Day 64: Déjà Vu

We swung by the lodge for a proper breakfast before setting back out along Highway 12, a road that ran stunning and relentless through the Bitterroot range. Wim had pushed on ahead early, and I was riding hard to close the distance when I heard a sound I’d been dreading and hadn’t heard in almost a thousand miles — that unmistakable ping of a spoke letting go. Not driveside this time, thankfully, and we got it replaced without too much trouble, though the return of the problem worried me more than the spoke itself. Siemen, who’d broken a few of his own this trip, did most of the actual work — he’d gotten considerably better at it than I had.

Siemen Jansma

The wall of trees that had swallowed us the day before hadn’t let up, and we rode alongside the Lochsa River for the length of it. Lunch by the water brought an ambush of wasps — Siemen swore he’d been stung several times, though they seemed a poor imitation of the vicious things we grew up with back home. Not long after, the paranoia crept back in, the same fretful listening I’d fallen into during my last spoke episode at the start of Colorado — every small click or tick from the wheels had me stopping to check.

We’d all been riding fairly separately through the day, but everyone converged again at a small store some twenty-four miles short of Kooskia. Stefaan, characteristically on top of things, had already phoned the mayor of Kooskia to clear us to camp in the city park for the night. I gave my spokes another check and found, to my genuine horror, another one broken — the fifth of the trip, by my count. Whoever built my wheels back at Edinburgh Cycles should have used thirty-six spokes, not thirty-two, and not for the first time I wondered whether I ought to have bought a whole new rear wheel back in Pueblo when I’d had the chance. This one was driveside, so I reached for the trusty Fiber Fix and hoped it would carry me to the next bike shop, likely somewhere around Baker City, Oregon.

We made Kooskia without further drama and set up camp in the park. Terry and I took a dip in the river for what passed as a gentleman’s wash, and the group headed into town for the evening — Stefaan’s last night with us before he split off onto the Lewis and Clark route toward his new home in Portland. Most of the others called it an early night, but Siemen, Stefaan, and I stayed out for a proper round of goodbye drinks.

We got back to the park to find everything had gone wrong in our absence. Terry was up and half-dressed, dragging his belongings across the grass — five sprinklers had come on without any warning at all and soaked the entire site. Stefaan had never put the rain fly on his tent and came off worst of anyone. While the rest scrambled around in a panic, I reached for my camera instead and got what I’m fairly sure is the funniest photograph of the whole trip.

I ended up sleeping under the pavilion while my tent dried out, and Stefaan slept in the toilet block — which sounds far worse than it was, since the toilets in question were large, spotless, and warm.

I ordered the Gut Buster.

Best picture.

He soon saw the funny side, sorry Terry.