Mountain Biking

In Lemhi Valley’s Revived Century Bike Ride, the Race Isn’t Solely for the Swift

By Gina Knudson, 7-10-11

	The Mile 30 stop at the Lemhi Store (free food, drinks and music!) proved to be Team Lazy’s downfall.

On a recent Saturday, I rode in the Lemhi Valley Century Bike Ride for the second year in a row. Salmon resident Ken Thacker revived the ride that had been dormant for more than a decade last year and about 40 riders joined him. This year the number of riders doubled.

This is one of the rare occasions when I’ve clung to the metric system, choosing to ride 100 kilometers versus miles. The 100K ride starts at Gilmore Summit (elevation 7,186 feet or 2,190 meters) while the 100-miler starts in the middle of the Idaho National Lab Reservation and requires climbing the aforementioned summit.

I do my best to make the shorter course challenging by a) neglecting to do any sort of training, and b) riding my fat-tired mountain bike. But the ride has no reward for early finishers – we all get the same T-shirt and post-ride cheeseburgers – so my riding buddies Kristin and Robin and I opted for a leisurely pace and plenty of stops.

Robin lives on a ranch near Leadore and grew up in this part of the Lemhi Valley. As other riders sped on, Robin offered an interpretive talk that should have earned her guide wages. As old folks and little kids with Mountain Dew helmets passed us, we heeded Robin’s advice to stop hurrying through life. We guessed which rancher owned which herd of cattle, we noticed the high water riffles on the Lemhi and enjoyed nearly every waist-high blade of verdant grass.

The Mile 30 stop at the Lemhi Store proved to be Team Lazy’s downfall. Celebrating the store’s 100-year anniversary, present day owners June and Whit McKinney welcomed riders and neighbors with free food and drink and live music out back. While others gobbled and sped off, my team realized that here was the real prize – an extra glass of vino, a few more minutes of electric keyboard entertainment, one more deviled egg. We left with tears in our eyes, mini bottles of Cook’s Champagne stuffed in our Camelbaks.

A pair of noisy sandhill cranes bugled overhead and landed in a marshy field. A few more straggling riders passed us, one of them a solo 100-miler from Idaho Falls who had to apply his brakes to his skinny tires to match our pace. “You’re going to make it,” he cheered us on politely.

At Mile 43, we pulled into the Tendoy Store, owned and operated by the iconic Viola Anglin and her postmaster son Kelly. Viola is 91 and can tell you about when she worked as a young lady for the Gilmore and Pittsburgh Railroad, the tracks of which have now been covered with the blacktop of infernal Highway 28. We should stay at the Store and listen attentively to Viola’s clear memories of this valley --- hermit miners in the hills, Lemhi Shoshoni camped by the river, salmon teeming in the Lemhi and its tributaries. But we visit for a while, buy our candy bars, and gingerly mount our now detestable bicycles. The aid station on the highway folds behind us.

The lack of saddle conditioning is beginning to take an uncomfortable toll, and we determine the Champagne we heisted back at the Lemhi Store won’t be getting any colder. We stop at the wide spot in the road known as Baker. The Champagne tastes so refreshing that for a moment Kristin and Robin and I imagine the elixir reviving us. We toast to each other and to the scenery before spotting a lone bicyclist in the distant east. We gulp the last of the bubbly and grab our bikes, pedaling furiously to avoid being the last riders on the course.

The 100-miler passes us in less than a mile, and the weather starts to add insult to injury, delivering a formidable headwind for our final 8 miles. My mind strays from the lactic acid build-up in my legs about 2 miles from Salmon when Kristin’s front tire catches the gravel edge of the incredibly narrow shoulder, instantly piling her in a heap of bicycle and body stew in the barrow pit.

I am reminded of the dozen or so roadkilled deer we’ve passed since 9 a.m. But Kristin has been bucked off horses, kicked by same horses, and flown over her handlebars before. Bleeding and battered, she gets back on her bike and steers with upside down handlebars to the finish line in town where 80 or so of our fellow riders cheer our return.

We collect our T-shirts and our cheeseburgers, and say a quiet prayer of thanks for the metric system.

Gina Knudson is still occasionally riding and writing around Salmon, Idaho.

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