My trip started on September 12 with the drive to Seattle. On the evening of September 9 I played soccer, playing in goal for the first half. Late in the half I used my left hand to (successfully) deflect a nice hard shot over the bar. It hurt enough that I came out of goal,…

Our last day was a quick, relatively flat run to the border followed by snacks in the Kootenai valley (which is spelled differently in the US, apparently). Then we loaded up the bikes, drove to Bonners Ferry for pizza, and returned to Spokane.

Today started with van ride to the town of Balfour where we boarded a ferry to cross the lake. I’ve been on both larger and smaller ferries, but never on a bicycle. We crossed the narrow part of the lake, but that was still a 35 minute trip. The lake is 64 miles long, after…

Kaslo is another pretty little town on a big lake. Given my continuing wrist pain I chose to hike instead of riding. There are several well maintained trails near town, one of which ends in a series of “Hide & Seek” sculptures. Kaslo was originally a silver mining town. A steamship was used to move…

Today was the prettiest ride of the tour, a short hop over the mountain from Slocan Lake to Kootenay Lake. A gradual 10 mile climb took us to Bear Lake and lunch at Fish Lake. It was a beautiful cool, sunny day. And then the toads. Fish Lake is a breeding site for the Western…

Today was a 64.8 mile ride from Nelson to New Denver, BC. Nelson is sited right on the Kootenay River, so the ride starts with a very steep climb up through town followed by another 8 miles of climbing through the woods. Then a long descent with a rail trail before lunch at Slocan Lake…

Day 2 started with a long, fairly steep climb out of Rossland, 1700′ over 14 miles. After the summit we were stopped for 15 minutes by road work, but we were rewarded with miles of steady downhill on buttery smooth fresh blacktop with no traffic at all. Believe me, it was great, even if it…

Today the tour finally started! I was picked up at the hotel by our guides Karen and David, then we picked up the other riders. We are 11, as 2 had to drop out at the last minute. We drove from Spokane to Colville, Washington, where we got assembled, got our bikes (only 3 of…

On Saturday I drove from Seattle to Spokane. I’m glad I don’t deal with city traffic very often, to say the least. Once I got away from Seattle I got to enjoy the mountains of western Washington, which I had never before seen. I took a nice little hike to Weeks Falls, above. It was…

The first day of the trip was me driving from Grants Pass to Seattle where Stacy and David joined me for an Angels-Mariners game. T-Mobile Park is a beautiful ballpark with good sight lines and great food. There was easy access for us since we were staying just 2 blocks away. Those 2 blocks were…