The Long Haul

Alsea Falls 400k Preride Notes

2009-08-03T21:42:00.001-07:00

Overall Remarks:
This is a lovely ride, made all the more so for featur‌ing a bunch roads that the Oregon Randonneurs haven't spent much time on. It definitely breaks down into distinct sections, with the first half featuring a fair amount of climbing and a liberal amount of shade, while the second half is flatter but more exposed. I'd say that of the 400k courses that I've ridden or could imagine, this one is about average -- harder than the Covered Bridges 400, but easier than the Nehalem 400. It's probably slightly easier than Kramer's Klickitat Explorer 400 from a couple years ago.

Of course, the heat and the wind make a big difference, and I had plenty of both for my pre-ride. The forecast for next week looks a lot more moderate, so riders should be very comfortable. In any case, the three hardest climbs all feature copious shade (or happen well before the day heats up).

The scenery is entirely fantastic. Lots of trees and distant hills, farms and pastures. There are parts of the coast range early in the ride that look more like the alpine Cascades, even though you're barely scraping 2000'.

Alsea Falls 400 preride notes:

The course keeps you off of 99W for a while, but joins it in downtown. After you get through downtown McMinnville, the turnoff to stay on Baker Street is kind of subtle. Baker Street keeps going straight while 99W veers off to the right. Make sure to take the road between the Napa and the Union 76 station.

The climb up to Sheridan Peak is pretty nice up to the reservoir on Meadow Lake Road, but is absolutely gorgeous once you make the turnoff from the Nestucca River Road. This is the one tricky navigation point of the ride; just past the BLM sign welcoming you to the Nestucca River Recreation Area, the road goes down to the left, crosses a drainage, turns up to the right, and at the top of that, there's a broad, paved section, with an un-named road that goes off to your left. That's Bald Mountain Road. You'll know you're in the right place if it doesn't turn into gravel. You'll also pass an OHV area soon after you make the turn.

We'll have a staffed controle at the viewpoint, giving you a chance to top off your bottles and catch your breath after the climb. And while the climb is satisfying enough, the descent from the Sheridan Peak viewpoint is even better; it's easily on par with the downhill run on NFD 42 from the Timothy 200 last year, and it goes almost all the way to Willamina. And the pavement is in remarkably good shape.

Services are available at Willamina and Sheridan.

Ballston should be familiar to most of you. The section from Ballston to Dallas has a couple 100' hills; it's kind of similar to the Cascade Highway south of Silverton, actually. There are services in Dallas, including a bike store if you need it.

There's some traffic between Dallas and the turnoff to Falls City. The posted speed limit is 55, but traffic isn't so dense that there isn't plenty of room for everyone. After you get past Falls City, it's really light.

The road up to Falls City is good, featuring a couple small rollers. There's a store and a park there. There's also a pretty awesome looking mountain bike park just west of town; I'll have to take my Santa Cruz there sometime. Across the bridge, riders make an immediate left on Main St, and follow it as it becomes Bridgeport. Bridgeport has about a 1 mile section with intermittent gravel. It's hard packed, not at all loose, and there are almost no potholes, so it's easy to get across on a bike. It's basically 2 gravel sections, each about a quarter mile long. I did it on a 'bent with 23mm tires with no problems.

Once you rejoin OR 223, the traffic continues to fall off. There're some pretty good rollers all the way to US 20, though. No hills really stand out in particular, but you'll definitely feel their cumulative effect. Services are available at the King's Valley store.

US 20 has more traffic, but an ample shoulder. It's a small climb at the start, and then a longer downhill that pretty much takes you to OR 34. I filled my bottles from a hose bib at the antique store on the corner -- there are no services from here to Alsea.

OR 34 has less traffic than US 20, and almost as much shoulder. It's a pretty pleasant road to ride on, and bicycles are expected. It's a couple miles before you start the climb up to Alsea Summit, but once you do, it's only about 3 miles. You'll definitely know when it's begun. It's all downhill and then flat into Alsea, which was a lot more charming in person than it's Google streetview would have you believe. The Alsea Mercantile is staffed by a couple cheery women, and is open until 7.

Heading south out of town, follow the signs for Alsea Falls. The road is pretty flat for a while, and then starts going up at a pretty challenging grade. And then it plunges downhill. Don't worry: that's the worst part of this next section. It's a gorgeous, quiet road with no traffic and an incredibly reasonable grade all the way up to the summit. And there isn't just shade from adjacent tall trees; there is a full-fledged canopy of overhanging branches -- you should be plenty comfortable, even if the sun is right overhead. There are steep-ish sections, but you're done with them almost as soon as you notice them. If it's hot, definitely take a break at Alsea Falls, which is an incredibly inviting slick rock cascade. The Vincent Sikorski hydro-thermal cooling method might be advisable. It's about 5 miles from the falls to the top.

The descent on the other side is steeper than the climb. It's also too technical to just let your bike go, but it's great fun, and you don't have to ride your brakes the whole way. At the bottom it's a flat stretch through Alpine to your next services at Monroe.

From Monroe across the Willamette, through Harrisburg to Gap Road is typical Willamette Valley abstract plain scenery. The roads are mostly very quiet, except for a short stretch on 99E when you cross the river into Harrisburg. There are services open late in Harrisburg. Once you turn north on Gap Road, you get some interesting views again. You'll also have I think three climbs associated with Brownsville Gap. They're not long, but you'll feel them. Once you crest the last and biggest of the three, it's a fast stretch into Brownsville.

Brownsville is a totally sweet little town that I would like to spend a day or an afternoon in sometime. Unfortunately, most of the businesses on the nifty looking main street will be closed for many of you. But there is a Chevron Station on your left as you roll into town that is open until 11:30. For many of you, this will be your last chance to fuel up until Salem.

North of Brownsville, you get a few more rollers and another minor gap that you have to winch up through. After that, there's only enough terrain to keep it interesting to look at -- it's pretty much flat until just before Jefferson. The only thing to note: as you turn left from US 20 onto Harber Road, there's a little bit of loose gravel on the pavement. So don't hit that turn too hard, or it might hit back.

It's an easy climb over Scravel Hill to Jefferson. There are services in Jefferson if you get there early enough. Then you have to pull yourself up through Parrish Gap, which is a bit painful at this stage of the ride. At least it's short. It's fun rollers into Turner, and then pushing over the easy bump of Turner Gap gets you into Salem, the last control.

Crossing the new bike/pedestrian bridge off of Union Street gets you on the right side of the Willamette again, and an efficient-but-not-too scenic stretch on Wallace Road gets you out of town. After you turn left on Hopewell Road, there are a couple short steep bumps that reward you with a nice quiet path to Webfoot, which is a sweet, flat, empty little road. When you hit Stringtown, you're home free. That, Cruickshank, and a couple miles on the shoulder of OR 18 lead you back to the Best Western.

Barlow Trail 300k Preride Notes

2009-07-20T12:30:00.000-07:00

Overall Remarks:

This might be the best, most incredible single-day bike ride I've ever done.

I really don't want to toot my own horn too hard, here, but having now ridden the course, I know that I had good reason to be excited about it ever since I dreamed it up almost a year ago. This ride has almost everything I love about Oregon: rushing rivers, crashing waterfalls, lush fir forests, earthy pine forests, alpine meadows, and stark desert canyons. Except for the last 30 miles, it only follows quiet, scenic byways where you'll see very few other vehicles. And that last bit at least has the decency to go by quickly.

The course has everything I love about riding, too: the climbs are challenging, but not cruel. There are plenty of interludes to recover in between tough sections. The descents are fun, but never so technical that you have to waste your hard-earned potential energy by riding your brakes.

This ride will challenge you, but I think you'll appreciate that the course goes the way it does out a sense of exploration and because of the terrain, and that there are no gratuitous elements tacked on for reasons of machismo.

Riders will need to be prepared. This is a 3 bottle ride. You might never drink three bottles between refilling opportunities, but it will probably be hot enough that you'll be glad to have a little extra to dump on yourself. It's also a 3 or even 4 sandwich ride (along with plenty of ensure). I only brought 2, thinking that I'd eat at Government Camp. But I failed to realize that, basically, the ride is over when you get to Government Camp, and I needed more sustenance to handle the climbs to get me there. Finally, you'll be riding in the desert and at 4500' and everywhere in between, at high noon and possibly into the night. Bring a range of appropriate layers for these conditions!

I don't want to be trite, but the rewards are easily commensurate with the challenge. People who complete this ride will have a new sense of what they can do.

Barlow Trail 300 preride notes:

There's a Safeway next to the Best Western in Sandy that opens at 5 AM, so folks will be able to get coffee and last minute supplies.

The first couple miles have a few rollers, but nothing at all bad. Then you're down on 224 along the Clackamas, and you don't see anything particularly hill-like until a couple miles before Ripplebrook (30 miles or so).

The restrooms at the rest stop outside of Estacada are closed. The Estacada Thriftway probably won't be open yet. But there is a nice lady working the Union 76 station on Main St, and they have a restroom.

Everyone be sure to take a right at the PGE Westside Hydro project. There is a sign that says Dead End, but that's just for cars. Bicyclists are welcome to go around the gate and enjoy 6 miles of beautiful road along the river, all to themselves.

Promontory Park is your last chance for food until Ripplebrook, which doesn't open until 9. Only the slowest riders will be at Ripplebrook after it opens. The next chance to get food will be at the staffed control at Anvil Creek. From Estacada to Ripplebrook, there's water at most of the camp grounds. There is also water at Ripplebrook from the hose bib to the left of the front door.

There's no water between Ripplebrook and Anvil Creek (other than the river, and I don't want anyone to get giardia), but there is plenty of climbing on that stretch, so make sure you have enough water before you leave Ripplebrook.

There's a mile climb just before Ripplebrook, then some nice flats and gentle rollers, then it starts climbing again when you turn onto 57. It's up for a couple miles, then down to the Oak Grove Fork, then river grade to the 58 junction. 58 is a mile of up, and then a right turn onto the first paved road, 5810. 5810 starts out steep, but relents before long.

The grade varies quite a bit, but is generally up for about 4 miles. It's a lovely, empty 1 lane road with occasional turnouts. Plenty of shade and occasional good views out over the Cascades to the south.

After 4 miles, you crest 5810, and then it's rollers to the Anvil Creek control. There's a sign saying the road is closed ahead; ignore it. Allison and I will be at the end of the pavement with food and water. We'll also be happy to help you get your bike across the creek, which is about 5 feet across and maybe 4 inches deep. At the top of the bank on the other side, the pavement starts up again, and it's a fast cruise all the way down to Timothy Lake.

Lots of campgrounds and picnic grounds around the lake with lots of water and toilet facilities. If you go slightly out of your way at the junction with 42, off to the right is the Clackamas Lakes Ranger Station. If you ask the rangers nicely, they might let you use the actual flush toilet there. Regardless, the little museum/visitor center is pretty cool. Once you leave Timothy Lake, there's no more water until Bear Springs campground on OR 216.

42 leads you up from the lake to US 26. It's not at all a consistent grade, and not particularly difficult. Make a right turn onto US 26, and you lose 400 feet as you descend down to Clear Creek, and then have to earn 250 feet back again. There's a good shoulder the whole way, and the traffic wasn't too bad for me.

At the ODOT maintenance facility, follow the signs left onto OR 216 towards Maupin. About 4 miles down OR 216 is the Bear Springs campground, with toilets and water. 216 goes up and down for several miles, but then finally gets down to the business of descending about 7 miles from US 26. When the descending starts, things get quick.

Unfortunately, Juniper Market in Pine Grove has closed down, though there is a Coke machine at the trailer park. It shouldn't be a big deal, as Walter's Corner is only a few (very fast) miles away at Wapinitia. And it's only a few (very fast) miles beyond that to Maupin. In Maupin, there are a couple options for resupply -- there's Grave's Market in the main part of town, and then a couple market/delis, one on either side of the bridge across the Deschutes. There's also water and bathrooms at the Maupin city park along the river.

There is plenty of shade from Estacada all the way to Pine Grove, and from Pine Grove to Maupin goes very quickly.

It's gonna be heating up, here. After you cross Sherar's Bridge and climb up out of the Deschutes along Winter Water Creek, I would strongly suggest taking the short detour into White River Falls state park. I was already through 1 and a half of my water bottles even though I refilled at Maupin, and I was able to refill there. Plus, the falls are gorgeous, and best of all, the sprinklers were running. Standing in the sprinklers for a couple minutes was a little slice of heaven. That made the 5 miles into Tygh Valley go a lot easier, and even sustained me most of the way up the plateau on the other side. If you don't refill at White River Falls, you'll probably want to at Tygh Valley.

Once you crest the top of Wamic Market Road, it's just a few easy, rolling miles into Wamic. There's a well-stocked store there that is open until 6 PM. The Wamic control closes at 7:12, but this ride will be a lot easier for you if you make it before the store closes. If you don't have an hour in the bank, you're going to have trouble making it to Government Camp before that control closes, as the next 37 miles are pretty strenuous. If you are running late, don't give up, though -- Philippe will be manning a support stop further up NFD 48, and will come down the hill to Wamic to try to get there by 6. There's also a tavern a little outside Wamic where you can at least get water and a bite, and get your card signed if Phil isn't there yet.

I should note that I slammed face-first into a headwind in this section.

Past Wamic, the Wamic Market Road becomes Rock Creek Dam Road and then NFD 48, but it's all the same road. After about 5 miles of flattish road past Wamic, you pass the turn-off to Rock Creek Reservoir and the (already light) traffic falls off precipitously. Unfortunately, at almost the exact same time, you start getting periodic expansion cracks in the pavement. It'll drive you crazy, but they also go away after about 6 miles. About the time that the cracks start up, the road also starts stair-stepping upward. Then, it starts going consistently upward. It's a pretty tough climb, but the road is pretty good, it's quiet, and the mix of firs, pines, and oaks is pretty gorgeous. On this climb, there are enough trees and it will probably be late enough in the day that you'll start getting shade again.

Phil will be up there with food and water and ice somewhere near where the road crests Boulder Ridge. Beyond that point, you get a nice 2 or 3 miles of downhill at 6% grade or so, down to the White River. At the bottom, you'll pass the junction with NFD 43 on your left, and then start climbing again. It's 9 miles from NFD 43 until the junction with OR 35 and the top of the ride, but only the first mile or so is steep. The rest is generally uphill, but there are some flat and even downhill sections.

Once you hit OR 35, you're home free. It's actually mostly downhill to Barlow Pass, with maybe 1/2 mile of shallow climbing, and then a couple more miles downhill to the OR 26 junction. It's 2 miles and change up to Government Camp, the penultimate control. I went to the Mt. Hood Brewing Company, watched the tour for 40 minutes, and had a beer and a plate of ribs. It was awesome.

Even though it's likely to be hot, be sure to pack a warm layer for the descent, as it's a lot cooler at 4500' than it is in the desert. ESPECIALLY if you're likely to on the mountain at night.

The next 20 miles are really quick. For the last 8 miles, you have to climb out of the Sandy River for a mile or so, and then it's rollers into Sandy. From Government Camp back to the Safeway took me 1:10, for a total ride time of 14:30.

Bike Route Toasting, Part 4: The McKenzie 600k

2009-05-12T16:16:00.000-07:00

This is the first 600 I've designed. I decided to give myself a little more leeway in terms of the starting location, which opened up a treasure trove of roads that I'm absolutely mad to ride:

The McKenzie 600

The McKenzie 600 starts in Corvallis, at the Super 8 on 2nd and Tyler, and takes the nearby bike path to Philomath. From Philomath, riders will turn onto Fern Road before heading south on Bellfountain to Alpine. From there, it's over to Monroe and south on Territorial Highway. The route follows this road all the way to Lorraine, where it heads over the hills to Cottage Grove and riders get on the Row River trail, following it through the hills to Disston. Then it's a stiff climb on NFD 22, the recently-paved 5850, and 2102 down to Oakridge. From Oakridge, riders take the fabled Aufderheide Scenic Byway through the Cascades to McKenzie Bridge on the McKenzie River, and the overnight control.

In the morning, riders start at first light by scaling magnificent McKenzie Pass, through the lava fields, past the observatory, and down to Sisters. From Sisters, it's over Santiam Pass, and north on OR-22. This takes our intrepid randonneurs to NFD 11, aka Quartzville Road, for the last major ascent of the ride. At the top, it's downhill for miles at river grade to Sweet Home, rollers to Lebanon, and flat across the Willamette Valley back to Corvallis.

I've wanted to ride up the McKenzie Pass forever, I've been drooling over Aufderheide since I heard about the Oregon Ultimate Bike Ride, the Row River Trail plus the climb over to Oakridge caught my eye from being on Cycle Oregon a couple years ago, and Quartzville just came from looking at a map, realizing that it was designated as paved the whole way (which I have corroborated), and figuring that it would be an awesome ride. So, this was a way to pack 'em all into one epic rando challenge -- about 50% of the roads on this ride are one-and-a-half lane roads through the forest with no traffic and trees growing right up to the edges. Sounds pretty good to me. I'm hoping to run this as a summer 600 next year; alas, it's not likely to be doable before then because of work ODOT is doing on 242 this summer

Here's the elevation profile. Don't look too hard at it; down that path lies madness.

4/25/2008 -- Columbia Foothills 205k

2009-05-07T14:50:00.000-07:00

Having recently designed and submitted to RUSA 3 permanents, I decided that it might be a good idea to actually ride them before I sent my woolly randonneuring friends off for sheering. I've ridden most of each of the three, but designing a new route is nothing to me if I can't satisfy my yen for adventure by throwing in some new roads. While I'm pretty confident in the research that I do beforehand, there's just no substitute for actually going out and seeing what things are like on the ground. And, half of the fun in designing a course with new roads is in then going out and riding them.

