A very strange day, but a good one nonetheless. The only route from Mountain Home to Boise involved riding at least 16 miles on I-84 with 80 miles per hour speed limits... meaning cars are actually moving much faster. We decided that as a team, it wouldn't be worth the risk and that no one on the team should ride it. It was a somewhat difficult decision, since there were several people who would have been willing to ride, but I think as a team we made the right call. Not just for safety sake, but also for team unity. In order to make the shuttling easier for the vans, several of us (including me) decided to ride up to the freeway, rather than just wait for the vans to return to make the second trip (first trip being shuttling everyone else ahead of the freeway). Today we are actually headed mostly north and not much west, so we had an amazing tailwind behind us most of the time we were riding. Although the roads weren't particularly great, we managed to fly down the road around 20 miles an hour with minimal effort, all thanks to the wind (when the wind is bad, i.e. headwind, it can be difficult to go 10-12 miles per hour).
While we were shuttling, we received news that the team ahead of us had had three or four flats... on the road we were about to get onto after we were shuttled. Seeing as the team has been blowing through tubes (sorry) in the last few days, we were apprehensive about the road and considered asking to be shuttled past that road, but I'm glad we changed our minds. I think the team ahead of us must have just gotten really unlucky, because we didn't have any flats on the same road. This is the first state where we're really encountering the goat heads, which are tiny plant spikes that in conjunction with the heat (which weaken tires I think?) give us flat after flat.
The ride into Boise was actually incredible, because aside from being entirely downhill, there was a big bike path that meant we didn't have to worry about cars at all. I had no idea what Boise would be like, but just like it was with Pittsburgh, so far it's been a very pleasant surprise and the entire area seems much more bike friendly than I thought.
Thanks to our hosts tonight and tomorrow, the First Presbyterian Church, right in the downtown Boise area. They were generous to give us most of the entire fifth floor (biiiiiig church), so we won't be lacking space tonight.
We also had the privilege of eating dinner with a different group of cyclists going across the country, Bike and Build (www.bikeandbuild.org). Funny thing is, we've been on a similar route for the last week or two, and we actually were in Jackson Hole at the same time, but just weren't able to meet up (they told us they waited outside our vans for an hour, trying to see if we would come back!). It was really nice to finally meet them, after hearing from locals about how there was this other group of cyclists going through the area one or two days before... To be perfectly honest, I'm a bit jealous of the fact that their route never changes year to year, meaning they have the same directions year to year that are established. We on the other hand, have different routes every day it seems sometimes, so getting lost is nothing uncommon or new. Having said that, I almost think that it's more fun this way - that when we struggle as a team to get over 10 miles of gravel that appear out of nowhere, it brings us a bit closer together and gives us something to laugh about later. I know that in the context of Jamie's accident, Team Portland 2014 4K is very different from all other cycling teams going across the country, but tonight was when it was the most apparent to me.
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