Short Trips

Saturday, April 21, 2012 - Fastlane Tail of the Snake Ride
The day started out by meeting at the McDonalds/Chevron station on Ash by I-90. We left about 8:15am. Along the way Bill M. and Dan (?) joined us and we headed down to Colfax on 195. Past Colfax we stopped at Greg Nolan's shop. After about 10 minutes all of the people there and us (about 25 altogether) headed down to Lewiston where we met up at the Wayback Cafe. Some of us had breakfast then they described the rides which we promptly ignored and did our own thing.

We headed up the Spiral Highway, which is the old road up to the top of the river valley formed by the Snake River. We came back down 195, went through Clarkston, then headed south on a nice twisty road up the south side of the valley. I had another peg scrap which startled me because I didn't think I was cranked that far over. I must be getting better at this. Boggin's Oasis (click to enlarge) Anyways, there was a long boring stretch through farmlands before arriving at the top of Rattlesnake Canyon. This was a great ride. Hairpin turns all over the place and steep canyon sides. Due to waiting for Grant to catch up (he had stopped to make sure a rider by the road didn't need help) I ended up going down the canyon alone. Having not ridden it before and unsure of the road surface I kept to a more moderate speed. However the road except for one spot was clean and smooth. So on the way back up my pace was a bit more, shall we say "aggressive". The only thing that marred the day was just before I got to the bottom, a larger group of riders had a couple guys get tangled up due to bunching up and both got a bit hurt. One bike was unridable and that rider dislocated his shoulder. Nothing serious, but certainly enough to ruin one's day.

We got back to the Wayback Cafe where Dave and I split a chocolate shake, then after the raffle results we took off for a scenic ride back along the Snake, then up the Wawawai Grade Road which was very nice. Tim McCart and I needed to get back to town quickly so we took 195 back to town while the other guys took 27 and the scenic route home.

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