![\"Coeur](\"http:\/\/dubrawski.net\/rich\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/IMG_0385.jpg\")
<\/a>Panning shot of the view from the trail<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I parked, pulled out my gear and hit the trail. \u00a0This is where I made my second fortunate mistake. \u00a0When I hit the trail, I went right instead of left since the trail to the right had trees and a slight incline. \u00a0This turned out the be fortunate since the trail in that direction was in the direction of the Plummer trailhead. \u00a0I road the 7.5 mile 3% grade up the trail to the Plummer entrance, getting to see some beautiful flora and of course riders heading down hill from the Plummer entrance. \u00a0I hit Plummer, stopped to check out the memorial then turned back to descend the same 7.5 mile trail back to where I began. \u00a0This was an awesome way to start the day since it got the climbing out of the way at the start, and it would be less likely that if I had postponed that section to ride it at the end of my day I would have skipped it, or shortened the ride to conserve strength. \u00a0As it was, I was able to commit myself more fully and push a little farther knowing that the entire remaining ride was flat.<\/p>\n The next section of trail was to the town of Harrison on the lake. \u00a0Getting to Harrison meant riding over a bridge spanning the section of the lake where the park was located. \u00a0This was a cool bridge to ride. \u00a0It consists of a short climb up to a section high enough for the steam boats that used to ply the lake to pass under, then descend back to lake level. \u00a0The incline sections are made of short stages similar to if you took wide stairs and connected them with small curvy ramps. \u00a0The view from the top of the bridge of the lake was great. \u00a0After the bridge, the rest of the 9 mile section to Harrison hugs the lake, passing through sections where private homes exist on one side, and private docks on the lake side. \u00a0A variety of flora and fauna can be seen throughout the trail. \u00a0I this particular section I rode about 6 feet from a grazing deer on my return trip.<\/p>\n I got to Harrison in good time. \u00a0Since this is a tour, I kept the speed low, trying to stay under 15mph as much as possible. \u00a0Even so I ended up startling one pair of women cyclists who were cruising side by side on the trail. \u00a0They hadn’t seen another rider for awhile, and when I called out that I would like to pass on the left, they both jumped a little. \u00a0We all had a laugh at that, and I headed on to Harrison. \u00a0In Harrison there is a lille bike “shop” where if you are very desperate you could probably get a quick repair. \u00a0I didn’t stop there, but I would guess that most of their business is in tubes. \u00a0I took a break in Harrison for about 5 minutes, then continued on to the next town down trail 11 miles away.<\/p>\n Shortly after leaving Harrison, I came across what I initially mistook to be a statue, but when I got closer found out that it was in fact Mike. \u00a0Mike is a local resident of the town of Worley ID, about 6 miles north of Plummer. \u00a0Mike was sitting pretty close to immobile watching a trio of eagles in a nest across the water. \u00a0I stopped and chatted with Mike for awhile and learned that he tries to ride the trail every day, and that his goal is to ride 500 miles of the trail this year, although most of it will be the same 10 mile stretch. \u00a0If you ride the trail, you may see Mike.<\/p>\n Leaving Mike to his bird watching, I continued on down the trail heading for the Medimont trailhead where I was planning to turn around. \u00a0the entire day on the trail I never felt crowded, but I also never felt alone. \u00a0There weren’t any instances where I was passed unless I was taking a break to photograph something or talk with another tourist, but I saw plenty of people both singly and in groups riding the opposite direction, and did overtake a few cruising groups as well. \u00a0This is a very laid back trail, where there is no posted speed limit, but the rules of the trail dictate right of way to the slower traffic. \u00a0Since the trail is very smooth, it is very easy to increase speed, but since it is so flat, you need to be almost constantly pedaling to maintain it. \u00a0One odd visual illusion of the long flat trail is that you always get the impression that it is a very gradual descent, but this is an optical lie. \u00a0If you stop pedaling, you will start to drop speed, and eventually will come to a stop.<\/p>\n Once I got to Medimont, I stopped to eat what was left of my Cliff Bar as a pseudo lunch. \u00a0I had ridden 34 miles by then, and fuel was definitely needed for the 20 mile trip back to my car. \u00a0Food in my belly, I turned back to see if I could make it home.<\/p>\n The ride back was hampered slightly by a slight head wind. \u00a0I hadn’t noticed a tail wind on the way out, and the head wind was probably only about 2mph, so mainly it served to keep me cool. \u00a0By this time the temperature had reached 90 and since it had rained the previous night, the humidity was noticeable. \u00a0The ride back to Harrison was uneventful. \u00a0Once in Harrison, I stopped again to stretch and while cooling off in the shade met Neal. \u00a0Neal is in his seventies, and he and his wife were staying in Idaho for a few months to escape the heat of their Phoenix summer.<\/p>\n One of the things I have liked about this trip has been the chance to interact with new people. \u00a0There is something about cycling that creates an instant icebreaker and folks just seem to want to chat. \u00a0The other nice thing is that you have a built in excuse to break off the conversation if it gets boring. \u00a0You just say that you need to press on, and nobody has hurt feelings.<\/p>\n The trip from Harrison to my car was just as flat and scenic as the rest of the trail had been, and despite having a great ride and seeing some beautiful vistas, I was happy to see my car in the lot, load it up and head for the hotel and a shower.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today I finally hit the Trail of the Coeur d’Alene’s. \u00a0This trail is a paved route that runs from the town of Plummer ID on the western edge, to the town of Mullan on the East. \u00a0The Trail is 73 miles long if ridden from Plummer to Mullan. \u00a0After riding 3 days straight, and without […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubrawski.net\/rich\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubrawski.net\/rich\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubrawski.net\/rich\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubrawski.net\/rich\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubrawski.net\/rich\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dubrawski.net\/rich\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75,"href":"https:\/\/dubrawski.net\/rich\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions\/75"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubrawski.net\/rich\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubrawski.net\/rich\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubrawski.net\/rich\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>
See my ride for the day.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>