So I sent out an email to Sam Huffman to see if he was up for a 200k adventure for no credit, and he was game. He met me at my house on a cool, grey Saturday morning. The plan was to get a leisurely 9 am start, spend the day scouting out the Columbia Foothills 205k, and finish up before dinner.

The Columbia Foothills 205 is based on a year-round route that I've done a couple times, going up to Longview on low-traffic roads on the Washington side of the Columbia, and coming back into town on US 30 on the Oregon side. I've modified the route a little bit to make it into a permanent, though, simplifying it through Vancouver, and adding a segment that goes up to Apiary on the Oregon leg to add some distance and to get you off US 30 (for a little while, anyway.) I'd checked out the route from the I-205 bridge to Daybreak Park back in January, and found it to be just fine, but the Rainier-Apiary-Deer Island leg, while not literally uncharted territory, was outside of my experience. I was excited.

Sam and I set out, unhurried, around 9:15, and made our way to Vancouver by way of the world's loudest bike path (where I think we saw Mike Bingle heading in the other direction.) I was pleased to discover that the route I'd described through Vancouver was easy to navigate and reasonably pleasant, though once we got onto Andresen, I'd describe it more as "efficient" than anything else -- flat and straight, with a wide shoulder. We settled into a good rhythm that carried us to the east fork of the Lewis River, and Daybreak Park.

Past Daybreak, we were on roads that I had only traveled in the other direction, on RACC. It was flat for a while, but soon we had to climb out of the Lewis River floodplain and it was rollers to La Center, and beyond that, more rollers. In this stretch, Sam asked what busy road was yonder through the trees, which I then identified to him as I-5. We arrived in Woodland not long after.

Through Woodland on a frontage road, and onto Green Mountain Road. A quick bathroom break, and it was time to tackle Green Mountain. I hadn't come this way in a couple years. I remembered it as steep, and my memory didn't fail me. It's about 1.5 miles from bottom to top, with grades frequently in the double digits. Fortunately the climb stair-steps up, relenting 3 or so times, giving you a chance to catch your breath. I climbed steadily, and well, but Sam easily pulled away from me on the steepest parts. I came up with a few control questions based on landmarks as I climbed.

At the top we took in a great view of the river and floodplain below. The road wound around and rolled a bit, before plunging down to the left in a crazy steep, technical descent. In spite of the fact that I had actually been on this descent several times before, Sam had way more confidence his bike handling skills and the quality of his tire-roadway interface, and pulled away from me. At the bottom of the hill, we found ourselves on old US 99, which never gets too far from I-5, and some rollers took us through Kalama and Carrolls into Kelso, the halfway point. We took a break to take in some calories.

After catching our breath, we made our way to the Lewis and Clark Bridge through industrial land on the south side of Longview. At the foot of the bridge, we stopped at the Starbucks to refill my bottles and escape a sudden downpour. To this point, we'd had mostly occasional drizzle, but as we headed towards Oregon, the weather began to change in earnest. The stop at the Starbucks was long enough for things to clear up again, though, and so we headed over the bridge.

Conditions on the bridge weren't too bad. The rain had let up, and there wasn't the nasty cross-wind that you can get high above the river. Once we got to the Oregon side, we even found that ODOT had swept the shoulder for us (the League of American Bicyclists can suck it!) On the other side, we were quickly in Rainier, made a right turn on 6th, and found ourselves on new ground.

The climb out of Rainier is pretty long and challenging, but not nearly as steep as Green Mountain. It reminded me quite a bit of the climb up OR 47 out of Clatskanie, but it wasn't anything like that long. The dwellings got further apart the higher we went, replaced by forest, pasture, and clearcut. The rain came back as we ascended, drenching the two of us pretty thoroughly. After a couple miles, the grade relented considerably, and while the road continued to trend upward, it was more of a middle-ring grade. Halfway to Apiary, I put together several questions for the information control.

Fern Hill Road ended at Apiary Road, where we turned left and briefly found ourselves in familiar territory. Then, around a couple of turns, we turned left onto Meissner Road, and once again I was in the dark. Meissner rolled a bit, but continued the upward trend through alternating clearcuts and lush woods, with the occasional dwelling. We never reached what we identified as the crest, exactly, but the uphill bits started getting switched out for swooping downhills that just about got us into our top gears without spinning us out, featuring sweeping turns that never quite got tight enough to make us reach for our brakes. There were sections that wound along creek drainages, sections between neat, square farm parcels, and a section on the spine of a ridge, with views of the coast range to the left and the right. It was, in short, a hell of a descent. Before we knew it, we were spat out onto US 30 at Deer Island, next to the Quick-Mart.

We turned south on US 30, and got the whole US 30 experience. The rain had stopped, thankfully, and the day stabilized into overcast and slightly blustery. This meant alternating periods where we were fighting quartering headwinds and periods where we were on the conveyor belt. There were lots more cars than we had seen to that point and there were sections with a bunch of crap in the shoulder. We took one last break in Scappoose, and then got onto the conveyor belt for the rest of the ride. I teased Sam whenever we went by the entrance to one of the roads that goes up the west hills: "Hey Sam. Look, there's Rocky Point. We're not doing this ride for credit, we could do a detour if you wanted. You go ahead, I'll be right behind you." "Hey Sam. Logie Trail, Sam, it's not too late." Nevermind that it wouldn't really have been an issue for either of us if it had been called for, I think we had both drunk our fill of bicycling for the day.

Our momentum was only impeded by a screw that embedded itself in my tire on the approach to the St. John's bridge. That taken care of, we proceeded through its cathedral arches into North Portland, and wound our way along Mock's Crest and Alameda Ridge, back to my house. We glided to rest into my driveway at 5:45, completing 205 kilometers in around 8:30.

Bike Route Toasting, Part 3: The Alsea Falls 400k

2009-05-04T15:19:00.000-07:00

I dreamed up this route as an alternate spring 400, in case the Covered Bridges route has gotten a little stale:

The Alsea Falls 400k
This ride starts in McMinnville, heads north up the Yamhill Valley, and immediately undertakes the challenging climb up the Nestucca River Road. Halfway to the coast, though, the route turns south onto Bible Creek Road, taking it all the way to Willamina. From there, it's south through Ballston, onto Broadmead and Perrydale roads to Dallas, and into King's Valley. King's Valley Highway takes riders to US 20 just outside of Philomath, where they come within shouting distance of Mary's Peak and turn onto the Alsea Highway. In Alsea, turn onto the South Fork Alsea River scenic byway, and take that to Monroe. From there, the route crosses to the other side of the Willamette Valley and heads back north on flat country backroads through Brownsville, Jefferson, and Turner to Salem. In Salem, riders cross to the west side of the Willamette, and take roads at the foot of the Eola and Amity hills back to OR 18, and then into McMinnville.

The inspiration for this ride was my affection for the Nestucca River Road, and my interest in riding Bible Creek Road, King's Valley Highway, and the South Fork Alsea Byway. Brownsville looks like a neat little town, too, and Parrish Gap Road into Turner is a fantastic place to pedal. This route is open pretty close to year-round, and should easily be doable as either a spring or summer 400. It's a nice complement to the Covered Bridges 400, too, in that it goes south in the foothills of the coast range, and returns on the flat parts on the east side of the valley, while the CB 400 goes south in the foothills of the Cascades, and returns on the flat parts on the west side of the valley.

The elevation profile is below. Not a ridiculous amount of climbing, and you get most of it out of the way early.

Bike Route Toasting, Part 2: The Mollala River 100k

2009-04-27T14:44:00.000-07:00

Here's another populaire to do in the Portland area, one that takes us out of the Tualatin River Valley:

The Mollala River 100k
(Click the map to go to the bike route toaster interactive version.)

My buddy Bruce showed me this ride, and as it turns out, it works out great as a slightly augmented 100k populaire (it's actually 107k). The ride starts out in Canby, at the Thriftway, and heads south across the prairie to Mollala. It's flat, wide-open, easy terrain. From Mollala, the route goes down to the Mollala River, and follows it to Dickey Prairie. From there, it keeps following the river up the recreation corridor almost to the Table Rock trailhead. The climb up to the turnaround is gradual, but when you turn around, the descent is quick and fun. The route takes a slight detour on the way home at Dickey Prairie, going over a small hill and picking up Macksburg Road on the other side. The ride back to Canby is a cruise along the edge of the Mollala River.

This ride can be done most of the year, though you can get some snow on the ground up in the hills in the winter months. Services are available at Canby, Mollala, and Dickey Prairie.

Here's the elevation profile:

Bike Route Toasting, Part 1: RASH 400k

2009-04-23T16:20:00.000-07:00

Since discovering the bike route toaster, I've gone kind of nuts designing new randonneuring routes in the Portland/Willamette Valley area. If a route goes on quiet roads that add up to a multiple of 100k, I'm all over it. As a result, I've come up with a few promising routes that I'm gung ho about organizing in the next couple of years. So I'm going to share some of my ideas here, to get feedback from folks and to maybe build some enthusiasm for exploring these new areas. First up:

The RASH (Ride Around St. Helens) 400k
(Click the map to go to the bike route toaster interactive version.)

Start in Vancouver, and head east on the old Evergreen Highway, followed by SR 14 to Carson. Up Wind River, and over Old Man Pass and Elk Pass, down to Randle. West on US 12 to Mossyrock, and then backroads to Toledo. South through Castle Rock, Longview, and Woodland on backroads that parallel I-5 back to Vancouver.

The beauty of this route is that it starts off easy, with the traditional tailwind up the Columbia River. Then you get almost all of your climbing done before the halfway point. It's mostly downhill from the top of Elk Pass all the way to Toledo, and gentle rollers back to Vancouver (except for Green Mountain). There are nicely spaced resupply opportunities at Skamania, Carson, Northwoods, Randle, Morton, Toledo, Castle Rock, Longview, Kalama, and Woodland. And the distance works out almost perfectly, coming in at 406 km.

I would like to put on this ride as Oregon Randonneurs' summer 400 next year.

Here is the elevation profile:

I Propose a Toast!

2009-04-10T13:37:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I got an email from the Seattle International Randonneurs' mailing list about their upcoming 400. I didn't really care about the ride, per se, as it starts in frickin' Ephrata, which would make it a bit of a challenge to get to the start, but the online map of the route caught my eye. It was created using a tool called bikeroutetoaster.com. Heavens be praised! This is exactly the kind of tool that I have been hoping for since before the Google Maps Pedometer was created. It contains the following highly awesome features:

* One-click waypoint setting
* Automatic route finding
* Drag & drop waypoint relocation
* Automatically generated cue sheets
* Scroll-wheel zoom
* Easy route archiving
* Automatically generated elevation profile
* GPX import/export

Now, it's not perfect -- the drag and drop waypoint relocation can be a little goofy, especially if you'd trying to revise a really old part of your course. The elevations can be kind of crazy, but that's par for the course with contour map extrapolations. Finally, I've heard that the export to GPX functionality might not be fully implemented yet. But, hey, it's freaking free. And awesome.

Needless to say, I have gone hog-wild designing possible future randonnees over the last few days. I'll be sharing them in this space over the next couple weeks.

New Perms!

2009-02-19T16:20:00.001-08:00

Most of the permanent routes in the Portland area start a good long ways out of Portland. As someone with recent ambitions to complete an R-12, I have found myself more interested in this type of randonneuring. However, getting up at some unholy early hour to schlep to Newberg and then riding home 30 miles after a 200k gets old pretty quick. Being a route designer with some imagination, I decided to do something about it. Thus, I have submitted the following three routes to RUSA's permanents coordinator for approval. With luck, these will be options open to future Oregon randonneurs who don't want to drive so that they can ride their bikes.

The UGB 200k

This ride traces the outskirts of the Portland metro area's urban growth boundary. It starts from the parking lot at the east end of the Hawthorne Bridge. You can get your card stamped at OMSI or at the coffee house on Water & Clay. The route takes the Springwater Corridor out to Boring, with a controle at Bell Station to make sure you take the trail. From Boring, the route goes down to Barton and crosses the Clackamas, and then it's up Ridge Road to Highland, over Spangler Hill and down to Canby. From Canby, you go west through Champoeg to Newberg. Then it's up the familiar North Valley, Spring Hill, and Fern Hill Roads to Cornelius, around Hillsboro Airport, and through Helvetia to Rock Creek. The ride finishes up by taking Old Cornelius Pass Road up to Skyline, and following Skyline back into downtown.

The Columbia Foothills 205k
This ride starts at Gateway. The route starts off on the I-205 bike path, taking it across the Columbia into Vancouver. It winds a little through Vancouver before getting on my new favorite road to go north through Clark County, Andresen, which takes you all the way to Daybreak Park on the Lewis River. From there, the route winds northwest to La Center and Woodland. Out of Woodland, you'll climb Green Mountain (there's an info control on top, so no cheating by taking the freeway). Then it's easy rollers into Kalama and Kelso. From Kelso, it's across the Lewis & Clark Bridge back into Oregon. In Rainier, the route goes up Fern Hill Road (different Fern Hill Road) to Apiary, and then down Meissner Road to Deer Island. From there it's a straight shot back into Portland on US 30 (which hopefully will be somewhat redeemed by a tailwind). The path back to Gateway is highlighted by some classic views of the Portland skyline from Mock's Crest and Alameda Ridge.

The Mt. Hood 217k

From Mt. Hood Community College up the gorge to Hood River, then south over Bennett Pass to Government Camp, and back down to Gresham. How is this not already in the route book?

8/20/2007 to 8/24/2007 -- Paris Brest Paris

2009-01-21T13:13:00.000-08:00

This is late, I know. I originally wrote it for publication in a magazine that shall remain nameless. I talked with them about writing a piece on my PBP experiences in early 2008, with an eye to publishing the article in the summer. I worked hard on the piece, and met the spring deadline. After submitting the article, I found the editorial staff at this magazine perversely uninterested in working with me. After months of trying to work with them, I gave up. So I'm sharing the result here. I hope you enjoy it. -Michael

Just outside the little town of Corlay, on the Bretagne Peninsula in northwestern France, I stand under the cover of a tree, waiting for the rain to slacken. My friend Philippe Andre is across the road, talking in French with a local man. They chat amiably for a little while before Phil comes back across the road to join me under the branches. The fellow is out in the weather, standing in front of his cottage in the countryside, a spectator to the 16th Paris-Brest-Paris grand randonnée. He has a table with candy bars and snacks for sale, but he offers coffee, juice, and encouragement for free.

The sport of randonneuring adopted Paris-Brest-Paris soon after it began as a 1200 km race in 1891. Today, it has become the equivalent of randonneuring’s Olympic Games. While grand randonnées are now held all over the world, what makes Paris-Brest-Paris unique is the people. The ride attracts thousands of riders from all over the world to share the challenge of pedaling halfway across France and back in less than 90 hours; no other randonneuring event draws so many people from such diverse backgrounds. The non-competitive nature of the event encourages a spirit of cooperation, and the challenge it presents instills a sense of camaraderie in the participants. But in addition to the esprit de corps felt by the riders, the ride is also highlighted by the warmth of the French people who participate as volunteers and spectators. I had pedaled 700 km to Corlay, through dreary fog, dark night, and torrential rain. Out there with me at every corner in every little village there had been one or more French spectators to shout “Allez!” or “Bon courage,” to offer a hot drink, or to point out a tricky turn. There is no better country on Earth in which to hold this event. If you are crazy enough to ride your bike 750 miles to Brest and back in four days, the French will love you for it.

Phil speaks French, and is naturally more outgoing than I am, but even across the language barrier I fully appreciate the material and spiritual support being offered by the man across the road. Phil relays to me some of the details of their conversation. He has been coming out to watch PBP roll by his front door for years, and now he’s selling the candy to raise money for his daughter’s school. We share a candy bar that Phil bought and plot our next move. It’s late in the afternoon, and the weather seems to have transitioned from intermittent showers into something more sustained.

I’d started out in Paris in the sloppy gloom at 9 PM on Monday night, two days earlier. While there had been respites from the rain, they had been of the one-step-forward-and-two-steps-back variety, and by the time I had covered 400 kilometers I was soaked. That’s when I’d met up with Philippe, as we had arranged to before the ride. Last night’s ride with him had been reasonably pleasant, and was followed by a drizzly and atmospheric morning through some of the undomesticated parts of Bretagne near the charming lakeside village of Huelgoat. Just when I’d started wondering if the sun ever shone on France, we broke through into a warm summer day on the descent from Roc Trevezel, 40 kilometers from our turn-around point in Brest.

Of course, Brest was just that: our turn-around point; we had to go back the way we came. All that awful weather that we had punched through to get out to the coast was still between us and Paris. We climbed out of Brest and back up the Roc in sunshine, and we were greeted by a face full of wind and rain at the top. We fought through increasingly persistent showers all the way to Carhaix, took a break, and then pushed on in hopes of hitting the 2/3rd mark at Loudeac before the day was too far gone. We had been riding with a pair of Englishmen for a few kilometers, and when we’d hit Corlay, they’d continued on while Phil and I stopped for shelter and refreshment.

I tell Phil that I think that the damp is just a passing shower, just as we’d experienced ever since the Roc. But the sky is socked in from horizon to horizon and the patches of blue sky we’d seen closer to the coast are just a happy memory. Still, the rain eases after a dramatic entrance. The branches spare us from the worst of it, but it’s obviously not going to stop any time soon. We’re cooling off, and it’s time to get back to business of pedaling.

