to go from our normal haunts with a steady supply of water for them. Last year I did this ride alone and ran into a bear and luckily learned to tell about it. I scared the bear away believe it or not.

Anway, I scheduled to take this weekend off awhile ago. When Steve Largent visited us a few weeks ago we invited him to come up this weekend to do a few of his favorite rides. Mission Creek qualifies as one of them.

Mission Creek starts off as a paved road then becomes a gravel road, then a dirt road and then a trail. We park at Jacques Spur just north of Cul-de-Sac, Idaho. Mission Creek takes you up just short of Winchester, Idaho.

This year we had a few new comers to the ride, Doug Goodenough, Scott Trost, Jen Trost and Bill Arnold (a couple of my favorite riding companions and good friends). They are always up to trying something new, exciting and adventurous. Scott, Jen and Doug were a bit wary of doing the ride as they had a huge ride scheduled for Sunday, some monster ride of 70 miles and 10,000 feet of climbing! (And people call me weird).

Anyway all the new comers enjoyed the scenery on the way up. We got to see some relatively thick forest, something unusual in this part of the Inland Northwest. Scott was taking it easy on the uphill not wanting to tire himself for the next day, he chose to walk several chunk of it. (I won't comment on his wimpiness here), his wife also walked a good chunk of it too as she was not crazy about a lot of the loose rock. She also did not appreciate getting her feet went at one of the creek crossing but into each life some rain must fall.

Steve was riding a new Superfly 29er mountain bike. This was his first time riding a 29er off road and he loved the thing. I'd been telling him for years how well these things worked but he did not realize how much of a difference they make. He also just ordered a custom Waterford 29er off road touring bike. He was riding sections of Mission Creek that he'd never done before.

Scott was riding with his GPS and figured out a new route for the trip that allowed us to get onto McCormick Ridge road from Mission Creek this was very cool. He found a new road none of us had ever ridden before. It eventually put us onto an old over grown logging road that Steve new as a boy.

Carol, my wife, who often struggles with this ride had an awesome ride. She was riding stuff she had not ridden in years and was even able to ride sections that Jen (we won't mention her wimpiness here either) was walking. We were all very impressed with how well she did.

We all made a safe return to the starting point to go our separate ways. We hope Jen, Scott and Doug had a safe trip on Sunday.

The Seanman Returns, finally.

2009-07-11T15:36:00.000-07:00

Well my blog has not been used much this year. I had a bug for about six weeks. (I hope it's OK to use the word "had" now. I've had a chronic sore throat, lack of energy and headaches, and I never get headaches. I've done an occasional ride now and then just to test myself but nothing that's been worth blogging.

In the meantime, I've had to take some jabs from Doug and Scott, particularly the ladder. Questions about whether or not I could ride a bike without training wheels, offering me the use of his moped for riding up hills, the kind of crap that I would have given him had the tables been turned.

The week starting July 5th, Carol and I did a touring trip with Trek Travel.
They have a route they like to do through Glacier. I did my best to rest for this trip and try to be well by the time it started. Well it was not to be. The night before in the hotel room in Whitefish, Montana I began to get ill again. I suffered from a very severe sore throat and to a lesser extent a headache. I took my medication to try and dull the pain and got a decent night's sleep. Also given that I had not been able to train for about six weeks, I was very concerned about being able to ride well with the group as I'd figured I'd lost a fair amount of conditioning (also gaining seven pounds).

Luckily, the first two days of riding were relatively easy. The first day we only did a small warm up ride of about 24 miles through some rolling hills. I figured over that short of a distance I would be ok. We started out together as a group and then we had a steep but fairly short climb. Next thing I know I'm right at the front of the group and hold that position all the way to the turn around point. I would have been glad that I was able to just keep up with the group given my lack of conditioning and ill health but I never expected to do this well the first day. I still felt like crap but I could hold my own.

Pic of Ken from Texas and behind and to the left is Angela. We three rode at the front most of the week.

The second day was an even shorter ride, an out and back ride up the mountain to a lake. I rode with Carol most of the way up. She'd been training fairly hard for our trip and did pretty well overall though she was feeling discouraged this day as the initial steep climb was bothering her but after it leveled out a bit she was did just fine. By the time we got to the top it was raining and it rained on us most of the way back down though not hard. Given the weather this was the best day of the week to do a short ride.

Carol and I by Cameron Lake.

I was not looking forward to the next day. We were scheduled to do about 70 miles with some significant climbing close to 4000 feet I believe. A miracle happened. I woke up Wednesday morning and felt great for the first time in a long time. I had developed a cough but the cough was helping me to get rid of some of the crap in my system finally. We had some super strong winds this morning so that put some fear in me but luckily over the first 35 miles or so it was predominantly tailwind.

This was the day we were going to climb up and cross back into the US. One of the neat things about living in the Lewiston, Idaho area is all the hills we have. Most of the rest of the country does not have these. All morning long people were really fretting the hills. I was too as I knew my conditioning was not great. I could not believe it though when into the first 1.5 hours of our ride we reached the highest point of our ride. We still had some climbing left but none of it was going to be very long or steep.

