Annual cycling tour goes on despite smoky skies
The first group of cyclists pushes to the crest of the first hill during Le Tour de Koocanusa Saturday. “It’s a tough course, because you have a big hill to start with, before you’ve warmed up, and then another one right afterwards” said volunteer Terry Crooks. (Elka Wood/The Western News)
Hank of Bonners Ferry, Idaho, replaces flip-flops with cycling shoes before the seventh annual Le Tour de Koocanusa begins Saturday morning. (Elka Wood/The Western News)
Brian and Kelly Muldoon of Columbia Falls say a fond farewell before Brian begins the Le Tour de Koocanusa on Saturday. Kelly, who grew up in Libby, said “I worry about him. My husband is 65, and it’s so smoky today.” (Elka Wood/The Western News)
Each of the 100 cyclists who participated in the seventh annual Le Tour de Koocanusa on Saturday, Aug. 12, which raises money for David Thompson Search and Rescue, had a story and a reason for choosing to ride 83 miles on a humid, smoky day.
At 7:30 a.m. a crowd of riders and volunteers gathered in a parking lot beside the David Thompson bridge, awaiting the ride start of 8 a.m.
“The recommendation is for ‘the elderly’ to stay inside because of smoke conditions,” said Ted Schmidt, 65, of Yaak, with a wry laugh; his willingness to ride clearly left him out of that category.
With pouches of various nutritional gels laid out on the bed of his truck before he packed for the ride, Hank, who preferred not to give a last name, of Bonners Ferry, said he had last year ridden up to 90 miles per day on a five-day charity ride in Rwanda.
“I routinely ride 40 to 50 miles, but that extra bit can really push you over the edge,” Hank said. “You need a lot of mental energy to push through.”
Sandpoint pediatrician Robin Helm said the hardest part of a long ride is getting enough calories to keep her energy levels up and not get hungry during the ride.
“I take gummy bears,” she laughed. “They work great. You can store 500 calories in glucose in your liver.”
Helm said she was hoping to be done with the ride by 2 p.m. to beat the heat. Her motivation was a single cold beer, packed on hotel ice, in the back of a support car.
“You’ve got to find a way to celebrate, and that’s mine,” she said.
David Thompson Search and Rescue volunteer Terry Crooks said he’d ridden a few years ago with his family and realized that anyone can ride the course.
“There are a lot of different people, from different places, and you realize the way someone looks, or their age, is no indicator to how fast they’ll complete the course,” he said. “When we did it, we were packing up the food stops, but we had fun.”
John Keenan of Kalispell, who has ridden in the official tour three times, said it’s a “gem of a ride” that he’s completed about 25 times in total. He cites very little traffic and water views as his main reasons for choosing to do the ride again and again.
Regarding smoke conditions, Keenan said “it’s been worse, you can’t really taste it today.”
At the registration booth/finish line, David Thompson Search and Rescue Treasurer Susan Ague said though they were down from an average of 120 riders, this year they had a diverse group and plenty of new registrations, coming from as far away as Australia and Korea.
Ague said that last year the funds raised by the ride bought the mountain rescue team new ropes.
“We didn’t have money to make sweatshirts this year, but in the past we had written on the back of the shirts ‘so others may live’,” Ague said, bringing the focus back to the most pressing reason 100 riders rode 83 miles on a hot, smoky Saturday.