We set off through the verdant French countryside. Brittany is the land of cream, and Philippe remarks that the abundant cows are easily the healthiest looking animals he’s ever seen. At times, the roads are so smooth that I can feel the imperfections in my front wheel. So in spite of the damp, we manage to maintain a strong pace. We take turns at the front as we traverse the undulating countryside.

Phil and I had only ever ridden together twice before Paris-Brest-Paris, but those two rides totaled 1600 km. We spent most of each of those rides together, sitting on each other’s wheels, drafting each other’s slipstreams. In covering all that distance, we’ve found that we’re well suited to riding together in spite of a host of differences. I’m 33 while Phil is 50. Phil has been randonneuring his whole life, but I did my first brevet just the year before. Phil rides a conventional bike, where I prefer a recumbent. We work well together because our strengths and goals are complementary. Philippe is a very strong rider who stays within himself. A veteran of 3 previous 1200 km randonees, several super randonneur series, and years of racing, he knows himself and his capabilities well enough that he never gets himself into trouble by going anaerobic for too long and blowing up his legs. He’s also opportunistic about finding people of similar strength to share a paceline with. I may be strong, but my record of pacing myself appropriately isn’t as good as Phil’s. I am used to logging long miles solo, which gives me an all-day motor.

As we roll along stone walls and hedgerows, past fields, and through forests, I spend a fair amount of time out front. My Bacchetta Aero recumbent doesn’t push as much air out of the way as a conventional bike does, but Phil’s got a really good aero tuck, and he’s able to make the most of my draft. With my head so far back it’s easy for us to chat, and as an added bonus he can see over me to the scenery ahead pretty easily. Phil takes the lead from time to time to give me a rest, and just naturally gets ahead of me on many climbs, while I pace us through rollers and across flatlands. On prolonged descents, I pull to the front and Phil puts his head down, gets into the bottom of his drops and hangs on tenaciously. We make our way towards the next controle at Loudeac; me taking advantage of Philippe’s experience, and Phil getting the benefit of my young legs.

I mention to Phil how well we work together. “Well, true. But these are long rides,” He responds. “There usually comes a time when maybe you’re feeling good and you want to go on and your riding partner wants to rest, or vice versa. And that’s the time you’ve got to go off and ride your own ride. You’ll know it when the time comes, and of course every randonneur understands it. There’re no hard feelings.” Ultimately, though randonneuring can be a cooperative endeavor, at the end of the day, it is a personal challenge. It’s about what you yourself can bear, and how your own capabilities match up to the task of the long ride.

We’re getting closer to Loudeac, and a pair of Italians overtakes us as we ride along the top of a ridge that seems familiar from the previous night’s outbound leg. These guys are nuts; each is carrying just what will fit in his jersey pockets, neither has fenders, and one’s riding without a helmet. They’re going just a little faster than we are, so we share the road for a while. As the four of us slalom through a tiny hilltop village, the sky opens up. We fly down the hillside as the road becomes a river. At the bottom, the Italians pull away as I soft-pedal, waiting for Phil. The sun goes down as Phil and I cover the last few kilometers into town.

The controle looks like a refugee camp. Riders are everywhere, most moving deliberately; some not moving at all, sleeping under silver foil space blankets. Wadded-up cyclists, discarded to the corners of the cafeteria. The rain has settled thickly on the courtyard, falling on several hundred parked bicycles. A volunteer tells us that it hasn’t really let up since the beginning of the ride, 48 hours ago.

It’s Wednesday night. Even though I haven’t put two hours of sleep together since Saturday, I move with a purpose. My first and most important task is to get my control card stamped, registering my arrival time. If you don’t get your card stamped, or if you lose it, you’re just a lunatic riding through the country. Registering at each checkpoint verifies that you have completed the course as designated and have done so in the allotted time. When I have my card stamped, I visit the cafeteria and purchase a tray full of food: Potatoes, soup, chicken, bananas, rice pudding. And coffee. The French do the best terrible coffee ever. It’s darkly roasted and steeped with the grounds in a stainless steel tray. It’s strong and dark and muscular and caramel sweet, and it’s served in a cereal bowl. You can measure its effectiveness in terms of hundreds of miles pedaled per pint.

The controle holds other delights. In particular, Philippe and I have access to our drop bag here, which means fresh clothes. We greedily root through the sack. I put together two completely fresh sets of riding attire: one for now, and one to go in my bike’s seat bag. Before I change, though, I take advantage of the available showers. It’s not that I’m exactly dying to get under more falling water, but the promise of warmth and getting clean of my accumulated grime and sweat is just too good to pass up. I emerge, and begin packing up my bike, anxious to be on the road. Prior to the ride, I reserved a hotel room in Fougeres (130 kilometers down the road) for this night, and visions of a warm dry bed are dancing in my head. My momentum and sense of purpose are still carrying me, and leave me somewhat insensible.

“Are you getting ready to go?” Phil asks.

“I’m done. I’m going.” I reply. But I’ve mistaken his meaning. I thought he was asking me when I’d be packed up and ready to hit the road. It turns out he’s asking if I’m hell-bent on continuing on right now in the awful weather.

He mistakes my declaration for determination. “Well, if that’s how you feel about it, go on, but I’m staying here. There are some very nice looking dorms, and I’m going to get some sleep.” Sleep. That brings me back to Earth. I look around and think about it. It really is raining. And I am getting tired. I’m going on 86 hours with very little sleep. I could use a lie-down…

Yeah, ok.

As it turns out, Phil saw some other dorms, or something. The dorm we are put in features beat-up old mattresses on the floor of a gymnasium, with the rain hammering down on the sheet-metal roof overhead. This is accompanied by the drone of randonneurs snoring in 12 different languages. But it doesn’t matter. We put in a wake up call for 4 hours later, they lead us to our pallets, and I have scarcely lain down and drawn the blanket up to my chin before I am unconscious.

…

Awake.

Awake, um. (Look at my watch.) One and a half hours later. Okay. I feel pretty rested. Calm. Not worried at all about having woken up. I have another two hours and change until my wakeup call. If I get back to sleep before then, great. Otherwise, I guess I didn’t really need it, did I? I’ll probably get back to sleep, though. It’s peaceful. The snoring has all stopped, so that won’t keep me awake. Heck, I can’t even hear the rain on the roof anymore…

I sit bolt upright. In Loudeac, where it’s rained since the beginning of the event, at 1:30 in the morning, the rain has stopped. And I’m awake and feeling refreshed. This is it: it’s time for me to go. I get up, and silently, purposefully gather my belongings.

I think to Philippe. Should I wake him? No, of course not. Phil has ridden strongly the whole time we’ve been together, but he’d gotten far less sleep during the previous night than he’d planned because of me, and he had reported nearly drowsing off on the bike a couple of times. He needs to let his body tell him when to get up, not me.

Which means that, as Philippe predicted it would be, my ride has been reduced to its most elemental components: me and my bicycle, striving with the road and the weather.

Without a moment to lose, I’m back on the road. I ride quickly, under the premise that if it’s been raining non-stop in Loudeac until this moment, then there’s no telling how long this break will last. I want to put as much distance between me and the town as I can before the deluge resumes.

Even at 2 AM, there are plenty of riders on the road; dozens of red fireflies mark the course ahead of me. But night riding tends to distort ones’ perceptions of space, time, and speed, and this is ground that I am covering at night for the second time. I have few stable points of reference. The kilometers are rolling by; just it’s hard to tell how fast.

I’m halfway through the stage when the rain returns from its coffee break in the form of a steady and annoying drizzle. Then, just as it intensifies, outside of the little town of Illifaut, there’s a sign diverting riders to a community center in a copse of trees. It’s a secret controle, to keep riders honest. I park my bike and go in to get my card stamped.

One of the most difficult parts of really long randonneuring events is going back out, into the rain, wind, or night. On my first overnight brevet, it took a major effort of will to leave a controle at midnight to pedal those dark roads alone. I’ve since learned how to keep moving, though, and how to not let myself transition from riding mode to resting mode. I don’t linger at the controle, staying only long enough to slurp down a cup of pottage before I’m back on my bike.

The rest of the ride into Tinteniac, and the rest of the night, goes slowly. It’s just a matter of grit, and keeping the pedals turning. If I keep pedaling, I will finish, eventually. I pass through Quedillac, where Phil and I had met up a day and a half ago. It took me 16 hours to get here from Paris on the outbound leg, but I’m expecting it to take a lot longer in the reverse direction. I gut out the climb up to Becherel, and on the descent on the other side of town, the thick sky begins to emanate a murky light. I’m in a daze as I pull up to the controle in Tinteniac in what little daylight manages to penetrate the clouds.

I perform my tasks at the controle by rote. Fortunately, I’m well versed in the requirements, and I get through with very little engagement necessary from my brain. The lion’s share of the time I spend is in shoveling the calories I need to keep going into my gullet. Once I’ve wrapped up my business, I take a short pause in hopes that there will be a break in the rain, but without any expectation of it actually happening. I go find my bike and once again, I’m rolling.

Fortunately, with the coming of the day the temperature has risen, and even in spite of the wet, I am comfortable in my wool jersey without a jacket. My recumbent seat provides insulation from my hindquarters to the bottom of my neck, doing a good job of keeping my core warm. This means that I don’t have to choose between being soaked with cold rain or soaked with sweat anymore.

The next leg is a scant 54 kilometers, and it goes by quickly, though it doesn’t feel like it. I’m sluggish, riding off the hangover of having ridden through the previous night (hair of the dog!) I am in a fairly dismal state, certainly not in anything like a comfort zone, but I have found an equilibrium. My energy level is good and I’m not feeling any particular pain, but I am pretty consistently wet and I’m mentally fatigued. It is encouraging to recognize sections from the outbound trip, though – the TGV tracks near Dinge, the river crossing at Vieux-Vy-sur-Couesnon, and the flat, straight section just before Romagne. As the route enters the outskirts of Fougeres, it finds its way along backroads, and then suddenly drops into a creek drainage. I have to go through the painful process of winching my way up out of it again before arriving at the controle.

I take care of my duties in Fougeres, and in the interest of maintaining my all-important momentum, dismiss the idea tempting idea of trying to check into my hotel room for an hour or two. I leave a note for Phil, bidding him good ride and good luck, and I get the mechanics at the controle to apply more lubrication to my chain. That’s one frequently overlooked detail in riding really long rides: you can do enough distance in a single ride to pass maintenance milestones. I often put fresh lube on my chain around every 400 miles, which was 150 rainy miles ago. One could wear a new pair of tires down to the threads on a ride like PBP.

When I set out again, I’m energized. I’ve finally shaken off the exertions of the previous night, the full light of day has chased away my drowsiness, a fresh dose of calories is making its way through my bloodstream, and my drivetrain is once again working at peak efficiency.

My recumbent shines on this leg, eating up the rolling hills and cruising on the flat ground. I find that randonneuring and recumbents are a natural match. A comfortable seat is a must-have on a 100+ mile ride, and the aerodynamic benefit of a low-profile position is maximized in a sport where we spend so much time riding alone. Plus, a heads-up position eliminates the threat of Shermer’s Neck, and offers a first-rate view of the countryside. As randonneurs tend to ride sturdier, better equipped bicycles than racers, the drawback of recumbents’ increased mass over diamond frame bicycles is minimized.

I arrive in Villaines-la-Juhel to a hero’s welcome. The approach to the control winds downhill through the streets of the town, so I’m feeling fast and strong as I complete the stage, and for several blocks before it there are banners, balloons, and barricades holding back cheering spectators. I feel like a Tour de France winner as my arrival is announced by the bombastic fellow with the PA, and this isn’t even the end of the ride.

I can smell the barn at this point, though. I’m hanging on by a thread, but the draw of the finish line continues to carry me. I get a huge plate of noodles in the cafeteria, and chat with a British fellow who encourages me to do London-Edinburgh-London. I nod politely without really considering the idea; this is exactly the wrong time to entertain another 1400 kilometers of riding.

It’s the middle of the afternoon and I set out once again, cranking my bicycle uphill as the road climbs up to a ridge. My energy level is holding, but has fallen somewhat from its previous high. The country around Villaines is less domesticated than I’ve seen to this point, owing to the more mountainous terrain, and I have the road to myself for long stretches at a time. The solitude puts my head in a strange place.

I had previously covered this leg in the depths of the first night of riding. The lack of sleep combined with everything that has transpired since has left a gaping hole in my memory where this stretch of road should be. The cocktail of physical exertion and sleep deprivation has left my perception with little chance of finding purchase on some recognizable landmark. And the eerie feeling that this road should contain some measure of familiarity for me and yet it simply doesn’t is deeply unsettling. If sleep plays a role in cementing a day’s experiences in one’s long term memory, then given how little sleep I’ve had, perhaps these hours of my life have dissipated before they could be indexed properly. Now, returning to this place is not the same as the experience of riding the road for the first time; I can feel the contours of the gap in my recollection in much the way that I imagine an amputee might have a sense of where an arm used to be.

I pass through Mamers, a larger town that does inspire a spark of recognition, and as I’m climbing out of it, the clouds thicken ominously. For most of the day, the rain has been holding off – nothing but the occasional drizzle to keep me from getting too complacent. The air is warm enough to have dried me off, and I’ve been enjoying not being clammy for several hours. Then the sky opens up and lets loose a deluge.

“This is what I do for fun!” I tell myself. I begin to wonder what drives me to it. In the previous 2 years, I’ve gone from centuries to 150 mile rides, to a full brevet series, to the Furnace Creek 508 and Race Across Oregon, to the 1000 km Portland-Glacier brevet, to this. In 2006, I rode the most difficult ride I’d ever attempted in September, only to surpass it twice in a month. Am I looking for my limits? And if spending a week in the rain without sleep pedaling 1200 kilometers isn’t more than I can stand, then just what sort of misery will I have to put myself through before I say, “No more!” What could putting myself through that get me?

I am absolutely drowning in the last few kilometers into Mortagne-au-Perche. I don’t stop to put on a jacket because I’m afraid that I’ll cool off if I stop and get out of my seat, and anyway, what good would putting a jacket on over a soggy jersey do? Water is cascading down the road to the town, and riding up it reminds me of a salmon swimming upstream.

I stagger into the controle shell shocked. There are things that I have to do, I know it, but I’m a dripping, sallow eyed zombie. Somehow, my card is stamped, my water bottles refilled. I visit the cafeteria, and they’re running low on food. I change into my last dry set of clothes.

Early in a ride, I have options: I can hit a section hard or back off, I can find a buddy to ride with and spend a little extra energy to stay with him if he’s stronger on the hills, I have sandwiches and cans of Ensure if I need calories on the road. Now, the bag of tricks is empty – no more food in my bag, and no more glycogen in my legs. I have no more cards to play, no more resources except sheer, blind, mule-headed stubbornness.

But that's the nice thing about stubbornness; when you have it, it's the last thing to desert you.

I’ve finished my meal and am staring at my plate, trying to work myself up to go back out on the road. It’s just 140 kilometers to go, now. Not even 85 miles. You’ve left to go on an 85 miler after breakfast and been back home for lunch. C’mon, Michael.

I overhear someone address his friends at the next table, “Did you see outside? Yeah, the rain’s stopped and the sun is shining.”

My fork has not yet hit the table before I’m back on my bike and pedaling.

Nehalem 400k Pre-Ride Report

2008-08-18T13:19:00.000-07:00

For the Oregon Randonneurs' late summer 400k, the Nehalem 400, we return to Forest Grove as a start location. Note that we're starting at the Forest Grove Inn, though, and not the usual Grand Lodge. I pre-rode the route this past Sunday to make sure that things would pass smoothly for the riders next week.

A 4:10 wake-up call and some hustle got me downtown and on the MAX in time to get me to Hillsboro by 6. That made my start time from Forest Grove 6:10. I went over familiar streets in Forest Grove to Gales Creek Road, and proceeded north. The stretch between Forest Grove and Vernonia hasn't changed much since the Birkie this spring; more leaves on the deciduous trees. There was an unleashed dog between highway 26 and Vernonia.

I arrived in Vernonia at 8:22 and took a quick break, and then went north on OR 47. The road carried me a couple miles past Pittsburgh, where I turned onto Apiary Road. Apiary is great. It starts off with a gentle climb of about 5.5 miles, and it only gets even remotely steep about 3/4 mile from the top. There terrain right next to the road is pleasantly tree-lined, though clearcuts are visible for quite a bit of the way. After the climb is a long straight descent, and another climb of about 3 miles puts you in Apiary. A few rolling hills, and you're at Old Rainier Road, where you make a hard left turn.

There's some work being done on this stretch of Old Rainier Road, so unfortunately the route detours onto Highway 30 for a mile or so. There's a lot of traffic, but it's flat and there's a huge, relatively clean shoulder so I don't imagine it'll be a problem for anyone. We pick up Old Rainier Road again at the flashing yellow light and head towards Alston and Mayger. Another quarter mile and there's a little country convenience store to refuel at if you need to top of your supplies.

From the store, you'll head north to Mayger. The Mayger Downing Community Church comes in about 5.5 miles, and there's an information control there (I arrived at 11:07), so don't miss it. On the way, there are about 4 rollers followed by a twisty fun descent, as well as some great views of the Columbia River. Past Mayger, there're some more creek sheds that you'll have to climb out of, but around Quincy, the undulations dial way back and you have a smooth, pleasant road into Clatskanie. I encountered an unbound dog on this stretch.

In Clatskanie, there's a market, a Safeway, a Subway, and Hump's Restaurant if you want a sit-down meal. Don't dawdle too much though, because the climb out of town is rather strenuous, and while there can be plenty of shade, you might get a little toasty if the sun is directly overhead. It's 12 miles from Clatskanie to Mist. The first 6 are almost all uphill, though the first mile is probably the steepest. There are rollers until mile 8 (along with some nice views of Rainier, St. Helens, and Adams if it's not too hazy), and then there's almost 4 miles of fast and technical descending. Then you're back on OR 202.

