I began recruiting for the first “Josh Hosted” (as opposed to the other two “Reuben hosted” detours) detour of the summer last Wednesday and at some points during the weekend it seemed as though there was potential for almost 30 people to ride in it. Detouring from the prescribed route took a bit of a hit last week when the 16 extra kilometers as promised ballooned into 105 extra kilometers under Reuben’s guidance. We left camp this morning with 9 individuals around 7:30. Myself, Jon Elzinga, John Vanderveen, Marty Minnesma, Alex VanGeest (Alberta), Art Smit (Ontario), Tyler Buitenwerf (Michigan) and Ryan Bruxvoort (Indiana). Numbers were down partly because of the heat, the length and difficulty of rides coming up later this week and the potential for the trip to turn into a bit longer than promised.

The cause of the detour was Bruneau Dunes State Park which is home to North America’s Largest freestanding Dunes. What exactly that means is up for debate as I’ve been told numerous times that “The dunes from my state are the biggest in the country” and none of those riders are from Idaho. So, Michigan, Indiana and Colorado all have the biggest dunes in the United states and the exact means by which you measure them to come out the winner is prescribed differently in each state. I’m sure there most be 50 cases of “the largest dunes in america” each with a different means by which to measure. In any case, we visited the biggest dunes between Mountain Home and Gooding Idaho today. They were indeed impressive and after climbing one of the smallest ones we were completely beat and out of breath. Dune climbing is a full body workout in case you aren’t aware. Pictures of the adventure are pending as my batteries died after taking the group shot and I don’t have very much photographic evidence of our dune jumping and running.

After stocking up on water we headed back towards the route hoping to catch up with the sweep team so that our water could be provided by SeatoSea support people. We did indeed succeed in that task but once we were back on route our desire to keep up the pace died quickly and we dawdled for the rest of the day taking naps, soaking feet in irrigation ditches, climbing up on top of the longneck dinosaur in Bliss and eating food. Oh did I say we ate a huge amount of food today? When it’s warm I typically don’t feel like eating very much but I did exactly the opposite today, consuming nearly 2500 calories while on the ride. The internal cooling mechanism probably takes more fuel than I had guessed because other than the hour to the dunes (average speed 36 kph) and the hour leaving the dunes to get back on course (average speed 31 kph with big headwind) we really weren’t putting out much power.

I surpassed the 1000 mile mark for this trip today around 3:05 pm.

And another interesting note: Nick Ellens clocked 96 kph today while drafting a 10 passenger van down a hill. It doesn’t count as breaking John’’s record of 84 because he had motor assistance but it is scary fast! I got 74 today while sitting up but had my bag on the front which makes me prone to speed wobbling so I acted as a big draft for the other guys to rip down the edge of the valley towards the snake river.