Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Silver Creek Weekend

Dirt Road at Silver Creek
Since Last Post: 2,660 ft
Total Elevation: 27,685 ft.

Follow My Ride:
7/09/2011: Silver Creek
7/10/2011: SC to Crouch
7/12/2011: CR - Shane's

Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride.  ~John F. Kennedy

I had a great couple of days at Silver Creek Plunge this past weekend with the fam. I threw Ol' Betsy on the back of the Suburban so I could get a few rides in and see some new territory. As an aside, the name Ol' Betsy was made up on Friday while packing for camping. I found it a fitting name for a 16 year old bike. The kids got a good laugh out of it and it just sorta stuck.

It had been 13+ years since I'd been to Silver Creek Plunge. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the roads and campground had been much improved. We stayed for $15 a night. That didn't include access to the pool, which cost an additional $54 for all of us for the day. All in all, a pretty reasonable price for a weekend of fun in the sun.

I was able to get my first ride in on Saturday afternoon. I hadn't looked on Google Earth/Maps ahead of time so I wasn't sure where to go from our campground. I picked a small dirt road just South of our camp site and started my climb. The trees were a nice change of scenery from the foothills of Boise. I prefer the singletrack trails, but as you can see from the photo above, the road had some variety to it making it pretty fun.

The next day, I decided to ride Ol' Betsy from our campsite to Crouch. I appreciated the improved road even more than I had during the drive in. I was given a head-start while Darci and the kids paid the bill and hooked up the trailer. They caught up with me after 19 miles. It was fun having them honk and cheer me on as they passed. It worked out to be a 22 mile ride when all was said and done.

I got one more ride in today back in Boise after taking Monday off. I did a pretty normal ride up Ridge Crest, across Central, and up Shane's. I didn't have my Garmin so I'm using my Cyclemeter application data to build the stats for this blog.  
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Location: Silver Creek Plunge, Boise National Forest, Cascade, ID, USA

2 comments:

  1. Kevin for a longer stronger lifeJuly 14, 2011 at 9:43 PM

    Have you ever tried an app called My Tracks? It's what I use to track my unicycle rides.

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  2. johnparleyJuly 14, 2011 at 10:46 PM

    Kevin, Thanks for the comments! I haven't used My Tracks. I've been pretty happy using Cyclemeter and my Garmin, although each has their own strength. Cyclemeter seems to poll more frequently giving me a more accurate distance while the Garmin I think does better on elevation. I've used the Garmin most of the time to calculate my elevation gains. I'll try your recommendation. Is it actually called "Map My Tracks OutFront" or something else? My Tracks seems more like a vehicle tracking app.

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