It's 5 miles to Birkenfeld and then another 12 to Jewell. Here's where I have some bad news: the Nehalem 400 has the bad luck to be scheduled for the same day as the Hood to Coast relay. So you'll be sharing the road with that event for these 17 miles. It's a pain in the neck, and I'm sorry for that. For my ride, it was hot and muggy around Birkenfeld, but 12 miles later, it was overcast and sprinkling at Jewell. Bring clothes for a wide temperature range. The country between Birkenfeld and Jewell is quite a bit like the country between Mist and Birkenfeld, but more undulating.

At Jewell, the course turns south onto Fishhawk Falls Highway, past the beautiful new school and following the Nehalem River through a notch between two big coastal mountains. It's a quick run to your next turn, onto Highway 26. The road goes under 26, before turning left up a ramp to the south side of the highway. To get on US 26 westbound, you'll have to make a left across both lanes of traffic. Be very careful! You may want to turn your blinkers on for this section.

Highway 26 is pretty bad. You're on it for 12 miles: 4.5 flat, 3.5 up, and 4 down. For the first 6 miles, the shoulder width varies from 3 to 24 inches. Fortunately, there's a passing lane about a mile into the climbing section, and the shoulder gets a little better, giving you some breathing room. The descent is awesome and partially makes up for the earlier bits: fast, non-technical, with plenty of room. At the bottom is a little gas station/convenience store, and the 3rd control. I got here at 3:22. This store is just past the halfway mark, but realize that the second half of the ride is a lot easier than the first half.

Once you're done doing your control stuff, you'll get back on the bike and turn south, onto OR 53, the Necanicum Highway. It's a mile of flat, 2 miles of easy climbing, and then 14 miles of downhill. This bit is fun and fast. It's twisty at the top, but the surface is smooth and the camber is good. Be careful of uphill traffic, however. Also, when the road straightens out, at least look over and get a glimpse of the really cool moss-covered slot canyon that holds Soapstone Creek. About a mile before you get to Nehalem Bay, you'll turn left onto Foley Creek Road, aka Miami River Road. There's a pain-in-the-neck cimb at the beginning, but it's otherwise a fairly placid road. It's 12 miles long, climbing gently for first 6 and descending gently for the second 6. Other than the occasional clearcut, the scenery is positively Tolkienian. Unfortunately, there were a couple of roaming dogs (wargs?) on this stretch.

The Miami River Road spits you out onto 101 just south of Garibaldi. You'll take 101south through Bay City, where there are a couple rollers.

(Thank you! I'll be here all week!)

Tillamook comes quickly after. The Fred Meyer is open until 11, and the Subway a little further down the road is open until 12. This will probably be your last chance to get food, unless you're quick enough to get to Beaver before 9. When I was riding, the day warmed up again when I arrived in Tillamook, after having been cold and grey since Jewell. The wind in the Tillamook Valley is inscrutable, seemingly blowing in random directions. 101 is straight and flat, and the shoulder is fine. The traffic falls off a couple miles south of town, but the surface gets a little rough as you climb up to Hemlock. Once you pass the junction to Sandlake, the surface is excellent, the shoulder fades away, and it's all downhill to Beaver.

In Beaver, there's a gas station that is the location of the 4th control, which I got to at 7:21 PM. Conveniently enough, it's the place where you'll turn off of 101 to get onto the Nestucca River Road. The first 7 miles of the road take you through familiar coast range pasture land to Blaine, where the environment switches to alder forest. Just past Blaine, there is some road work for the next 4 miles, from milepost 7 to milepost 11. BE CAREFUL on this stretch! There's loose gravel and gravel-filled ruts across the road. Sometimes, it's best to go over into the left lane (just keep an eye out for oncoming traffic!) This is NOT the infamous stretch of gravel road on the Nestucca; that comes later and is actually a much nicer surface. There are 5 campgrounds on this stretch of road, each with water and pit toilets.

From 101 to the top is around 34 miles, depending on how you measure. It's a pretty easy grade for the most part; it basically stair-steps all the way up, only getting steep just below the top. You'll know you're about to start your descent when you get to the reservoir. I'm afraid the descent is pretty disappointing. It's too technical to get much speed up, and you spend an awful lot of time climbing. It dumps you right out in Carlton, the penultimate control. From Carlton, you'll simply get on OR 47 and take that all the way back to OR 8, and the Forest Grove Inn. 47 is fast, flat, and there's a good shoulder the whole way. There should be almost no traffic during the time of when riders are passing through. I finished at 12:01 AM, for a ride time of 17:51.

Services:
Vernonia
Alston
Clatskanie
Birkenfeld
Camp 18
Necanicum Junction (until 9)
Tillamook (Fred Meyer until 11, Subway until 12)
Beaver (until 9)

6/28/2008 to 7/1/2008 -- The Cascade 1200

2008-08-14T13:20:00.000-07:00

At the end of the first day of the Cascade 1200, I didn’t know what to do. I was rolling down a river grade towards Naches, the first overnight control. The first day had been hard – really hard: tough climbs in brutal, brutal heat, and sheer distance. And there was plenty more climbing, heat, and distance promised. I was finishing up the first day okay, in good time (it was just after nightfall) and feeling reasonably strong. But three more days of that kind of effort, of climbing mountain passes in the desert in triple figure heat, simply wasn’t in the cards. How was I going to “solve” this ride? What strategy could I take to avoid riding in misery for 3 days, or worse, DNFing? I didn’t know what to do.

I did have resources at my disposal. I had access to my drop bag in a few miles, my Bacchetta Aero is comfortable, fast and has good lights. I was well ahead of schedule, and the next 100 miles were populated enough to provide good services. By the time I rolled into Naches, I had an idea.

I approached Bob Brudvik, who was signing riders in. “I’m going back out there,” I said.

“You are?” His eyes said, “Oh, really?”

“Yep. It’s cool out there; it’s actually a nice temperature to ride in right now. Why waste that? I’m going to eat, clean up, and change clothes, and then I’m riding on.”

“A bold plan. The route comes right by here again; you can have breakfast when you get back.”

So back on the road I went, with some trepidation. I’ve done plenty of night rides, but it still takes a bit of nerving up to leave a control at midnight to ride until the sun comes up and beyond. I tried to talk the other riders into joining me, but while they saw the merit in it, none would brave the dark with me. So I pressed on alone. I would ride through the night, finish the second day early, sleep during the heat of the day, and then get up for the third day while it was still cool, and so avoid riding with the sun at its height as much as possible.

It was a good plan. I caught up with Micah Fritzinger, and we rode up to Lodgepole together to visit Mark Thomas, manning the control there in the moonless night like a mysterious, grizzled oracle. I rode down alone, because the recumbent descends like a rocket sled and Micah simply couldn’t hang on, and I arrived back at Naches with the sunrise. That let me get breakfast from the control, and press on before the day warmed up too much. I covered a lot of ground that morning, and it wasn’t until I was through the Rattlesnake Hills, just outside of Hanford, that the almost thirty hours straight of riding and the heat of the day caught up with me. I limped into the Vernita rest area, with 55 miles to go in the hottest part of the day. It was a good plan, and it almost worked.

In Vernita, I ate my last sandwich and refilled my empty water bottles. I really needed the nap I had been putting off to keep pedaling while the day wasn’t at its hottest. Now, it was just too hot and too bright to sleep. Albert Meerscheidt gave me a Gatorade and a pat on the back, and I was off.

I crawled over the next 15 miles to the control at Mattawa. The irrigated farmland around the Columbia River on a 100 degree day is a working definition of hell if you’re on a bicycle. In order to keep their crops from just drying up and blowing away, the farmers there dump lots of water on them. In the hot air, much of that water quickly evaporates. All that evaporated water stays in the air, raising the humidity, and making life absolutely miserable for creatures like randonneurs who count on evaporative cooling to keep from dying.

I sat in the control in Mattawa for a good long time, contemplating my fate. Just the 15 miles from Vernita had left my water bottles almost completely dry and taken almost an hour and a half. With no services for at least the next 30 miles and the day only heating up, I had no idea how I was going to make it the rest of the way to Quincy. I took in some much-needed calories and tried not to think about it.

Finally, when I could procrastinate no longer, I said to hell with it, and got back on my bike. My refreshed ice sock would be completely melted in 8 miles, and even with 3 water bottles, I would probably be out of drinking water before George. But I wasn’t getting any closer to the overnight control just sitting there, and sometimes you just have to take that leap of faith.

The furnace outside sapped my will to live. I thought about what my ride-through-the-night gambit had gotten me. Even at my current snail’s pace I’d get into Quincy early enough. But the area beyond was not conducive to another night ride – there were almost no services there beyond what SIR were providing. So I was limited as to how early a start I could get the next morning. While I had 55 miles of misery today, I was looking at double that for tomorrow.

All the while, I grew increasingly anxious as the water levels in my bottles plummeted and their temperatures skyrocketed. I was maybe halfway to George, just past the first climb on Burke-Beverly Road. Finally, luckily, an angel of an SIR volunteer drove by and pulled ahead to see if I needed anything. With a fresh ice in the sock and refilled bottles, I limped into Quincy.

And none too soon. I was a grumpy, crabby mess. The heat had stewed my brain for 4 hours in equations whose conclusion was that the next day would be a day of torture. I didn’t see any way that I was going to finish this thing, even though I was in a position that almost every other rider on the course would envy. I needed to cool down, I needed to eat, I needed to clean up, I needed to change clothes. Most of all, I needed to sleep.

In the control, I vented, and made kind of a jerk of myself.

I showered and changed.

I ate something.

I checked into a hotel, and went to sleep at 7:30 PM and woke up at 3 AM. Seven and a half hours. The best night’s sleep I’ve had in 2 years.

The ride the next day went a lot better than I had imagined it would. And I realized that I had forgotten the cardinal rule of ultra-distance riding: things never just get worse. These events are so long, you always go through peaks and valleys. And just because you’ve been suffering for a while, that does not mean that you will only continue to suffer. The hill will end, the wind will shift, that Payday bar will hit your bloodstream, or you’ll take a rest, and you will feel better.

I arrived in Mazama in the early evening, the fifth rider in, to applause. My first words as I rolled up were, “THAT was more the hell like it!”

I didn't take either picture shown here. Thanks are due to the lovely people who did.

Now I'm It, Apparently

2008-07-31T14:15:00.000-07:00

Michael tagged me.

If you could have any one – and only one – bike in the world, what would it be?

Do you already have that coveted dream bike? If so, is it everything you hoped it would be? If not, are you working toward getting it? If you’re not working toward getting it, why not?

I own eight bikes, currently. I love bicycling, and whatever I'm going to do, I will find some way to do it on a bicycle. So specialization is the reason for that high number of bikes. Because there are always trade-offs in bicycle design (e.g., a bike built lightly and responsively enough to race probably won't carry a load very well), the first question is basically asking me what I would stop doing on a bike.

Having said that, if I had to live with just a single bike (...with just a single limb), I would choose my Ti Bacchetta Aero. It is the best tool for facilitating the type of riding that is the distillation of what I love best about it: exploring remote, quiet, and beautiful roads. The aero features a sublime combination of speed and comfort. It is equipped to protect me from rain (with fenders) and dark of night (with Schmidt hub and E6 lights). I can load it down with enough baggage to undertake short tours without complaint. There is not another bike made that I would rather ride.

If you had to choose one – and only one – bike route to do every day for the rest of your life, what would it be, and why?

This is a working definition of hell. Riding for me is, at its best, about exploration. Pedaling through an area that I was previously unacquainted with exposes me, unmediated, not only to its sights, but its sounds and smells. The fact that I'm being conveyed by my own muscle power communicates to me exactly what the terrain feels like. I absolutely crave that kind of intimate introduction to the world around me. They say that you never step in the same river twice, and that's fine when you're talking about rivers. It's bullshit as far as roads go, though. If I could only ride one ride every day for the rest of my life, I'd quit riding -- might as well be on a stationary.

What kind of sick person would force another person to ride one and only one bike ride to do for the rest of her / his life?

Well, that's my sentiment exactly. What kind of person are you, oh mysterious interlocutor?

Do you ride both road and mountain bikes? If both, which do you prefer and why? If only one or the other, why are you so narrowminded?

Ostensibly, I ride both. However, the Santa Cruz doesn't see much action these days. Being car-free in Portland is a fine thing, but it definitely limits your opportunities to enjoy good single track.

Have you ever ridden a recumbent? If so, why? If not, describe the circumstances under which you would ride a recumbent.

Up until about 3 months ago, I liked to kid my diamond frame riding brothers by asking, "Can those things go downhill? It seems like you'd catch a lot of wind." Now I have a road racing bike of my own and my respect for folks who can ride them fast and far has gone through the roof. Riding an upright is hard work. It's a fun toy, but it'll never be my chief conveyance. I certainly won't be doing anything longer than a 100k populaire on it.

If it ain't bent, it's broken.

Have you ever raced a triathlon? If so, have you also ever tried strangling yourself with dental floss?

No, I've never raced a triathlon. I also grew frustrated with neopolitan ice cream at an early age: why dilute perfectly good chocolate ice cream by adding bland strawberry and boring vanilla?

My overindulgence of choice is in ultra-cycling.

Suppose you were forced to either give up ice cream or bicycles for the rest of your life. Which would you give up, and why?

My my, you're all about limiting options, aren't you? If you're so diabolically clever as to be able to conceive of and implement a scenario where I would be forced to give up either ice cream or bicycles for the rest of my life, why not use your awesome powers for good, rather than to make me miserable?

Oh, if you must know, I'd give up ice cream over bicycles. Obviously. But what would I put on my pie? Tri-flow?

What is a question you think this questionnaire should have asked, but has not? Also, answer it.

In what part of your bicycle enthusiasm would you say that you are the most "faddish"?

Well, I don't race cyclocross, and I don't ride a fixie or a single-speed. I guess it would have to be my general BOBish-ness. I like wool, wide tires, Carradice bags, and Brooks saddles. It's amazing the extent to which all that has permeated hipster bike culture, at least in Portland. It's also ironic, because Grant Peterson started the whole thing as a sort of "anti-fad" response to carbon fiber, integrated shifting, and suspension forks. It'll be fun to see how it all plays out.

You’re riding your bike in the wilderness (if you’re a roadie, you’re on a road, but otherwise the surroundings are quite wilderness-like) and you see a bear. The bear sees you. What do you do?

I'd start singing. "The other day... I met a bear... a great big bear..." If it joined in, I'd know I was in trouble, because then it would have known to bring its tennis shoes.

Now, tag three biking bloggers. List them below.

Nah. If you're a biking blogger and you're reading this, go ahead and answer if you want. Or if you're procrastinating (like I am.)

Silver Falls 300k Pre-Ride Report

2008-07-28T13:06:00.000-07:00

I'm awake at 3:30 in the morning, an hour and a half before my alarm was set to go off. I'm not getting back to sleep, so if I'm awake, I might as well be pedaling. I hit the road from my house in Southeast Portland at 4:30, and point my bike in the direction of Canby.

Canby is where the Silver Falls 300k starts, and I get there at 6. The Thriftway right by the start has just opened, so I go in to get a chocolate milk and have a pit stop. I'm rolling again by 6:30, heading south on Ivy. Across 99E, and my left turn on Township Road follows quickly.

The first section of the ride, from Canby to Estacada, involves crossing 4 (roughly, depending on how you count) big drainages. The climbs involved are bigger than rollers, but smaller than mountain passes. Most are between .5 miles and 1.5 miles long, and they can be steep. Township has a few regular sized rollers before it T's at Central Point road, a left and a right puts you on Carus Road. Another quick right and you're diving down Casto Road, and then just as quickly you're winching your way up out of the first drainage. This pattern repeats a couple times in this part of the course

The scenery for this section is lovely. A mixture of pastoral landscape, interspersed with fir forests -- very much the picture of rural Oregon in the foothills of the Cascades. The volcanoes -- Hood, Adams, and St. Helens -- are visible as silhouettes in the distance in the overcast morning. Just after I turn from Lower Highland Road onto Ridge Road, I look off to the left and see downtown Portland far distant, which takes me by surprise, because it's easily 20 miles away as the crow flies. The roads are all well paved and quiet early on this Saturday morning.

Finally, I crest Redland Road just past Viola, and turn right on Jubb Road. From here it's a flat mile or two on Springwater Road before I bomb down to Estacada on Hayden Road and Highway 211. I arrive in Estacada in 8:12 and eat a banana.

I leave Estacada on Highway 224, going up the Clackamas River. Just a mile out of town, I turn right onto Faraday Road (PGE's Westside Hydro Project) to bypass the big hill and enjoy a couple quiet miles with the road to myself. The route gets back onto 224 in a few miles, but past Promontory Park, the traffic thins out to almost nothing. People who were on the Timothy 200 will already be acquainted with this stretch of road, and those who were not are in for a treat. River grade until just before Ripplebrook should provide a nice opportunity to get your legs back after the Canby-Estacada section.

I get to Ripplebrook and fill my bottles from the hose bib, which offers the last potable water until Detroit, to the left of the store entrance. The store is open from 9 to 5, and is also the last chance to buy calories before Detroit. I buy a Dr. Pepper to have with my sandwich, and sit in the sun. The day is still cool, and simply perfect for a good pedal. The forest and river provide a nice buffer to keep the temperature mild.

