Day 7: Welcome to Idaho

Last night I met another cross country biker at the Mexican restaurant that I went to eat at. His name is John. He is on the Swat team in Seattle and decided to take 2 months off of work to do the Northern Tier ride to New Jersey. So John and I road together from Ione ,Washington to Newport, Washington. We had the first border crossing just outside of Newport and our final destination Sandpoint was approximately 30 miles from Newport. About half way there my bike chain kept skipping, so I was pedaling up a hill and all of a sudden I heard a bad noise come from the back of my bike and my back tire locked up. I looked down and saw that my rear derailleur (a very important part on a bike) had been ripped off and was jammed in between spokes. At first glance John and I thought that the frame was broken, but it ended up that a piece that connects to the frame, (the derailleur hanger), had broken off. So John continued towards the next town and I stayed flagging down trucks to look for a ride into Sandpoint. Several trucks didn't stop and then finally a police officer driving by stopped. He made some calls into some bike shops in town and was working on a ride for me. While he was on the phone I flagged down a propane truck(not a big semi but a truck that delivers smaller tanks). The propane man agreed to take my bike and trailer into Sandpoint but said that he was not allowed to take passengers. So it ends up that my bike and trailer get a ride in the truck and I get a ride in the police car. I found a bike shop in town, but they did not have the derailleur hanger that I need, so I started calling other bike shops in surrounding towns. No one had the part I needed. So finally I called Buzz at High Gear Cyclery in Colorado. We discuss the options and the best thing to do was have it overnighted from Colorado to here. This means it will arrive Friday afternoon. Sandpoint is probably the coolest town I have been to on this trip. There is a ski mountain, Schweitzer, near by so it is like a cool, active, little mountain town. I feel very fortunate that the bike malfunctioned here and not in the middle of nowhere. Last night I met a lady in town who agreed to let me set up my tent in her back yard, and sleep there tonight. This is quite an upgrade from where I camped last night. I was camping near the city park next to a bunch of RVs. I did not realize that there were train tracks about 30 yards away. I quickly figured out around midnight that this was the case. So there must have been about 40 trains that passed by last night, no joke. So that was quite interesting trying to sleep through that. Today I am going to lay low, hang out at the library, read some magazines, and then possibly go fishing later this afternoon. I hope to be back on the road by Friday afternoon, worst case scenario by Saturday morning.


Miles Today: 65
Miles total: 469
Adam