Day 13 - Determination Or Stubbornness? (June 14th, 2024)

City To City: New Meadows - Grangeville

Miles: 79

Miles Total: 833

Flats: 0

Video: https://youtu.be/4mgOoKCWupA?si=RUCOKa5Uc0pqMrXB

Lunch on the bank of the river

First flat tire of the trip

Waterfall in the background

Pie for dessert

    We woke up, and as we took down the tent, we realized we had put the rain fly on upside down. The night before, we had forgone the rain fly, thinking it wouldn't rain. It did sprinkle for a little bit that night, and since it was dark, my dad and Henry hastily covered the tent. With Cheerios and actual milk from the store, we ate breakfast and then left.

    A little way, we stopped to talk to two cyclists who were also making the Transamerica trail.  They said they were trying to make it to Virginia by the end of July and had started off at the same time as us from Astoria.  It also turns out that we stayed at the same campground in Oxbow but somehow didn't cross paths.  When asked where to stop for the night, they said they would stop before the huge mountain.  They said that the next day, they would climb up the mountain in the morning when it was cool.   When we told them that we planned to climb the mountain in the afternoon, they whistled in surprise and sympathy for us.

    With sixty-five miles downhill in the morning, it was an easier ride.  We traveled along waterfalls and log homes.  All downhill, evergreen trees lined the road, providing shade from the sun.  The forest gradually changed to the dry desert mountains and the hot sun.  We were passing through Riggins when we got our first flat tire.  A thorn had popped my front tire, and getting back on the road took a while.  We used a tiny little pump to pump up the tire.  My dad and Henry took turns pumping for five minutes straight before it got close to being able to ride on.  We continued for a few miles before stopping for lunch.  We ate on the banks of the white water rapids.  

    We continued on until a construction project was happening.  Since it was only two lanes, one lane in each direction, they had to close off one of the lanes for two miles straight since they were laying down a new road.  As we neared the construction site, a worker stopped us and told us to go to the front of the waiting car line.  Once passing all those cars, we told a worker what the other worker had said.  They said we were to follow the construction truck that led all the cars through that two-mile span.  One guy ask how fast we would be going and my dad said twenty mph, so the guy said that he'd go fifteen.  They then suggested that we immediately pull off so as not to annoy the drivers more than necessary.   Once the construction truck started, we sprinted as fast as we could to keep up with it; Henry, of course, kept up with no problem; I lagged behind, not being up to full strength, and my dad could keep up for a while.  For that two miles, with a single-minded focus, legs peddling as fast as we could, and heart rates going up, we sprinted that two miles.  Once we finished those two miles, we pulled off, and as we were recovering, the people behind us were giving us thumbs up and congratulating us on how well we were sprinting to keep up.  After all the cars behind us passed, we returned on the road.  We passed the line of cars waiting to go in the other direction,  and the ones that saw us sprinting to the end gave us a friendly honk and a thumbs up.   From there, it was uphill.  Once we reached the bottom of White Bird Pass, our last climb for the day, we braked and fueled up before continuing.   With 13 miles of uphill as seven percent hill grade, we slowly made it up.  About halfway, we stopped at an overlook of the valley.  In that valley, about a hundred and fifty years ago, there had been a battle between the Nez Perce and the US Army.  The Nez Perce had signed a treaty with the Pioneers to stay on a reservation.  They were forced to sign a treaty about ten years later, reducing their reservation by ninety percent.  The Nez Perce weren't happy and called it the "Steal Treaty," conflict had brewed ever since.  

    We continued until we reached the top, and the steam had left us all.  We flew down the mountain before going uphill into Grangeville. 

We stopped at a Grocery store in town, and Henry and I each grabbed a cart, but that didn't work that well because Henry and I were in different places, so we had no idea what each other was getting.  We were loading our groceries up when we noticed a recumbent bike next to ours.  the bike had a small windshield with wood to shield the biker from the wind and rain.  When the biker who owned the bike came out, we asked what route, and it turns out he was from Germany, racing in the Transamerica trail race.   He told us he was the last racer because he had started six days late.  He had a thick accent and spoke really fast.  We moved on to our campsite, which was a public park again, free of charge.  We had a feast, and later, Henry returned to the store on a bike for a pie.  

    A youth baseball game was happening in the park, so we went over to watch it. Later, we set up camp and slept. As we were setting up, we realized we were one step away from being homeless. Sleeping in a tent and without a house for two and a half months, we see what life is like with no city to call home (temporarily).

    Was riding up in the hot sun for thirteen miles at a seven percent hill grade with diligent determination? Or was it pure stubbornness?  Not one of us wanted to quit on this last hill.  Maybe we were motivated because we only had seven miles left afterward.  Or maybe our mental endurance allowed us to embrace the painful climb with self-assurance and unbroken focus.  Maybe we didn't want to be losers.  Whatever it was, we realized there is a dangerous side to never wanting to quit.  It's really good for our character building not to quit when doing hard things, but if we never stop and become beasts on bikes conquering the mountains, we could lose focus on what matters more.   Am I saying we should quit more often than usual? Am I also saying that we should do less hard things?  No to both, but the fact that we need to be aware of what our focus and heart are set on.