Leaving the ranger station, I pedal through the rollers over the next few miles to the intersection with NFD 63. Right at the junction is Riverford Campground, which is the very last official campground for at least the next 35 miles. Beyond that, the road continues at river grade, but it's a rather aggressive river grade. I feel slow in this section, but it's just that it's steeper than it looks. Over the flood plains of the Clackamas, I make my way with the hill on my left, and alder stands intermittently standing between me and the river on my right. The river is less and less in evidence, and by the time I reach the junction with NFD 42, I've seen the last of it. It's long corridors of fir trees for miles and miles.

The climb to the summit above the Breitenbush River creeps up on me. The Clackamas River grade early on is steep, but intermittent. Sometimes the road flattens out, or the grade slackens enough that it feels flat for a while, only to pick up again. In this way, the road stair-steps up towards the summit. About 21 miles from Ripplebrook, someone has painted a sign on the pavement pointing towards the turnoff to Ollalie Lake, and just beyond that point the climb stops messing around and really hits me with everything. Fortunately, I've got enough elevation in the bank by this point that it's not too much further to the top. At the top there is no elevation marker, alas. There is a mile or so of rollers before I come around a corner and get a spectacular (if slightly occluded) view of Mt. Jefferson, followed shortly by a truck on a triangle that indicates that I'm due for a much-deserved descent.

The top is fast, there's a U-turn to the right, and then rest of the descent is brake-free. I soft pedal on the way down to Detroit, as I'm feeling the effects of my exertions on the climb. The descent is cool and sweet, but not exactly rip-roaring, as the afternoon wind has picked up and it's blowing upriver. Just before I get to the reservoir, I notice a car stopped in the oncoming lane. He's waiting for a family of geese to cross; goose, gander, and goslings all in a row. I'm just about to swoon from the cuteness.

I arrive at Detroit at 1:02, and take another break at the gas station at the intersection with OR 22. I eat my second sandwich accompanied by an incredible raspberry milkshake that I get there. Their deli-restaurant has an extensive menu that you kind of have to read in 360 degrees.

There is a good amount of traffic around the reservoir (as befits a lovely summer weekend), but not as much as one might expect. The shoulder is mostly good, but it does disappear at times. I don't encounter any impatient or overly aggressive drivers. The terrain around the reservoir is rolling for several miles before the road passes the dam and drops away. A mile of screaming descent brings me to the edge of another reservoir. Another drop, and a few more easy miles down the Santiam River and I'm in Gates.

In Gates, I turn off of OR 22 and onto back roads. There's a short steep climb near Gates school, but beyond that I enjoy cycling on quiet, flat country roads from Gates to Mill City to Lyons (with services available in all three.) I arrive in Lyons at 3:08 and take a break to have a V8. Then it's back on the bike, across the Santiam River, onto Ferry Road, and Old Mehama Road not long after. I'm in Stayton at 3:50.

I take a break at the Safeway, imbibing a Dr. Pepper and an Odwalla to buffer the Dr. Pepper. I call Allison to check in, and then I saddle up again, turning north. On my way out of town, I note the Dairy Queen just before I cross OR 22, which would make a nice control checkpoint for randonneurs next week. I go through Sublimity, and on the other side make my right turn onto Triumph Road. Triumph Road has some pretty tough rollers, but also some amazingly hued earth, gold and green, and some black where grass farmers have recently burned. The surface is chipseal, and slightly rough, but the road is very quiet. Right in the middle, there's a roller that rivals the ones on Cole School Road. In a few miles, I meet up with Silver Falls Highway, OR 214, and begin the climb up to the park.

OR 214 isn't a bad road. The traffic picks up over the back roads that I've been on for much of the day, but the surface is good and the grade is middle ring stuff. It is long, however, and the views out over the neighboring hills and valleys are dramatic. After winching myself up over several miles I reach the top of the hill, where there's viewpoint/parking lot with a sign indicating the entrance to the park. I pull myself over the top, and let gravity do its thing.

Silver Falls State Park is densely forested, and the air in the hollow is delightfully cool. The descent is like biting into a York Peppermint Patty. The road nicely layed out, a slalom of 40 mph curves: to the right, to the left, etc. I pull in to the day lodge at 5:22.

One last leg to go, with a net elevation loss. First, though, I have to climb up out of the park. As it turns out, it's a pretty simple proposition: the terrain is uphill, but not steep, and rolling. I reach the park boundary without too much trouble, but the road still trends up for a while. Finally, around 6 miles from the day lodge, the road begins to go downhill. The descent is mildly disappointing, but right near Silverton Reservoir there are two gorgeously engineered switchbacks, with smooth tarmac and the most beautiful camber I have ever seen. Carving through those corners is exhilerating. I roll into Silverton and take one last break, getting a panini and (what else?) a Dr. Pepper at Roth's.

I'm in the home stretch now. Between me and the finish, I'm on Hobart, Meridian, and Lone Elder roads; roads that I cut my teeth on as a distance cyclist. My first century was the Portland Wheelmen's Pioneer Century, which spent time on all three. I've always enjoyed riding them, especially Meridian, which is pretty flat, with just enough undulation to stay interesting; and pretty straight, but with just enough turns to keep you awake. It might be the quality of the atmosphere or the time of day, but the green hues in the fields of Elliott Prairie are the greenest that I've ever seen in this area. The miles fly by, and I'm back in Canby at 8:28, with a finishing time of 13:58.

Now all I have to do is pedal home. *sigh*

Timothy 200k Pre-Ride Report

2008-07-10T17:33:00.000-07:00

Lynne and Cecil picked me up early Sunday morning, with perfect timing. I had just finished my cereal, yoghurt, and nectarine breakfast; I had constructed my sandwiches for the outing, and had not yet drunk my coffee. Lacking a travel mug for the brew, I put it into a jam jar and screwed down the lid, to be drunk later. We then loaded up the car and chatted amiably as we drove out to the ride start at the edge of the Cascade foothills, far to the southeast of Portland.

We assembled our bikes in the parking lot of PGE’s West Side Hydro Project. I took the chance to admire Cecil’s custom HW Jr. and Lynne’s very pretty Bleriot. I got my own steed put together, outfitted myself appropriately for the weather, and I was ready to go. There was a small amount of faffing, to be sure.

We rolled around the gate onto Faraday road, along the reservoirs on this part of the Clackamas, under grey skies. It was unseasonably cool, and I worried about what things would be like as we gained elevation, and about the possibility of rain. Fortunately, my concern was unfounded: the cool start was a blessing, and by noon the weather had warmed up nicely without becoming oppressive.

We rolled along at a convivial pace, and took a quick bathroom break at Promontory Park, about 7 miles from the start. Cecil and Lynne took advantage of the gentle river grade to take some snapshots from the saddle. We passed forest service facilities like Lazy Bend, Big Eddy, Carter Bridge, Lochaby, Armstrong, and Roaring River. Roaring River really does roar. Finally, I took a break near Indian Henry to shed a layer and let the women continue on.

Past Indian Henry is the first point where the road climbs so that you’d feel it, about a mile and a half up. Then there’s some fun rollers through the woods and you’re at Ripplebrook Ranger Station. There’s a store there, but it doesn’t open until 9 AM, so most riders will have passed through. We took an 8 AM start, so we were able to poke our noses in and see what they had available. Chips, soda, candy, and hotdogs, basically. There’s also a hose-bib to the left of the front door. It’s a good idea to top off your bottles here, as there’s no more public water before High Rock.

We did this ourselves. The sky was blue and sunny by this point, so we adjusted our clothing accordingly, and applied sunscreen. Some of us took advantage of the nearby outhouse. Finally, we rolled on.

There was a quick downhill and a sweeper to the right, and it was time to turn left off of OR 224 and onto NFD 57. This quiet road climbs away from the main highway along the Oak Grove Fork of the Clackamas River, at a grade that both Cecil and I described as “humane”. It’s definitely a climb, and you’ll notice it, but it won’t break you. It’s also nicely shaded, low in traffic, and blessed with a good surface. It starts off at its steepest, and then levels off as you proceed, before descending back down to river level. It had been closed to cars because of a slide for several years, but appears to have been reconstructed in the last year or so.

Once we were back at river level, we crossed the Oak Grove Fork. We then rolled along next to some tall stands of trees and “dispersed camping” sites for a mile or so before we arrived at our next junction, with NFD 58. NFD 57 turns to gravel here before starting the climb in earnest up to Timothy Lake, so we turned left and started the 7 mile climb up to High Rock.

I had only ever been on this road a couple times before, and had never climbed the whole thing on my bike. Fortunately, it was not as steep going up it as it looked like it was when I came down it. There was also occasional shade, although the sun was high enough in the sky at this point that shelter from it was unlikely. I passed the time by identifying wildflowers: I noted columbine, beargrass, lupine, trilliums, paintbrush, penstemon, tiger lilies and others. About a half mile before the top, the grade really did get a bit steep, but then before I knew it I was at the crest, with High Rock standing right there in front of me.

As I waited for Lynne and Cecil, a couple of riders arrived coming the opposite direction. They asked for directions for the “35 mile loop” around Timothy Lake. I asked if they meant the one with the 7 mile section of gravel. That was kind of a shock to them.

Cecil and Lynne showed up not long after, and we took a break to eat some lunch. I told them that I recalled there being a mile or so of flat or light climbing, and then it was largely downhill to Timothy Lake. When we got moving again, the facts bore out my recollection. We were treated to wonderful views of Mt. Jefferson and Timothy Lake below us before beginning a downhill rollercoaster of a fast descent followed by a short bump to climb over, which was in turn followed by another fast descent, and so on. The pavement was solid but uneven for this stretch, and the sight lines weren’t great, so I kept a reign on my speed.

We regrouped near the entrance to one of Timothy Lake’s campgrounds (where water should be available) before going the last couple miles to our next turn, a right onto NFD 42. In the opposite direction, NFD 42 is one of the main roads back up to Highway 26, so there was a bit more traffic here than on any of the roads we’d been on yet, but even so, it was pretty light. 4 miles of rollers brought us to a pretty meadow and the junction with the other end of NFD 57. We bore left to stay on NFD 42, and arrived at the Historic Cascade Lakes Ranger Station a couple hundred feet down the road.

The site of the ranger station is interesting. There are some interpretive signs, there’s a staging area for firefighters, and there is a really nifty cabin for rent. Water is available, and there is even a bathroom with a genuine flush toilet. There’s also a view of the beautiful meadow across the road. We took a short break there, and contemplated all the climbing we’d done so far.

We set out again on NFD 42, down a corridor of fir trees. Had the sun not been so high, we’d have had plenty of lovely shade, but as it was, it beat down on us a little bit. The road started off flat, but after a mile or so began to climb again, stair-stepping back up to an altitude of 4000’. At the top, we reached the junction with Peavine Road, which the route was supposed to follow.

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. Peavine Road looked bombed out and depleted. An SUV came lumbering down it. I asked the occupants if the road was paved further up, and they responded very much in the negative.

Fortunately, by the time Cecil and Lynne caught up, I had come up with a plan. While I was staring at the map looking for roads to use on this route, I had entertained several possibilities. There was nothing to stop us from simply proceeding on NFD 42 to where it rejoined NFD 46 (which in turn becomes OR 224). It would be a little more mileage, but the route featured an out-and-back to Bagby that we could shave some distance off to balance things out. No problem. My two companions took the revised plan in stride, and we set off again, chased off by mosquitoes.

The fantastic downhill on NFD 42 from the junction with Peavine didn’t hurt my case any. We roared down the road, the forest air cooling us off as we slipped through it. We regrouped a couple miles later, where Oregon Skyline road separates from NFD 42 and goes off to Olallie Lake, and then again in .7 miles, where NFD 42 makes a hard left at a junction. This was just a glorious stretch of road, mostly descending, no difficult climbs, nicely engineered turns, and really good, smooth tarmac. There were some clearcuts at the top, but also some really beautiful woods at the bottom. We did encounter several vehicles on their way up the road, so when you’re descending, in the case of a blind corner, be sure to always assume that someone will be in the oncoming lane.

I was first to the bottom. Cecil followed shortly after, with arms upraised as though she had just won a tour stage, and Lynne not far behind. Lynne proclaimed the descent very “Lynne-friendly”. Good times.

Most of the rest of the ride we would be following the Clackamas River downstream, and almost all of it would be downhill. Unfortunately, the hours in the saddle and the climbing had taken their toll, and the afternoon upriver wind had picked up. I was doing okay on my bent, but Lynne and Cecil had a hard time of it, pushing against the breeze. We pushed down the river to the junction with NFD 63, and did our out-and-back below the cliffs on the Collawash River. Then we tackled the rollers between us and Ripplebrook, and, arriving there, refilled our bottles.

The last miles back to the start went quickly enough for me. I was starting to bonk, though, so paradoxically I was having trouble staying back with my riding partners. When I’m out of food and hungry, my overriding impulse is to get to food as quickly as I can. Nevertheless, I did stop and wait for my friends several times to make sure they were doing okay. We stopped at the market at Promontory Park a few miles from the car to get some provisions that would take the edge off. Then we finished up by finding our way back onto Faraday Road, went past the car, and into Estacada and back again to round out the mileage.

Bicycles: Toys, Tools, or...?

2008-04-01T13:17:00.000-07:00

Alan Bernard over at the Recumbent Blog has taken a stab at the age-old question of bicycles as toys vs. tools. Now, I ride a bike every day for transportation. I have ridden to work, to school, to visit friends, to go shopping -- everywhere -- my whole life. I do so in all kinds of weather -- sun, rain, wind, or snow -- and in the day or at night. My bikes are outfitted to let me do so as comfortably as possible. I have bags and racks to let me carry loads, I have fenders to keep the rain and snow off of my back and legs, I have good lights to let me ride safely after the sun goes down. So it may surprise you to hear that I don't come down entirely on Alan's side in this one.

The thing is, I do all of the riding I described above, and yet "utility" cycling still only constitutes maybe 1/4 of the miles I do in a year. When I think about the place cycling occupies in my life, it is the rides out to the coast, or up the Columbia River, or around Mt. Hood that figure most prominently. And while racks, lights, and fenders give a bike an air of Sam the Eagle seriousness, racks carry camping equipment as well as groceries, lights are just as necessary for riding a fleche as they are for commuting in winter, and fenders are just a good idea for whatever kind of riding you do here in the northwest, be it serious or frivolous. I use my bikes that are equipped thusly for both purposes. And here's the dirty secret: I have fun whenever I ride my bike, even if I'm ostensibly doing it for some practical purpose. So, if a reasonable definition of a toy is an object that facilitates fun, in what meaningful way are my bikes distinguishable from toys? If most of my riding is done for recreation, if even my supposedly "practical" riding puts a smile on my face, where is the distinction?

Sure, it's useful to be able to respond to the occasional curmudgeonly motorist who accuses cyclists of clogging up the roadways frivolously. But these people are singling us out because we're easily identified as "others", not because they have a leg to stand on. At any given time, lots of motorists are on the road for recreational purposes, and the congestion they cause is far worse than that caused by cyclists' miniscule presence in public rights-of-way. However, while I will deny to my dying day the part of the charge that says that I am clogging the roadways, I must throw myself on their mercy for the part that says that I am out there frivolously. Am I having fun? You bet. You might be, too, if you were pedaling.

In his post, Alan goes through the most common phyla of bikes you'll find in a bike store, and dismisses them all: "I’d volunteer that all of these bikes are only marginally useful as anything other than toys." Well, I'd like to take a different view. There isn't a bike in any store that can't accept any light made, from budget-priced Planet Bike LED's to top-line Night Rider HID lights to generator powered Busch & Mueller halogens. Fenders are often standard equipment on the cruisers that Mr. Bernard mentions, and the commonly available "Race Blade" design can be fitted to even the most race-oriented road frame. Cargo presents a bit more of a challenge, but seat- and handlebar-bags have been available for years, messenger bags are commonly available, and for many, the humble backpack serves just fine.

Most importantly, all bicycles provide movement -- it's the whole point -- and mobility is inherently practical. I've ridden both my skinny-tired, unfendered race bike and my knobby-tired full-suspension mountain bike to work. Conversely, I don't think anyone who was otherwise predisposed to ride a bike for practical purposes was dissuaded from doing so because their equipment limited them, at least not long term. If you are the type of person who might actually ride in the rain, you will get fenders eventually. The bicycle is such an awesome, flexible design that I believe that the way it is used pretty accurately reflects the desires of the people who use it. If manufacturers make more commuter bikes, it doesn't follow that they will make more commuters.

The point is, bicycles are fun. I want people to enjoy their bicycles. That is the best way to get people to ride them more. Then the market will provide them with the tools to do the type of riding they want to do.

7/21/2007 to 7/22/2007 -- Race Across Oregon

2007-07-26T11:37:00.000-07:00

There will never be a book written on my ultra-racing exploits. But if there was, George Thomas and Terri Gooch's Race Across Oregon would have to feature prominently. It's hard to believe that, a little over three years ago, I thought it crazy to attempt it as part of a four-man team. My how things change: last year, when I was looking for my next challenge after riding in the Furnace Creek 508, and after the memories of the pain and fatigue had dissipated, the race that starts right out my backdoor suggested itself as an entirely reasonable (ha!) proposition. I already knew the course intimately, transportation of myself and my bike to the start line wasn't a problem, and it couldn't be *that* much harder than the 508, right?

That first factor was more of a positive than you might think. Race Across Oregon features a tough, tough course, and it would seem that in knowing it so well, I should know better. But it is also true beyond any doubt that cycling over ground that you know well simply feels easier and faster than riding a course that you've never seen, and that's an advantage not to be underestimated. Having done much of the RAO course 3 times, I knew the location of every turn and the length of every climb; I could visualize the whole thing. And besides, I had been designated climber for OHPV's relay teams the past two years, so all I was adding to the stuff that I had done before were the downhills (heh!)

