Final Pre-Trip BNO

Every Sloth event, however insignificant, requires meticulous and detailed planning. This effort always culminates in a pre-event BNO ("Boy's Night Out") that generally resembles Congress in terms of both efficiency and effectiveness. It all starts with several pitchers of whatever high gravity beer is on tap and roughly 100 wings of various flavors (manly-ness scale runs from 1-teriyaki to 10-chernobyl). Amazingly, no matter how many Sloths are in attendance or how many wings or pitchers of beer are consumed, it always comes out to $25 each. The results of this trip's final planning session are that we need to bring more coolers and Bubba wants to bring a rake. Over the course of the evening, we also developed our own variation of the Ice Bucket Challenge, as Dick calls it, the Sloth Chicken Choke Challenge. Basically, it involves eating the last of the 100 wings, swimming in Buffalo sauce, grease and ranch dressing, and then dumping the sauce over your head. We just invented it, we didn't actually do it. Well, I did eat the last wing. 

 

Okay, landslides are worse than soft sand.

So, we were following the weather out in Idaho City, and we're a little concerned about the flash flood warnings a few weeks ago. Not to worry, we figured, as surely it would be finished by the time we got out there. Well, the rain did stop, but not before it caused landslides and river re-routing over 15 miles we were supposed to ride the first two days. Originally, they reported on August 7 that the work would take "several days to weeks". Okay, still 3-1/2 weeks before we start. Following the Adventure Cycling blog, we see this post on August 19th:

"The Boise National Forest just called to let me know that the Middle Fork Rd./268 is still closed, and probably will be for the remainder of the riding season. They are going to be moving fast to get this fixed before winter, as it is the main (only) supply line to Atlanta during that season.

Also, there has been some logging around the junction of Phifer Creek Rd./156 and FR 129. Please use caution as it seems a cyclist was almost hit by a falling tree. This was not the cyclist's fault as there were no flaggers out blocking traffic - something I told the FS the loggers need to do. They agreed, and were going to talk to them, but regardless, still use caution."

Okay, so Cat 1 climbs, washed out roads and falling trees. What else you got? The good news is we can re-route a little to the north and actually get to Ketchum in 3 days instead of 4 (assuming we can make 54 miles with 3,500 feet of climbing on day 3). And just to make things more interesting, it's apparently now raining cats and dogs on the northern part of the route.

Soft Sand Sucks!

Hunter and I did 49 miles today on a combination of roads and dirt. Well, not technically "together" the whole time as he kicked my butt! I can't figure out whether he just a better rider than I am or the fact that I had 3 rum and diet cokes last night to his one beer. I choose to believe the latter. Most of the dirt was good, hard packed red clay, but one short section of Norias on the way to Metcalf was soft sand. Again, it sucks even on a 29er with big fat tires. Bill at least managed to stay upright through the whole section. It's even harder to get going in it than it is riding through it (damn clips). But I was fine until the last 5 miles of dirt on Old Centerville to Bradley's. Without the sausage dog, I wouldn't have made it home (which was still 15 miles away). If there are patches of soft sand on those climbs in Idaho, I am toast!

Change of Plans

Well, we (meaning me) decided we should get closer to Arlington on Friday so we could get in some more tailgating time with all our (again, my) Seminole friends there. The downside is that we will be in Monroe, Louisiana Friday night instead of New Orleans. Not quite the party atmosphere. Also, we will miss all the bacchanalia of Southern Decadence (and I'm sure there will be some trannies there that will miss the big, strapping Sloth boys). If we can keep our Heisman-winning quarterback out of jail, we should whoop up on the cowboys and begin our juggernaut to a repeat championship. Then two 12 hour days to the metropolis of Idaho City (choosing a motel was easy since there is only one). We are down to five Sloths, so logistics should be significantly easier.
Minimal training continues: I'm up to about 100 or so miles a week, but I just can't stomach the "session IPAs". The problem is, in the back of your mind, you know if you wimp out one day, there's a SAG wagon that'll take you to an ice cold beer.