Today our electric bike adventure begins, again. Last year we did this tour with ROW Adventures near the end of July. We know mostly what to expect, yet every adventure is unique!

First thing in the morning, we meet our guides in the lobby of the hotel for a safety briefing and overview of the day’s plan. Today, we have Connor Y from last year and a new guide, DJ. Tomorrow Connor will work straightening out the ROW warehouse and Serena will be our guide.

Once the briefing is over, we board a brand new van (compared to last year’s “veteran” van with disfunctional A/C!) for a ride to Riverside Park. Once there we are fitted with our bikes, helmets and reminder of the plan, ride The Centennial Trail today for 37 miles.

Our group is small, only 8, because four people cancelled. Two of us are from Alabama, four from Sarasota and two from California.

The bikes are the Pedego Interceptors and one Pedego Boomerang. The bikes are equipped with handlebar bags and cell phone holders, too, a good addition since last year.

The trail starting point is different from last year which will give us a few more miles. This part of the trail is rolling hills and a few climbs with forests on either side. The smell of pine woods is welcome as is the cool weather and beautiful sunny day. A few stops to learn more about the area we are riding.

The ride into Spokane is along a road and through neighborhoods, always on The Centennial Trail. We stop for a great view of the Spokane Falls and Monroe Bridge (opened in 1912).

Next we reach our luncheon stop. Funny, it is the same place we ate dinner at last night – Clinkerdagger. The food is excellent here, definitely worth eating here lunch and dinner or both!

Stuffed from lunch we return to our bikes to ride to Coeur d’aline, Idaho. The ride leads out of Spokane past Gonzaga University and then continues along the Spokane River towards our destination du jour. This is where things get interesting for me. I’m really enjoying the ride until thud, thud, thud, – the sound of a flat tire. This is why we do supported bike rides!!

Our guide, Connor, fortunately has all the necessary parts and changes the tire. And it wasn’t easy – the stem broke, the goop that’s supposed to prevent flats poured out of the tire so he had to completely replace the tube on the back tire. Not fun. With a little help from a fellow bike rider, he is has it one in15 minutes. Unfortunately, my back brake isn’t working so I must be very careful.

My next debacle was hitting a curb while riding the road in a particularly strange section of the trail, and free-falling off the bike. This was a first for me and road rash ain’t fun. Cracked my helmet, bruised my shoulder, scrapped my knee and elbow. Fortunately, nothing broken so back on the bike to ride the rest of the trail to the van. Oh, let me also mention, I bent the derailleur on the bike. Thankfully again, because we are supported, DJ met us with the van and swapped out my bike. For just a moment, I felt like a Tour de France supported rider. Only not!

The rest of the ride was beautiful and uneventful LOL.

We meet DJ again and the bikes are loaded into the van for the 15 minutes drive to the Springhill Suites.

Dinner is at a nice restaurant walking distance from the hotel.

Tomorrow hopefully we will just be enjoying the bike ride with no flats or falling, and a continuation of beautiful weather and gorgeous scenery!