I was also lucky to be able to draw from a pool of experienced crew members who had helped with the relays for my support team. Edna Van Gundy, Bruce Parker, Lonnie Morse, and Mandy Achterman stepped up and did a bang-up job keeping me moving down the road, and Edna's husband Dave also helped in relief. They were unfailingly cheerful and responsive in tending to my needs, which is critical because on an ultra race, I need to devote as much time and energy as I possibly can to just pushing the pedals. The more of the other stuff they can take off my plate, the better race I'll have.

The morning of the race came, and as usual, the night before I slept very little. Edna arrived just after 4 to take me to the airport Holiday Inn for my 5 am start. It was an unseasonably dark and dismal morning, which, in fact was a blessing. I would get past the rain after I crested the summit of Mount Hood, and the forecast over the rest of the course was for really lovely, mild temperatures. In spite of the drizzle, I made a game-time decision to just start off in a long sleeve wool jersey and my knee-length cycling shorts. The wool jersey did a great job of keeping me quite comfortable, even as the drizzle accumulated on it.

We rolled down the familiar Marine Drive in a parade start, and just before we got to Troutdale and the official start of competition, I got a flat. I hoped that this was just me getting my issues out of the way early, rather than an omen of things to come. I fixed the tire quickly, we proceeded on to Troutdale, and then turn right, up the wall that is Buxton Hill, and the race began.

A few riders made it to the top before me, but me and my Aero shined on the rollers around Orient. I was pushing a little, maybe getting too competitive this early in the race, but it really just felt like I was getting warmed up and settling into a groove. I got to Boring, and then Sandy at the front of the pack.

I made it through Sandy, and then disaster struck; though I didn't know it at the time. I was waiting at the last traffic light in town, it turned green, and I accelerated through it, when I heard a pop, and it felt like the drive-side seat stay had slipped. I assumed that I hadn't sufficiently tightened down the clamps on them, cursed, and pulled over to tighten them down. I cursed my luck as four riders passed me while I was making my adjustment. The clamps hadn't seemed that loose, though, and the bike still felt wonky as I reeled in several of the riders who had passed me on the descent to the Sandy River valley.

I caught the lead rider again, and took a quick break near Zig Zag to empty my bladder and change to a lighter jersey. Starting off again, I heard another pop, and again, it felt like my seat stay had slipped. At this point, I torqued my left knee trying to unclip to catch myself. I called my crew over, but again, we could not detect any lack of tightness in the seat clamps, so I pedaled on.

The bike felt like a noodle at that point. Then, just past Rhodedendron, I got another pop, and I knew something was seriously wrong, and it wasn't the seat stay. I motioned for my crew to pull over immediately. I told them that there was something dangerously wrong with the bike, and I didn't know what it was. Fortunately, I had the foresight to bring my trusty titanium Aero as a backup bike. Unfortunately, since it was the backup, I hadn't been quite as diligent in dialing it in in my pre-race maintenance. I switched bikes as quickly as I could, and pushed on up over Mount Hood, but the the brake pads were giving me serious rub on the rims the whole way. Degree of difficulty, man -- it seems to be just a part of my life sometimes.

The difficulty that I had with the climb, coupled with the loss of my first-line bike and my distance behind the leaders put me in kind of a low place. I had really thought that with all my hard work this year, that I had a chance to win the whole race. But given how much trouble I was having so early, I felt like I had already been beaten. Not a good place to be, mentally, when you're facing another 475 miles and 37,000 feet of climbing.

I got over Summit pass and the drizzle slackened. Then I crested Barlow and Bennett passes, and the sky lightened, and it warmed up. Following that, I got a screaming downhill on highway 35, and I saw my friend Nate, who was camping near the course, and who was there by the side of the road with his friends to ring cowbells and shout encouragement. All of which added up to raise my spirits. I decided I wasn't out of this thing yet. I motioned my crew over at the bottom of forest service road 44, and we opened my brake calipers wide, to get rid of the rub, and then I pushed on up over Surveryor's Ridge towards Dufur. On that climb -- perhaps my favorite of the whole course -- I finally found a good rhythm. I passed two or three riders on that road, and screamed past Dufur, and up the broad desert climb of US 197 to the top of Tygh Ridge. I was right back in that thing.

At that point, I confered with my crew. They wanted to go ahead now and fuel up in Maupin, so that they could give me lots of support on Bakeoven Road (which is every bit as hot and desolate as the image that its name conjures). I okayed this, even though my instincts screamed no, that this was too early, and that they were leaving me alone for too long. My head was totally in the race, and I didn't have the mental faculties to put up an argument. The van zoomed ahead.

I roared down into Tygh Valley, across the bottom, and up the other side. On the climb to the plateau above Maupin, I clawed my way into 3rd place or so. But just before the top, I heard the ineveitable hiss as my bike's handling on the rear end went all flat-fishy. I walked my bike the last couple hundred feet to the top of the hill, where a couple course marshals were observing things. I made a couple snarky remarks about how this just wasn't me day, and they were sympathetic.

I fell into a low place, all the lower for having come so close to bouncing back and rejoining the elite. My knee was starting to act up from having been twisted on the other side of the mountain. And I was standing by the side of the road in the middle of a desert, walking in a bike race. The letters D, N, and F came into my head. Not to say that I wanted to throw in the towel, but my head was considering the possibility.

And at that moment, I thought about James Yee. How, during the Glacier ride, he kept plugging along, carefully managing his time to pedal 1000 kilometers without the benefit of more than 2 consecutive hours of sleep. Often passing people who had hours earlier decided to DNF because they thought didn't have enough time to get to the next control. You can argue about how much success I've had as a distance rider and ultra racer, but however much I've had, it'd come easy for me to that point. My toughness had never been tested the way James Yee's has, or the way Patty-Jo Struve's has. I decided right then and there that this was my challenge. I wasn't shooting for the podium anymore. Boo-frickin'-hoo. There was plenty of time left on the clock, and I was still capable of pedalling. I made up my mind, I was in this thing until I finished or they dragged me off the bike.

My friends Keith and Alex showed up in their red Prius. I told them the situation, and they tore off to find my crew. Then a couple minutes later, my crew appeared in the distance. They pulled up to me and threw a new wheel on the bike, and I took off down the road. I had gotten maybe a half mile away when my front wheel went flat. I could still see the van. I waited a few minutes before they pulled back onto the road to catch me, and then we swapped out that wheel, too. I decided this second flat, following so closely on the heels of the first was the universe's sophomoric idea of a joke, which only made me more determined to press on.

Back onto the bike, across the rest of the desert plateau, and down the slalom into Maupin. Through town, across the river, and a hard left into a brick wall. Or, more precisely, the steep switchbacks of Bakeoven Road. Same difference. The day was heating up, my knee was bugging me, and the hill was tough. In spite of that, there's nothing like forward progress to raise one's spirits.

I winched my way up the hill, grinding up the steep initial 4 miles out of the canyon. My water supply started getting low right when I needed some extra to dump over my head to quell the midday sun, and I wondered where my crew was. Fortunately, it wasn't long before Keith and Alex were there to top off my bottles. I made it to the rim of the canyon, and regrouped with the van. Then it was time to tackle the most desolate section of the course, the desert rollers and steep climb up to Shaniko. Not a single tree nor a speck of green was anywhere to be seen, not one bit of shade to be found for the next 20 miles. I made it to the base of the climb up to 97 in fairly good shape, but my feet were starting to get the numb-hot sensation that presaged my biggest obstacle in ultraracing. I gritted my way up the hill and into Shaniko, but by the time I got there, my feet were in agony.

I took a rest stop at the gas station in that little ghost town, and had a V8. I switched the inserts in my shoes, too, in the hope that that would alleviate the foot problems for a little while. While I rested, a couple of the relay teams caught and passed me. Then it was time to get back on the bike to do the gentle climb up out of town, which I shared with the women's Hammershark team rider for a couple miles. I told her that there was an awesome technical descent down into Antelope coming up that she'd love, and not long after that, I got to do it myself.

I roared down through Antelope, and began to climb up along the creek bed on the other side. The climb out of Antelope is moderately difficult, but I've always had a great deal of affection for it. It winds up the hillside next to a creek drainage, and as the road carries you around its corners, the dry landscape unfolds in a series of gorgeous vistas. I've always felt that this part of the course was most like a tour stage on some imaginary Col in Provence. In years before, it felt all the more so because the Speedwagon team would usually catch a few riders there, and seeing the cyclists and their support ahead and behind on the winding road really put me in mind of the fact that this was a real race. This time, Keith conjured the illusion by dancing around on the side of the road with his shirt off like some kind of cycling hooligan.

The most spectacular vista was reserved for the top of the hill, though. As I crested it, I saw the basalt crenelations around the John Day River for miles to the north and south, with the patchy clouds of the sky breaking up its brilliant blue. I knew it was coming, but it still took my breath away, as it has every time I've cycled this course. I scarcely had time to take in the scene before gravity took me by the tether and I was doing 45 mph, with the moderately technical curves in the road demanding my full attention.

Before I knew it, I was at the river and sailing up the mile climb on the other side, then down the other side to the John Day Fossil Beds. There, the parched vegetation below the dramatic rock formations gave the landscape an alien quality. I wended my way up the canyon amidst those formerly distant crenelations, on a road grade that started off gentle but which gradually steepened. Finally I reached Pine Creek and knew that it was all business all the way to the top. My feet were bothering me again and the next five miles were a slog. But I kept pedaling, and when you keep pedaling, eventually you get there. I made it to the top and easily rolled down into time station 2, the town of Fossil.

At Fossil, I realized that I needed a break and that I needed to make some changes. The Perpetuem just wasn't doing it for me -- I was taking it in as fast as I could, but I simply wasn't getting any energy from it. I felt enervated, and my mouth was starting to get some painful sores. I changed my nutrition plan as much as I could with what I had to work with, asking my crew to emphasize variety as much as possible. Stuart Kronenberg, crewing for Team Falcon, was a huge help in donating two precious bottles of Ensure from their stores. I also changed insoles again, to get my feet back on track. While I was recovering, Adam Garmon showed up and took a rest on the bench next to me. He looked in a bad way, but I encouraged him as much as I could, reassuring him that he could look forward to things getting much better. I hope that he took some comfort from what I said, and was gratified to see that he successfully finished the race.

It was a profound discovery for me when I realized that your condition doesn't just go downhill at these events. It has been a huge source of strength for me to know that just because things are bad now does not mean that they will only get worse. You'll have good times and bad times, and then more good times. And when you're having one of those bad times, it's just a huge mental advantage to know that it's temporary. That is just the way of things when you're doing 500 miles. A century, sure, your condition might just go downhill, but an ultra event leaves plenty of time for fluctuations.

Knowing the course, though, I knew that both Adam and I were due for a good spell. The first 200 miles of Race Across Oregon has an elevation profile that looks like a saw blade. Once you get to Zig Zag, the only stretch between there and Fossil that lays off the climbing long enough to really be considered a rest is the descent down into Dufur. Everywhere else, you're either climbing or "reseting" for your next climb. But once you've gotten to Fossil, the course has done its worst. Before each of the next three steep climbs you get a long, relatively flat section that lets you recover and stay loose, so it's much easier to tackle each of those climbs as a single piece. It's the one-two combination that's really brutal.

Well, time to get back on the bike. A pretty, wooded stretch through pastures, with an easy climb up to Butte Creek Pass followed Fossil. And on the other side of the pass, a supersonic, 11 mile non-technical descent down to Service Creek and the John Day River again. We took a quick stop at Service Creek to buy some fruit and fruit juice to bring some variety to my diet, and then I settled into a groove as I pedaled along at river grade for the next 40 miles. I made Spray by nightfall, which made me feel good (the Speedwagon teams only got a bit further before dark), my feet were feeling fine in the cooling evening air, and I had plenty of energy when I got to Monument.

The flat section up to Monument is something of a mixed blessing. It gives you time to recover, but it also gives you plenty of time to contemplate what lies beyond. And that is a steep, winding, brutal 11 mile climb. As I have said before, it's the kind of road that makes you wonder what would possess someone to build a road there, rather than choosing some cheaper, easier option. Like on-demand helicopter service to shuttle people between the top and bottom of the hill, for instance. It's beautiful country, but it's the kind of road that one should not be on if one is prone to vertigo, so it was good to tackle it at night.

As I gained altitude, the air took on a biting chill. My knee started to remind me that I was not at 100%. The road snaked up and around switchbacks, and onto the tops of ridges. Just past Hamilton, the route tracked along a stream cut up to the plateau at the peak. Then, finally, I crested the top, and flew down the other side to get a running start on the rolling hills that come after the major climb. I still had enough oomph in the legs to power through, and before I knew it, I was sailing down into Long Creek, the third time station and the furthest out point on the course.

It was time for a nap. The need to sleep was starting to wash over me like the incoming tide. I took a seat in the van, and told my crew to wake me up in 15 minutes. I closed my eyes, and let unconsciousness take me over. The next thing I knew, I heard my breath catch slightly, and I roused myself. It had been 10 minutes, and I was ready to go again.

Up out of Long Creek I pursued Bruce Carroll to the highest point on the course until Timberline. I caught him at the top as he paused to bundle up, and plummetted into the gloom down to the ghost town of Fox. After a gentle but extended climb I reached Bear Creek Summit. Then the fun began.

From Bear Creek Summit, it's 16 miles of consistent creek grade downhill to Mt. Vernon, where the course makes a right turn onto Highway 26. Highway 26 spends another 35 or 40 miles tracking the John Day River with a downhill grade of maybe a half percent. It's a fast, fast section; not like a downhill, but in a way better. It's a flat that makes you feel strong. And boy, did it make me feel strong. I got to Mt. Vernon and passed the psychic wreckage of a couple of my fellow racers who were on the verge of throwing in the towel. Then I wound up the cranks and simply did not let up. I had to pee, but I just was not going to stop. The bike flew low as the highway snaked back and forth across the river valley. I found myself passing through Dayville, and then not much later, arriving at the entrance to the Picture Canyon. I allowed myself a quick stop there, just as the sky was starting to show the first glimmers of the breaking day. I was encouraged by my progress, calculating that I would be on Ochoco Pass before things got too hot.

The river to this point had followed the track that one expects of a conventional river. The John Day runs through a broad, flat valley, with hills on either side. At the Picture Canyon, though, the river goes crazy and just up and flows right into one of the walls that had bordered it to that point. The water takes a path into a severe, vertical notch with a tidy shelf that is just big enough to hold the highway comfortably. We plunged into the rock with the road and the river, and followed US 26 up Rock Creek to begin the long, gentle ascent to Keyes Creek Summit. A few miles in, I needed another catnap, so my crew and I took another break.

I hadn't seen this stretch of road since my reconnaissance tour with Carolyn, two and a half years ago. The scenery is quite captivating, and features several distinct sections as you follow the creek to its headwaters. As I was climbing, I got my first indication that John Schlitter and Sarah Kay Carrell's team was catching up to me when I saw their crew go by. Before the riders also caught me, I reached the top and flew down the steep drop past Mitchell, the town with the caged bear at the gas station.

Mitchell was a blur, and beyond it the road once again put me on an uphill creek grade, which this time was steeper and longer than I remembered. I slogged along, and kept thinking I was closer to the main event than I actually was. Then I finally got to the base of Ochoco Pass just as John Schlitter caught me. I wasn't feeling particularly strong, and my knee was talking to me, but when John went by I somehow tapped into my Ochoco Pass mojo and kept him within sight, just as I had kept Gerry's Kids within striking distance back in 2005. It didn't go by easily, but over the course of my four ascents of Ochoco the climb and I have developed a healthy respect for each other, and it succumbed after I put in the necessary work. Towards the top, John fell off the pace and I edged him for the polka-dot jersey, but he returned the favor on the downhill and I didn't see him again.

The descent from the pass to Prineville is much more dramatic than the grade from Mt. Vernon to Dayville, but a headwind made it more work, even in the midst of the lush pine forests and twisty canyons on that side of the mountains. At least it felt like more work. To be honest, I was pretty out of it for this stretch. Don't tell my crew, but I was on the verge of nodding off again near the reservoir. The uptick in traffic as I got closer to Prineville jolted me back into the present, though, and by the time I reached time station 4, I was pretty alert again, if somewhat shellacked.

I rolled into Prineville and took a long breather on 25 square feet of green grass in the gas station parking lot. I was once again feeling a lack of calories; the Perpetuem was becoming less and less sufficient. I was stalled, basically. I determined to take a rest and try to get some more calories into me, and to get as much off the pure liquid as I possibly could.

The crew took a rest too, but being as it was full daylight again, their close attention was once again no longer mandatory, so I took off while they were still getting reorganized. I headed out of town and across the rollers around the Crooked River Grassland still feeling kind of enervated. But then the food kicked in, and I got some really enthusiastic and timely encouragement from some of the teams and crews that passed me, and my pace picked up. In this stretch, Dave Van Gundy brought Mandy Achterman as a relief pitcher for Bruce Parker, and their energy and perspective were a big help, too.

Madras came, and I pulled up to the flatlands above town, though there was not enough of a tailwind for me to take the hill in my big ring as I had last year. A few flat miles across the irrigated plateau, and then the world fell away and the road ribboned down a ledge on the canyon wall to the Deschutes River. I asked Mandy to keep the cars from passing me too closely by following me down, which she did. At the bottom, they zipped off to find a place to let me leap frog. I was low on water, and after passing one perfectly good pull out after another, I was getting pretty nervous about my hydration and my tires. One team crew on the roadside gave me cheery encouragement, to which I responded with a panicked "where the **** is my crew??" Finally, I caught up with them at the turn off to Kah Nee Ta, and I got my water.

