After another day of riding I'm sitting here at my campsite in Creston. Today was another interesting day. Spent a lot of time in the forest again but after today I should be riding by some of the major lakes up here in eastern BC. Getting out of Bonners Ferry this morning was a little bit of an adventure. They have the bridge that goes out of town tore up but fortunately there was a separate walkway that I could use. Then I had a pretty substantial climb out of town (around a 6% grade) before finally seeing things level out. After another 10-12 miles on US-95 I was ready to get off that and onto Idaho state highway 1. The actual road on 95 is fine but there isn't much for shoulders and the traffic was heavy today. From what I read before coming up here the stretch on 95 from Sandpoint to north of Bonners Ferry is the worst part for traffic so hopefully that holds true! There was one odd thing that happened. As I'm riding a car slows down and is driving at the same speed. I try to speed up and they do as well and they pull up next to me with the window down and ask for directions...that was a new one!
Once I hit the Idaho state highway the riding was great! Very low traffic, good roads and some great views. Here was my route:
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You'll notice the steep climb out and then the steep climb up into my finish. Nothing like starting and ending the day with hills but on the bright side I'll have a cruise down tomorrow. Here are some photos from today.
Road construction in August?!? Weird, I know.
I didn't need a sign to tell me I was at the top but it was nice to verify what my legs already told me.
After I was riding for a while I came up on another group of four people on touring bicycles on the opposite side of the road. I could tell right away it wasn't the same group I saw yesterday since they were dressed much differently (they weren't trying to look like a Tour de France rider) and one of them flagged me down and I started talking to him. Immediately I realized he wasn't from anywhere near here from his accent. Turns out he and his group were from southwest England and had been on the road touring for four months and were heading over to Montana and Glacier National Park. Two of them took off to get out of the sun but the two I got a picture of were Dave and Sarah.
A little bit after that I came up on the US-Canadian border. I had a quick lunch at a restaurant right on the US side of the border and it had some characters there but my waitress also had her puppy there.
After eating I had to head through customs, answer some basic questions (where are you going, how long will you be there, do you have any firearms, etc, etc.) I was off into British Columbia.
I had to switch my Garmin to metric which took a little getting used to. I had to figure out what by comfortable pace was in kilometers per hour. A little sad how we're one of only a few countries to not use metric!
From there I was off to Creston! Today was about 39 miles but tomorrow will be a little longer day - about 50. Tomorrow's stop - Crawford Bay!
Posted with Blogsy
I don't like your tone about metric....this is 'Merica.
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