Our First Ride

Ride #1

October 5th, 2014

Gonzaga Campus to Spokane Valley Mall and back

32.4 miles

384 ft ascent/descent

For our first ride together we chose the trail we've talked about for years, Spokane's own Centennial Trail. We met on the Gonzaga campus, right where the trail crosses over Hamilton St. Chris was riding his Gary Fisher Simple City 3, and I was riding my dad's Schwinn hybrid. After some minor gear adjustments, we departed toward the Valley Mall.

The weather was perfect and the trail was fairly empty. We rode at a leisurely pace, as I was getting used to cycling again. Several miles in we came across something neither of us had seen before: the Mirabeau Springs waterfall. It's in the quaint Mirabeau Point Park, not far from the trailhead. From there we rode to our destination, the mall. We did a little bike accessory shopping, had some lunch, and started the trip back.

For the ride back, we decided to take a slight detour by heading over to Felt's Field. Here we watched some airplanes land and takeoff, looked at some beautiful prop planes, and scoped out the Sky Way Cafe. This was definitely a restaurant we would be trying on a future ride.

Chris, taking a breather at Felt's Field.

Awesome biplane refueling.

Peter, accidentally using the wrong camera on his phone.