At the turn off, I made a mistake. As you leave US 26 to head north into the reservation, the road climbs rather steeply. Well, I was feeling pretty good, and felt like I was starting the home stretch, so I hit the hill pretty aggressively. My knee really didn't like that, and let me know in no uncertain terms. I backed way off on the next couple climbs. Also, the day was really heating up, and there's nowhere on the course that you feel the day's heat more than on the reservation. Correspondingly, my feet, which had been so trouble-free in the cool night and morning air, started to hurt again.

I took it easy on the ridiculous technical descent down to the junction to Kah Nee Ta, and took it easy going up the other side, winching my way up the ridiculous climb from Kah Nee Ta to Simnasho. I was really starting to boil under the sun, and I had to stop halfway up that steep, switchback filled hill. Over the top, on the flat section to the village, there was none of the hoped-for tailwind (as we'd had in previous years) and there were several miles of abysmal chip seal. Past the village the road improved, and I did the rollers and the last climb out of the reservation. I knew the descent to Wapinitia very well, and just let the bike roll through its twisty turns.

Then I turned west. That just left me with one more hill: Mt. Hood. I truly was in the home stretch now. I just needed one more break in Pine Grove. I raided the van for whatever actual, real food I could find. I even grabbed some food from my crew's stores that they had been saving for themselves, which they very generously offered. Thus fortified, I stayed on the bike the rest of the way.

Pulling myself up 216, 26, 43, and 48 was an exercise in perseverence. My energy was low, my knee had devolved since I had stupidly pushed too hard on it in Warm Springs, and I was physically tired and mentally exhausted. I was out of tricks. I had no more cards to play, no more resources except sheer, blind, mule-headed determination. But that's the nice thing about stubborness; when you have it, it's the last thing to desert you.

I got to the start of forest service road 43 at around 7, which I thought was quite respectably early. I zipped down to forest service road 48, and hummed along that road up to highway 35. I was almost cheery again as Edna passed me pieces of orange from the car window. We got several spectacular views of the mountain with a cloud draped over it in the waning daylight. Then I regained the ground that I had covered in the other direction the day before, and soon found myself at the bottom of the climb up to Timberline.

I've done lots of climbs in this state. I've done just about all of them on the course, most several times. Before this year's Race Across Oregon, however, I'd never done the 6 miles from Government Camp up to Timberline in their entirety. I had mastered Ochoco Pass, I had figured out the Monument climb. The steep pitches on either side of Clarno on the John Day River were friends of mine and Bakeoven held no fear for me. Timberline was still an unknown, though. I truly was in the home stretch now, so I attacked it. Judging from the parts of it that I had done, when I'm fresh, I should be able to do it without even needing my little chainring.

I was decidedly not fresh.

I covered the first mile quite strongly before my knee started complaining and I could simply no longer sustain the energy. I settled into a slightly slower, but still steady pace, and resigned myself to a weak debut time for this hill. Things went fine until I was 2.5 miles from the top, when my knee decided to stop working altogether. I could no longer exert any force with my left leg on the pedals without experiencing excruciating pain. I bellowed in pain and frustration.

I signaled my crew to pull over, and they helped me off the bike. We tried a number of things, including walking and a little rest, but I couldn't go far at all before the knee flared up again. Finally, Mandy made me down a fistful of ibuprofen, and Lonnie strapped an icepack to my knee. If this didn't work, then I would just walk the rest of the way -- as much admiration and respect as I have for the guy, there was absolutely no way I was going to join the John Spurgeon club, and I had plenty of time. Fortunately, there was no need. The NSAIDs and ice pack did the trick, and I -- gingerly -- winched myself the rest of the way up the hill, in the dark, to Timberline Lodge, where George and Terri and my father and my best friend were all waiting. I came around the last corner to a cheer, and crossed the finish line before collapsing on the ground.

6/30/2007 to 7/2/2007 -- Glacier 1000k

2007-07-26T11:36:00.000-07:00

Day 1 -- Troutdale to Connell

Degree of difficulty as it pertains to randonneuring: still an imperfectly understood concept, apparently. My friend Philippe and I arrived at the start of Oregon Randonneurs' Glacier 1000k a few minutes after 5, and were lazily pottering around for a 6 am start, when it got to be 5:40 and no one else had arrived yet. Knowing the drill, I asked, "where is everyone else?" Didn't really need to hear the answer; the ride start was 5 am. *Sigh*

Phil and I saddled up and ventured off into the foggy morning, up the familiar Columbia Gorge scenic highway. We rationalized our error by telling ourselves that we would probably catch many of the riders in front of us, and we would have a chance to chat with a bunch of folks that neither of us would usually see on one of these rides. We soon found ourselves at Crown Point where Michael Rasmussen signed our still-pristine brevet cards, and we whooped as we sailed down the empty, perfectly smooth road. The scenic highway snaked down the hillside through the trees, through carved cliffs and past freshening cascades.

We soon caught up with our first fellow randonneur, James Yee from California. He was ambling along, just past Multnomah Falls when we overtook him. We chatted for a little while, and then Phil and I pressed onwards. Given Mr. Yee's pace and how little ground he had yet covered, Phil and I pegged him as a likely DNF candidate. But you never know in randonneuring -- there are hares, and there are tortoises.

In any case, Phil and I were no longer the lanternes rouge, and we had more and more opportunities to chat with people that we overtook. That resolution fell by the wayside pretty quickly. Phil and I tend to egg each other on to keep those pedals turning -- whatever the attraction of randonneuring esprit de corps, the gravitational pull of the evening's control is greater for us. We reached Cascade Locks, and crossed the Columbia, taking up SR 14 on the other side of the river in Washington.

We would be on SR 14 for the lion's share of the day's miles. The road would take us from the cool shade of the Douglas Firs of the Cascade Range through the desert landscapes of The Dalles and Maryhill to the irrigated fields around Umatilla. We passed 2 dams, an aluminum smelter, the Maryhill Art Museum, a World War I memorial, and numerous small towns. We took breaks at Bingen, Maryhill, Roosevelt, and Patterson. Our stop in Roosevelt was particularly nice, as we had the company of a half-dozen other randonneurs, and the velo-supportive storekeeper there has a guest book for cyclists to sign.

Finally, late in the hot day, it was time for Phil and I to leave SR 14, turning north on Plymouth Road. I was feeling the heat and the almost 300k we'd done to that point, and started lagging somewhat. Plymouth Road was also one of those desert climbs that are broad and go up to a vanishing point on an unbroken horizon, which gives your mind nothing to latch onto to gauge what kind of grade you're working on. I hate those; I always feel like I'm working harder than I should be on them. However, it also appears that in spite of that, I also go faster on them than I think, because we made pretty good time up to the summit, and then we had a fast and fun descent into the tri-cities. We met Phil's mom and several other randonneurs at a Subway in Kennewick and had some well-earned dinner. I was caked with salt and was looking forward to a rinse that evening.

After dinner, the two of us wound through Kennewick and Pasco, and headed north out of town along some railroad tracks. We went right by the Pasco Hump Yard, where manifest freight trains are broken and reformed -- a switcher pushes each car over a hump, and gravity takes the car to the correct train by means of a series of track changes coordinated by the control tower. We caught Bob Koen at this point, and rode with him as the sun went down and the switching yard became farmland. But now I had eaten, and I could smell the barn. I put myself in front as we left Pasco, and I gradually upped the speed, feeling like I wanted to drag us into Connell so I could get that shower ASAP. We lost Bob, but caught Tracy Barill. Then we lost Tracy, and caught a couple riders just 3 miles before Connell. In our eagerness to finish, Philippe and I dropped them on the downhill into town and were the 6th and 7th riders into the control, meaning we finished the day where we probably would have finished in any event.

Day 2 -- Connell to Plummer

Phil and I agreed to sleep in the next morning. Because of that, I laid in bed for much longer than I really needed to. I was plenty awake and ready to go at 5, and we weren't planning to leave before 6:30 or 7. I got up, took my time eating breakfast, and got my bike ready to go for the day. I was in the hotel lobby enjoying a cup of coffee, when who pulls up but the last person I expect: James Yee. I give him some applause and a pat on the back, and I point him towards the control so he can get his card signed and his room assignment. Phil and I shook our heads in amazement, and then hit the road.

The road out of Connell rolled up along the edge of a desert coulee, and then dove down to the bottom. At the floor, the irrigated farmland provided a welcoming counterpoint to the dry, jagged cliffs around us. We pedaled through the towns of Kahlotus and Washtucna, stopping in the latter for a break and a snack. We caught up with my friend Nate there, and though he left before we did, we caught him again a little further down the road. We had a really good time conversing together, and only had to back off a tiny bit to make things comfortable for Nate, so we decided to stick together.

We climbed up out of the coulee again on SR 26, and at the top made a turn onto a parallel road that would take us into the day's first control in Lacrosse. Lacrosse was like countless small towns that I rode through in Eastern Montana and North Dakota, and we took a short break in the city park where one of the ride volunteers was giving out cold V8 and other snacks. We left town, did a short climb, and then had a fun slalom descent back down to SR 26. A couple rollers put us in Dusty, where we topped off our water, and then a little further on 26 and we made a right turn on Sommers Road.

We had been consistently traveling east all day, with a slight northerly component, and the vegetation had been getting more and more lush. Around the time we turned onto Sommers Road, we were in the characteristic soft green rolling hills of the Payouse. The contrasting shades of tan and green on the ground and sapphire blue in the sky made for a series of striking vistas. We later learned that the wheat farming in this region was done without irrigation, as storm systems hit the Bitterroot Range and dump all their water on Eastern Washington.

More rollers, and we were eventually dumped via a steep and winding descent into charming Colfax, a reasonably sized town with a mainstreet lined with 2 story brick buildings. Our merry trio stopped in the Subway for lunch, and were soon joined by Susan France (our esteemed RBA) and David Rowe and the people he was riding with. After lunch, we had to climb up out of town on US 195, and back into the familiar rolling green hills. We finally got to leave the major roads behind for the day by turning onto Hume Road, but as we did, we saw a cyclist backtracking towards us. It turn out to be Linda Bott of California. She caught us as we went around Steptoe Butte, right near Oakesdale, and then we were a foursome.

The splendid Payouse scenery continued as we pressed on to and through Tekoa, with the added interest of mountains on the horizon; the Bitterroots were going to be tomorrow's treat. Leaving Tekoa, we zoomed down to a plain below the mountains, right on the Washington-Idaho border. The cue sheet warned of an easy-to-miss gravel road near some silos, and our group saw a couple randos on a seriously unimproved road at roughly the right mileage so we followed them. This turned out to be a wrong turn, and Phil picked up a nail in his tire on the detour for his trouble. Not realizing what had happened, I went ahead, and picked up the stateline preme before turning back to see what had happened to the others.

We were soon back on the right road, a kind of unpleasant mile-and-a-half long stretch of gravel. Once the gravel subsided, the pavement's grade gradually steepened until we were pushing up our steepest grade of the day, climbing up the foothills along the Idaho border. At the top we joined US 95 for a quick 4 mile descent into Plummer, Idaho. Six of us took a nice long rest at the Plummer grocery store, eating and refilling water bottles. Then we ambled over to the trailhead and made ready to travel the segment of the ride that many of us had been looking forward to the most.

The trailhead mentioned above was the start of the Trail of the Couer D'Alenes. Formerly a mining railroad whose ballast was comprised of mine tailings, the entire right-of-way was paved over to prevent heavy metals from leeching into the groundwater. Conveniently, this also makes it a lovely, smooth multi-use path (any cracks must be sealed to maintain its effectiveness as environmental remediation.) The first 7 miles out of town were a fast, non-technical downhill through thick pine forest. "I want one!" I cried out as I flew easily along.

We regrouped at the bottom of the hill, and then paired off into a couple groups as we found our own paces on the flat section beside the lake. I chatted with Linda about her experiences riding double centuries in California. The miles sailed by easily, and we had covered 35 of 54 miles on the trail before it became necessary to turn on lights. I ate a peanut butter sandwich while we waited in the twilight for the others, just a few minutes. We made our way through the dark the last few miles into the control in Kellogg together. I ate some pasta, drank some fluids, took a shower, and crashed. Phil and I agreed to get up no later than 5, but if either of us got up earlier, we should feel free to hit the road.

Day 3 -- Plummer to Whitefish

Another abbreviated night's sleep, the product of a hard mattress and a quad-occupancy room. I was up at 4, knowing that further time tossing and turning would not be time well spent. I made my way down to the lobby for breakfast and that randonneur's nectar, coffee. I learned that Phil was even more of an insomniac, and had risen at 3 to leave at 4. I was still a bit bleary, but I figured the cool morning air plus my exertions would shake me free of that. I was just going over my bike, getting ready to hit the road, when James Yee arrived. While his arrival the day before was kind of a shock, his appearance this morning was no less welcome or satisfying. I was getting a deep respect for the man, especially after hearing him talk to Susan and calculate the amount of sleep he could afford to take and still stay ahead of the control closures throughout the day. Mr. Yee was tackling this epic ride without stringing together more than 2 uninterrupted hours of sleep at a time! Duly inspired, I hit the road at 5.

Ten miles of gentle uphill on the bike path brought me to Wallace, where I missed the turn onto 6th street the first time through, and had to turn around. The road that was supposed to take me up to Dobson pass looked as nondescript as Saltzman Road off of US 30 in Portland does. There were a number of other randonneurs on the road with me, and I soon found myself matching my pace to Sue Barr's, of Vancouver. We had a pleasant conversation on the steep grades up to the summit, but I had to make a pit stop shortly before we crested the top, and she kept going. The descent on the other side was off the hook; steep grades, hairpin turns, and off-camber pitches. I blessed my front disc brake. I rejoined Sue a few miles down the hill, and we rode together on the approach to Thompson Pass, but then she begged off the pace, and so I pressed on alone.

It wasn't too long before I reeled in a couple more riders, though. They turned out to be Sam Huffman and Mike Bingle, who were consistently getting into the overnight controls nice and early. These were the people to ride with! Sam and I were well matched on the steep grades up to this second pass, and we kept Mike more or less in sight. Upon reaching the top, I took some pictures. Sue Barr caught us, caught her breath, and then it was off to the races. From our fleche team, I knew that Sam descends like a bowling ball dropped out of a 4th story window, and you have to get on his wheel or you'll never see him again. Sure enough, he pulled away, and opened up a huge gap. I caught him when the grade slackened a bit, though, as I don't think he was as aggressively tucked as usual.

At the bottom, the four of us took a break in Thompson Falls at the familiar Montana Cenex station. Their convenience stores are almost the size of our Fred Meyers'. Leaving town, the group put me out front to see what would happen. I was feeling punchy or something; maybe it was that we finally got a tailwind. Whatever it was, between my irrational exuberance, the rollers, and the tailwind, we dropped Sue and then Sam in short order. Bingle sat on my wheel pretty much the whole way to Plains. It was a gorgeous bit of classic Montana scenery along the Clark Fork River, but I was too interested in hammering to take my hands off the controls for long enough to snap a picture. One more Subway stop in Plains let Sam catch us again, but he seemed to suffer on the 5 mile climb out of town, so soon it was back to me and Mike.

The early morning had been lush alpine fir forests, the late morning had been characterized by the white water of the Clark Fork River and the pines and rough rock of the surrounds. As we climbed out of Plains, we ascended through some dry pine forests which opened up into high plains. We managed a few miles of rollers, and then the road plunged down to Hot Springs and Lonepine. The wind was still favorable, so we took advantage, and roared across the desolate landscape. Kathy Napolitano caught us at Lonepine and refilled our water. We went north a little further, but soon we turned east and into the wind. Plus, we found ourselves on another deceptive broad climb up to the ridge around Flathead Lake. The combination was rather demoralizing to us, but we took turns pulling, and finally got to the top.

The descent to the lake was an all-too-brief respite. The route carried us onto US 93 on the west side of flathead lake. Lousy shoulder conditions, high traffic, and tough rollers were the order of the day. We took a stop in Rollins, but otherwise gritted it out. Finally we arrived in Sommers and we had flat land, with a bike path and good shoulder the rest of the way into Kalispell. In Kalispell, we wound through side streets, crossing Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana Streets in the same order that we crossed the states. Then we turned onto a country road that ran through farm, field, and forest and took us to the very edge of Whitefish. Another mile, and we pulled up in front of the motel where the final control was. We signed our cards, turned them in, and had well-earned pizza and beer while sitting in the grass telling stories.

Epilogue

I had one more night of quad-occupancy lousy sleep, and got up at around 5 to find some coffee. I was sitting out front enjoying my beverage when it suddenly occurred to me to wonder what the cutoff time was for the ride. 74, 75 hours? Plus the change in time zone...let's see. Another 75 minutes or so. Fifteen minutes later, James Yee pulls up with Mike Norman. An hour to spare, plenty of time. The lesson is: persistence is more important than speed. The world's fastest DNF is still a DNF, whereas if you keep pedaling, you still have a chance to finish until you are DNQ'ed. Awesome. Thank you, Mr. Yee.

Pictures from the ride can be seen here.

5/5/2007 to 5/6/2007 -- Fleche Ouragan

2007-06-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

Generally, randonneuring is a pretty straightforward exercise. Get from here to there in less than this much time. But then, there's the fleche. Leave it to the French to introduce a little wackiness.