After cresting the peak, crossing back over the border I enjoyed some of the best cycling I've ever had the chance to do. We had a great road, twisty turny, nothing hard but a fun challenge and some rolling hills which again were not challenging because over all we were headed down hill. On top of this we had fantastic tailwinds pushing us.

After finishing the section of road and hitting the highway we had completeted the best part of the ride for the day. Once we hit the highway we had significant headwind most of the rest of the day. We turned off of the highway at one point to enter Glacier Park we rode our bikes back into Many Glacier Valley, at this point though the headwind was pretty awful. Carol rode right on my rear wheel while I pulled. It was hard to enjoy the beautiful scenery as we were fighting so hard. Over this ten miles stretch of road we must have only averaged 12 MPH at best. Once reaching Many Glacier our guides prepared for us a great lunch. Once lunch was finished it was time to go on to our hotel for the night. We turned around and headed back out the highway where the headwind was. This time we had a monster tailwind. Ken, Angela and I must have averaged in excess of 25 back out the highway. We still did not enjoy the scenery very well as were keeping our eyes on the road.

Once hitting the highway I waited for Carol as I knew she'd want me for drafting. Ken and Angela were off to beat each other up. I'm sure Carol was glad I waited. We had another ten miles to go to the hotel and it was tough rollers with a horrible headwind the whole way. The last three miles I was beginning to tire a bit. I had to teach Carol a bit about drafting. Much of the time when we ride together, I have to hold back for her, even when she is drafting. Sometimes though, I'm going a bit too slow and she tells me to speed up. Coming off of one of the hills she got going a bit faster me right before we started up the next roller, she yells to me "I'm braking" which means I'm supposed to go faster of course. My response was "this is all the fast, I wanna go." We were quite glad to get to the hotel and have some snacks. We had to rest up for the next day which was Highway to the Sun.

Again the whole group was a bit concerned about doing this big climb. We had ridden long and fought some bad winds the day before and were concerned about how we'd be able to handle the big climb. Our fears were not alleviated when we started on the "Going to the Sun Highway" and the headwind was just as bad as it had been the previous day. Our ride profiles that they had given us said we'd be doing over 5000 feet of climbing. The competitive part of me wanted to with the leaders going to the top, the husband part of me wanted to help Carol through the headwind. I did not know if I could do both. Carol drafted off of me the first several miles to the bottom of the hill. It worked out well as we stayed close to the leaders either slightly ahead or slightly behind. We still enjoyed the views however, stopping a few times for photos.

I pulled Carol the first two miles up the hill and then at one of the rest stops I left her to go chase down the leaders. We'd lost sight of them after we started climbing. They had several minutes on me so off I went.

I was surprised at how well I was riding. The average grade on this road was supposed to be about 6%, our local Spiral Highway averages about 5% I believe. Normally going up Spiral, my cruising speed on a decent day is 8-9 mph. Going up Highway to the Sun which was steeper I was cruising along at 9-10 mph and dropping down to 8 where the steeper sections were and the wind got strong. I had some help catching Angela. We both got stopped at some road construction, though she got to it well before I did, so that made it easier. I was a few cars behind her when they let us go. I zoomed by her and she let me know how she was not happy with the stupid traffic stop and that I never would have caught her had it not been for that. I think I had her anyway as I blew by putting a pretty good gap between her and me in only a few seconds. I stopped and took a few photos further up the road and she was still 100 meters back when I started again. I kept looking for Ken but could not find him, until finally I could see him resting at the other side of a tunnel we had to go through.

At the top, no one wanted to hang around for very long as it was very windy and a bit on the cool side. The descent was not as fun as it cold have been. There was a fair amount of road construction that slowed us and the traffic down. We could also go faster than the cars so we had to ride our brakes quite a bit. We could not pass the cars, in Glacier there is a $400 fine for a bike to pass a car. After awhile I got the idea to let all the cars go by and then to head down. This was a good idea and the descent was much more fun.

Once reaching the bottom we had just a few miles to go to reach our hotel for the evening. We rode along a river which gave some great views.

A view from going down the "Highway to the Sun".

Day 4, Thursday was our last significant ride of the trip. We rode from our hotel inside of Glacier back to Whitefish. A relatively flat 40 mile ride. We spent some time on highway 2 on this ride. I time trialed through all of the highway to get it done as quickly as possible. I was somewhat beat when we finally got to the park in Whitefish. Turns out they had a little surprise for me. That day was my birthday and then had scheduled a little party for me.

The gal to my left Leslie, also celebrated her 33rd birthday a few days before, so we shared the cake.

All in all it was a great trip. One of our fellow travelers crashed on our final day and had to spend time in the hospital but his long term prognosis appears to be good. Trek Travel took great care of us, if anyone is ever interested in doing one of their trips let me know.

