Riding the Rails

The website says that we would be on, ”a four seated, pedal powered, railroad bicycle along the beautiful, scenic Pend Oreille River in Ione, WA. … ride south through scenic pastureland then north, up to the impressive Box Canyon Trestle. A round trip of 12 miles.” How could you not want to hit the rails and explore the path of the old Iron Horse!

We loaded into our neighbor’s car at about 6:45 AM and followed Hwy. 41 up through Rathdrum to Newport, WA where we veered left and found our way up to Ione, WA. In Ione we followed the signs to the Lions Rail Riders depot, checked in, got a stamp (which we all hid under our gloves), and proceeded to our assigned Rail Rider, good old #10.

Several very nice Lions Club members helped to adjust the seats on the Rail Rider and then explained the rules of the rails. The first thing I noticed is that if you are going to be a Lions Club Rail Rider, it is mandatory that you are no more than five feet tall. Anyone over five feet would not fit in the Rail Rider comfortably and so they could not be a true Rail Rider. 

Steve and I adjusted the seats as far back as possible. When we peddled, our knees brushed our noses. With no other options, we tightened our seatbelts and waited patiently for the nine Rail Riders in front of us to ready their troops and heed the signal to move out!

The disconnected train slowly moved forward. Suddenly an arm went up from the lead Rail Rider followed by a rising of an arm in all nine cars in front of us. This meant we were stopping and the brake team of Linda and Jodi applied the brakes.  Nothing happened and we bumped into the car in front of us. Lesson learned! We have no brakes or very little braking ability. Jodi and Linda assessed the situation and soon, whenever we saw the domino of stop arms, they would hit the brakes and start warning the car in front of us that we were going to bump them and to be prepared.

This on-the-job training took place several times within the first quarter mile of the trip and soon we had our shouts of “watch out for the bump” down pat. After the first half mile, things started working out and we were peddling a bit faster. Steve and my knees moved past our nose at an increasing rate, touches came about every other stroke. This worked well to catch the small drops of snot that appeared on the tips of our noses, due to the extreme cold of the morning air. As speed picked up, the wind chill grew. We could look down the tracks and see that our path entered the sun and we might soon be warm again. The domino hands went up and we bumped to a stop just before the rails crossed the highway.

There was a bit of action at the front of our pack. One of the Rail Rider teams was pulling out of the ride. Lions Club members lifted the Rail Rider off the tracks and the four stokers walked slowly and rather painfully to a parked car. Our theory was that, because of their height, they probably had pummeled their noses and had to tap out.

The highway crossing lights started flashing and we received the signal to continue. We pumped our way across the pavement and were once again on our way.

For the next twenty minutes, we moved like a well-oiled machine. The team had learned to keep a significant distance between the Rail Rider in front of us and this was just fine since we were on Rider #10 and no one was behind us. Both Steve and I took advantage of being the tail of the train by stopping and using a nearby tree as a rest area.

Back on the seats and speeding down the rails we looked ahead and spotted raised hands ahead. A Rail Rider had jumped the rails. Everything was ok, and the riders pulled off the side and allowed everyone to pass. They then rearranged the three peddlers so that two riders were in the front seats and one in the rear seat. This seemed to do the trick and everyone rode on.

At about three miles the Rail Riders all stopped at the Box Canyon Dam overlook. Each Rider was spun around and headed back along the tracks. The pack started moving and we sped back along the rails. Linda’s sports watch said we were moving at a seven-minute mile which calculates out to be about eight miles an hour. We were flying!

Back at the depot we dismounted our machine and climbed into our car. Our workout was over (weirdly enough, the ride was only a total of 6 miles rather than 12) and so we drove to Metaline Falls where we enjoyed a great brunch at Cathy’s Café.

Steve drove us to a rest area where there was a hiking trail that led up Sweet Creek. On this hike, we were able to see two very pretty waterfalls. We hiked up and back, loaded into the car and beat-feet back home. It was a great adventure, the weather was near perfect (except for the 15-minute cloudburst while we drove home) and we now have scratched our itch to ride the rails.