McCormick Ridge Road at the end of March

2009-03-30T07:31:00.000-07:00

I ride McCormick Ridge road a few times a year. It's a very challenging climb, lots of steep sections on what seems like a never ending hill. However, after today's ride it will seem a whole lot easier.

I was happy when I got up this morning and the roads had begun to dry from all the rain we'd had.
However, shortly thereafter high winds picked up and that was a bummer, it's never fun riding in high wind.

Scott and Jen showed up for the ride, no Doug (wimp). The three of us plus Carol started out together. Carol turned back part way thinking she was not in good enough shape to do this ride.
When the three of us completed the initial climb up McCormick Ridge we could see we'd have snow the rest of the way. Scott said he wanted an adventure. Long time ago Jen told me she married Scott because she wanted adventure. I enjoy adventure (at least this was not another Lapwai Loop). So we kept going. Eventually the snow got rather deep from snow drifting onto the road. Jen was slowly dropping Scott and I until her rear wheel spun out and she had to get off and push for awhile. Scott took charge then, he had the fattest tires of all of us. Jen and I had started with relatively narrow tires, fat tires were better for the snow.

We were happy when we finally got to the top. It's been a long tough climb what with the snow slowing us down and all. I was a bit worried about our descent down, I was afraid it might be a bit dangerous. In the end it was not that bad. The road we descended on did not get the snow drifts that McCormick had. Instead we had several sections of 5-6 inch deep of fluffy snow. This was plenty fun to ride in. If you had one pedal all the way down your foot would drag through the snow. Snow was building up on our rims and then when we go fast enough the snow would fly off our rims and hit us in the face, or hit the person behind us in the face. This is called fun, you see. We were all fairly cold, Jen particularly. Her body has not matured enough to have a layer of fat to help protect on on these colder windy rides.

Luckily we were out long enough so that when it was time to turn into the wind it had died down significantly. Jen had gotten pretty uncomfortably cold so we called Carol for rescue. She brought the dogs with her and so Scott and I rode with the dogs for awhile. They kicked our butts.

When we got back home, Carol had nice warm banana/apple bread for us.

Colorado Ski Trip

2009-02-20T15:54:00.000-08:00

Flat Iron Road in February

2009-02-09T07:35:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favorite rides, though last year I never found the time to do it. I normally start in the Orchards and work my way up to Waha either via, Web Ridge Road and then Flat Iron Road and then come back on the highway or vice versa. The ride has some great views, a couple "little" hills and very little traffic. Scott had the idea of doing this ride going up Rosenkrantz Road. This way we are off the highway longer and so get to avoid more traffic. This proved true yesterday as I think we only met car on Rosenkrantz.

The only problem with Rosenkrantz is that the very bottom of it is rather steep. Scott was claiming some ridiculously high heart rate. After we got through the bottom section though, the rest of the way up was relatively easy. Whenever we turned east we hit some headwind but nothing terrible.

At the end or Rosenkrantz we stopped and had a bit to eat. I figured this was a good spot, we were still relatively low (altitude wise) and we had much sunshine. I figured if we waited until later in the ride it might be too cold and shady to stand around and eat. Scott is on some kind if ridiculous cleanse diet. That's where his carrot power comes from Corrie. He can't eat any kind of processed carbs for awhile. I offered him some peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and part of the oatmeal cookie that Doug gave me. At which point I was called some kind of vulgar name and my mother was insulted. Scott said something to Doug about how he knew he should not have invited me on the ride.

We continued on to Waha without incident. I told Scott how right at the Waha store the road got significantly steeper. He later told me how I was not kidding. I don't think Doug like it either. At the entrance to Flat Iron road I told Doug that this was where the ride really started. He did some to understand what I was talking about. I said "you'll see!"

About a mile into Flat Iron there is one steep mother of a hill. Scott has been on Flat Iron road and he said he did not remember it when I mentioned it to him. This I take as a sign of dementia coming on in him. I don't understand how a person could have ridden their bike on this hill and forgotten it. Anyway when he saw it his reaction was "oh shit, oh shit". Hence the hill has a new name.

This was took it out of poor old Scott, what with his lack of refined carbs and all. Unfortunately we still had two more hills just like that one. At the top of the third, I could tell that Scott was losing it. He definately had that bonked look to him.

Steve L. tried to warn us what a bad idea it was to do that ride this time of year but he was wrong. We had two small sections of snow covered roads but the snow was packed down and was not slick. We did have to deal with muddy roads in spots too but they were still not all that bad.

Doug enjoyed the ride, he wants to do it again in a month or so. I don't know that Corrie will ever do it. Steve loves this ride. Steve never complains on a ride but a few years ago I did it with him and at one point on the ride he said "this was a lot of work getting up here". That's about the most you'll ever hear him complain I think!

2009-02-05T21:05:00.000-08:00

This is my good friend Pele. She and her sister, Tag, are my exercise buddies. I often go walking or ride my bike while they run along and explore all the smells around Mann's Lake near Lewiston, Idaho.