Fleche is French for "arrow", and it is also the name of ACP's team randonneuring event. The idea is that you come up with your own route, file it with your RBA, and assemble a team to ride it. The event happens on a fleche weekend, and typically it involves several teams who all finish at the same place, converging towards as arrows to a target. When you're done, you all have brunch together. Not highly wacky, but charming. Brunch is charming.

The craziness comes in some of the other rules. ACP certified fleches must be scheduled within a certain time period around Easter. (Okay, brunch, Easter. I get it.) No rest stop may be longer than 2 hours. (Huh. Uh, okay.) Teams must finish together, and a team must cover at least 25 km in the last 2 hours of the event. (Wait, wha?) The event lasts for 24 hours and at least 360 km. (It's an all-nighter.)

As Sam Huffman put it, the rules seem to be calculated to generate maximum schadenfreude.

Well, being the glutton for punishment that I am, I clearly had to do this ride. So I sent out an email to the Oregon Randonneurs email list to see if there were any others with a similar yen who wanted to join me. I got a good response: the aforementioned Mr. Huffman and Ed Felker from Virginia were both game. Mark Thomas (current RUSA president) threw his helmet into the ring, too, once sanity prevailed and I took some ridiculous and unnecessary miles off the route (more on that in a minute.)

To come up with a route, I just looked at the roads that I wanted to explore this summer, and strung 'em all together. The result was a loop that started and finished at the Grand Lodge, and made pretty much a complete circuit around the nubbin that forms the northwestern corner of Oregon. My initial idea for a route had us coming within a whisker of the ocean but never really seeing it, so I added a section that went over the Three Capes. This was the section I later removed because as dumb as it was to go all that way and not quite get to the ocean, going over the Three Capes at midnight would have been even more retarded.

Fleche teams have names. This is another charming part of the fleche event. It can also be wacky. Given the ramshackle process by which I put together my team, I could have just called it "Pot Luck", but team names usually involve some pun on the word "fleche". So we called ourselves "The Spirit is Willing".

The four of us gathered Saturday morning at the McMennamin's Grand Lodge, and soon set off down the familiar highway 8 along Gales Creek. I'll not give a blow-by-blow recounting of the route, suffice it to say that the roads were uniformly quiet, and featured spectacular scenery. At one point Mark ironically told me that next time I should find some roads without so many cars. The country was all forested hillsides, lush green valleys, and the occasional panoramic vista.

High points for me included Apiary Road, which we had all to ourselves and which gently climbed up the coast range to a forested summit; Alston-Mayger Road, which featured amazing views of the lower Columbia; a fun climb between Clatskanie and Mist; and the pastoral splendour of Fishhawk Highway between Jewell and Elsie. Even roads that I knew well provided exceptional riding -- in particular, the Miami River Road in the gloaming twilight was a real treat. The only lousy road was the 12 miles we spent on Highway 26.

Sam and I pretty much paired up and rabbited off for much of the ride, with Ed and Mark keeping each other company, though all of us kept each other's company at some point in the ride. Sam and I acted as the "human cue sheet", waiting at major turns for the others. This was not particularly a burden, as there were only 14 turns on the whole 400k route. It also kept the team together nicely, and emphasized that aspect of the event. We took extended breaks at Black Bear Coffee in Vernonia, Humps in Clatskanie, and Subway in Tillamook together, too.

The last break let us strategically time our night riding. We left Tillamook at midnight for the climax of our expedition: 55 miles on the Nestucca River Road over the coast range. Riding the Nestucca at night was the crown jewel of the weekend. The road was remote, quiet, and dark, with no lights from cars or even houses to blind and dazzle us as we pedaled along. I've ridden through the night before in similar conditions, on SIR's fall 600k, and it was terrifying. The difference this time was that I was in the company of 3 good friends, and that was all the difference in the world. With those guys as my lifeline, riding through the night was a primal yet peaceful, zen experience. When we emerged from the woods and rounded McKay Reservoir with the lights from Willamette Valley towns glittering like jewels beneath us, it was like we had pushed through to another world. The first light of dawn graced our descent, and we reached Carlton right at 5 am, just like we'd hoped to do. We took a quick rest in Carlton's post office lobby, and then finished off the last 30k to Forest Grove, tired but happy.

I would love to do another fleche next year, and I would ride with Sam, Ed, and Mark any time.

Photo by Ed Felker

Back in the saddle

2007-06-19T11:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the lack of updates. I took a little break from blogging over the last 2 months of the school year. However, I didn't take a break from riding, and I have some incredible adventures that I'll be writing about over the next few days as I get caught up. And I'd better get caught up, too, as my summer is packed! Here are the high points of the agenda through next October:

Oregon Randonneurs Portland-Glacier 1000k
Race Across Oregon
Paris-Brest-Paris
Furnace Creek 508 (two man team with Jim Verheul)

Write ups of the events of the last 2 months coming soon!

4/14/2007 -- Three Capes 300k

2007-05-13T08:13:00.000-07:00

My new mantra for randonneuring is: you don't get points for degree of difficulty. This seems to be a conclusion that I understood imperfectly until the Oregon Randonneurs' 3 Capes 300k.

I stayed at the McMenamins Grand Lodge the night before the ride, under the unassailable reasoning that, because the ride started from there, it would allow me to maximize my sleep and still not rush around at the last minute. I got ready for bed at a decent hour, set my alarm for 6 am, and settled in for a semi-decent night's sleep. I woke up well before six, but tossed around a bit more to try to milk out a bit more rest. Then my alarm went off, I got up, got a cup of coffee, and ambled out to the start to socialize with the other riders as they got their bikes ready.

...only, the parking lot was remarkably empty.

"There you are," said our RBA, Susan France. "Do you know what time this ride starts?"

"Uh, not 7 am?" I replied, with a sense of foreboding.

"The ride started at 6 am."

Crap! I hastily put down my coffee and put my feet on the pedals. I jetted out of the parking lot after the main pack, who had a 20 minute head start on me. Included in that bunch was my pal John Climaldi, whom I had made arrangements to ride with. I really wanted to catch John, as it's more fun riding with someone than it is riding alone, and it's way more fun riding with someone who's on the same bike and is of similar strength. In spite of the fact that my hasty departure didn't leave me any time for breakfast, I pushed my effort level up to the red line to try to make up some time on them.

I did fine with the lights through Forest Grove, and then it was out Pacific/Ritchey/Stringtown, which carried me north up the west side of Gales Creek Valley in the damp and misty morning. I had covered about half of Stringtown when a dude in a Prius shouted something at me as he passed by going the other direction. I didn't catch what he said and didn't really care -- I was feeling pretty single-minded about not being the lanterne rouge.

Then the dude in the Prius showed up again, on my left, driving the wrong way. He hailed me again. He wanted to know about my bike. I responded politely, though I was both annoyed and bewildered that this guy didn't think anything of bothering me when I was trying to concentrate on my exertions. To say nothing of his driving in a way that was pretty dangerous to both of us. I warned him of an oncoming car, and he fell back behind me, then pulled alongside again after it had passed. He asked how far I was going, and I replied 187 miles. "87 miles?" he replied, incredulous. "No, 187." "187?" again, incredulous. Finally, he left me, and I can't say I was sorry to see him go.

Back on Gales Creek Highway, I started overtaking the stragglers. This made me feel better. I knew intellectually that I was too fast to be at the back all day simply for spotting everyone a 20 minute head start, but it felt good to have gotten to the point of being amidst other riders so soon. I overtook 10 or so riders, then turned onto the Wilson River Highway, and high-tailed it for Timber Junction.

This year, the 3 Capes route included an out-and-back that went a couple miles up the road to Timber. I figured that this would be the perfect place to see how much time the lead pack had on me, assuming that they hadn't already finished it. I went a couple miles up the road, and didn't see any returning riders. So far, so good.

Then a couple things happened. I overtook a fellow I knew named Andrew, riding a Bike Friday. We chatted for a little while, and I asked if he had seen John. Then, I saw my friend Keith by the side of the road, fixing a flat. Keith had ridden up from Salem that morning to do the ride, and was going to ride back after it was finished. I said hi to Keith, and John came flying around the corner with the main pack. I called out for him to wait for me at the coast range summit, because I figured I would probably make up some time on the climb, and that would reduce the amount of time he had to wait for me.

Further encouraged that the main pack was only a few miles ahead of me, I pushed on to the first control. At the control, I got my card signed and drank a Starbucks Frappucino to try to get some calories and caffeine in my system. I took enough of a breather to say hello to John Henry Maurice, a fellow FC 508 veteran. His riding companion had lost his brevet card. D'oh! Every randonneur's nightmare. I learned later that he dealt with the problem with high character: he just decided to keep riding the ride for the fun of it.

Then I was flying back down Timber Road, and before I knew it, I made a hairpin right back onto Highway 6. 7 miles of gradually steepening uphill to the coast range summit. I overtook a couple of riders, who commented on how my recumbent was climbing. Past the Gales Creek overlook, around a couple more corners, and I could see John waiting for me at the top.

John had stopped for 10 minutes to wait for me, and had cooled down quite a bit. The weather at the summit was a bit better than it had been in the valley, with intermittent blue sky, but still cold. We roared off down the hill, enjoying the downgrade and reeling in riders for the next 10 miles. John got a flat at pretty much the same place that he got one last year, and a bunch of the folks we had just seen went by us, but we were back on the bikes in no time. The weather seemed to improve as we headed west, and as we passed Joel Metz, I told him that there were awesome chocolate chip cookies at the River's Edge Grill at milepost 7. A few miles down the road, John and I made a stop there, and I realized that it was actually milepost 6. I hope Joel forgave me, I know that vendettas can grow out of such soil.

John and I followed the river out into the open Tillamook Valley, which drains 5 rivers. The sky was as blue as the landscape was green. It seemed that the day was turning in our favor. The noise my chain was making was turning from a whisper to a cough, though, so I suggested we make a quick stop in town for some chain lube. Randonneuring forces you to use a different metric for bike maintenance; the distances and conditions involved make you take pre-emptive action much earlier than other cyclists have to.

We headed west out of town for the first of our three capes, and just as we turned onto Bayocean Road, my tire went kaput. Serfas Urbanas, not 3 months or 500 miles old, and the sidewall was shot. I'd had nothing but heartbreak since mounting them. Fortunately, John had the foresight to carry a spare tire, so I wasn't forced to go back to the bike store and pray that there was a demand for 650c tires in Tillamook. The ride over Cape Meares was sunny and beautiful.

We took a quick stop at Netarts, and I finally started to feel like I'd caught up on the food intake. We were in high spirits as we rolled along the edge of Netarts Bay -- the sun shone down and warmed us, and what breeze there was was at our backs. In the woods, the road started winding up over Cape Lookout. We made a brief pause at the hang glider launch partway up, and then finished off the climb before plummetting down the other side. As is so often the case on the Oregon coast, the other side of the cape brought entirely different weather. It was cool and misty again as we rode past Sandlake and when we made the short climb over the last of the three capes, we found that it started raining gently.

Photo: Nate Armbrust

In Pacific City, we got John's friend at the Anchorage Hotel to sign our cards, took a quick break at the Shell station, and then started heading inland. And then the rain really started coming down. Fortunately, both John and I were feeling strong, and more importantly, both of us remembered our fenders. We climbed up to Sourgrass Summit pretty easily; it went faster than I remembered from last year. The stretch up the Little Nestucca is quite pretty, and the one lane bridges remind me of New Zealand, which features such bridges on some pretty major roads on the south island.

At the top, the weather changed again, back to sunny blue skies. Welcome to Oregon in the spring -- as the Crowded House song goes, four seasons in one day! We flew down the hill, happy to be back in the watershed that drains into the Willamette. By the time we hit Grand Ronde, I was starting to feel a bit like my fuel reserves were depleted. We stopped at the store for a break just as David Rowe and the folks he was riding with were pulling out. Some sugar, a short rest, and a tailwind, and I was a new man. A couple miles on highway 18, and then the route took us onto the Old Yamhill River Road, which then took us to the highway 18 business loop. A distinct improvement over the old 3 Capes route. We caught David again between Willamina and Sheridan, and barely caught the turn south onto Ballston Road, making it by the skin of our teeth.

Ballston Road was another welcome new addition to the route. When we heaved about and changed our heading westward, the wind filled our sails and the bikes loped along at 30 mph for miles and miles. We rocketed through the town of Ballston with barely enough time to register the information for the control. We were in Amity before we knew it, but there I discovered a big fork sticking out of my back. My exertions at the start of the ride plus falling behind on my eating had caught up with me. I had a snack at Amity, but it was too little, too late.

John let me sit on his wheel for much of the remaining distance, to Dayton and Lafayette, and then north on Fern Hill Road. I wasn't exactly slow (though I certainly wasn't fast!), I just didn't have any real pep. I had bonked, and now I was in survival mode. The miles just sort of crawled by. That our tailwind had changed to a pretty fierce crosswind didn't help. Finally, just outside Gaston, the last can of Ensure I drank hit my system, and I felt good enough to put some zip back in my riding. John and I covered the last 5 miles strong, finishing with plenty of daylight. I bought my friend dinner at the Grand Lodge, and we enjoyed the camraderie of a successful team effort.

Index

2007-04-02T18:23:00.000-07:00

You may notice that I've created an index on the right side bar. I've organized my ride write-ups by geographic area to make them easier to find. Some of the rides apply to more than one area; for instance, the article I wrote about riding from Mt. Hood to the coast is in both the Mt. Hood and the coast sections. Hopefully, this index will help make this blog a more useful resource for people who are planning their own long bike rides around Portland.

3/31/2007 -- Birkenfeld 200k

2007-04-02T17:26:00.000-07:00

I did the Oregon Randonneur's Birkie 200k on Saturday. The "Birkie" is our affectionate diminutive version of Birkenfeld, which is the turn around point for this ride. There're a lot of reasons to be affectionate towards Birkenfeld, but I get ahead of myself.

I woke up at 5 AM, ate a light breakfast, and took the MAX out to Hillsboro. I just missed a train, and the trip took longer than advertised, so I was sweating to get to the Grand Lodge for the the 7 AM start. Fortunately, I did make it with 10 minutes to spare, and got to roll out of the parking lot with the crowd (74 people!) I chatted with my friend David Rowe for a few miles, but when a group split off the front, I wanted to see if I could hang with them. It was a rather gloomy morning, and my fellow recumbent-riding partner in crime John Climaldi couldn't make this one, so I wanted to see if I could find some shelter in the lead pack (about 12 strong or so). After a yoyo-ing with them along the whole length of Gale's Creek to Highway 6, I finally fell off the back. Trying to match their pace on my bike, with it's own unique performance characteristics, plus suffering in the roostertails of the riders without fenders didn't sound like a fun way to spend 200 kilometers.

But I definitely learned that I was feeling punchy on that day. Randonneuring is not competitive, but everyone (well, most everyone) likes to go fast. It was clear that I had a yen to push myself on that day, in a way that I really don't when it's just me on the road. I've been just going out and riding by myself all winter, and I guess I didn't realize how much I missed having the yardstick of my fellow riders to measure myself by. So I wound up the cranks, and kept 'em spinning, thinking that some of those 12 in front of me were bound to fall off the back, and some of the folks just behind me would consider me their rabbit.

The course went up, and then down through Timber, a dilapidated little whistlestop on the Port of Tillamook Bay railroad. The road held some spectacular views of the coast range through the clearcuts. Then the road went up out of Timber, and started roughly tracking the Nehalem River as it made its random walk through the mountains to the ocean.

I was alone until the first control at Vernonia, where I caught Ira Ryan, who was prepping for a trans-Iowa race. I loaded up on tasty food at the control, learned that the rest of the lead pack was about 5 minutes ahead, and motored out of there as the stop filled with arriving riders. I caught a friendly rider on Keasey Road, and we chatted about 650c tires and recumbents for a little while until a downgrade carried me ahead. I saw the fellow again at the info control at the end of the road.

Riding back to Stoney Point Road I realized one of the charms of the out-and-back format -- you get to see most of the people on the ride. I gave a friendly wave and a smile to all the outbound riders as I went by, and I recognized some faces that I hadn't had time to greet in the parking lot back in Forest Grove. Then it was time to make a left onto Stoney Point, climb up over the hill, and back down to the Nehalem River. I paused to gulp a can of Ensure.

Back in familiar territory. I ride this road every summer to go to OHPV's annual campout at Fort Stevens, so I know it well, and the conditions on it are such that my bike and its rider both shine. The weather was intermittently sloppy, but I found that my waterproof tights and wool jersey were plenty of protection. The jersey got wet, but never saturated, and always stayed warm. The large seat on the recumbent did a great job of providing extra insulation along my whole back, and kept my core plenty warm.

In the flat to rolling terrain, I once again wound up the cranks, and familiar landmarks kept passing by. Pittsburgh and Scaponia (which I amused myself by deliberately confusing it with an Outkast album). Big Eddy. Natal. Mist.

Near Mist, I caught a trio of riders from the lead pack. We all got into Birkenfeld right around the same time, and I bought a chocolate milk, took a quick restroom break, and hit the road again. I really wanted to challenge myself to stay on the road, and ride as efficiently as possible. The chocolate milk may have followed too closely on the heels of the Ensure (both are kind of rich), but they sorted themselves out by the time I was back within a few miles of Vernonia.

On the way there, I once again got to see the whole field of riders bound for Birkenfeld. Despite the sloppy weather, everyone seemed to be in good spirits.

I arrived back at Vernonia, and got a cran-apple-raspberry juice at the open control. Enough rich stuff, time to sweeten the mixture a bit. I got out of the store, though, and realized that my tire was flat. I also realized that though I had a spare tube, I had forgotten to bring a patch kit. So I put in the spare, and made a quick trip to the hardware store to get a patch kit for insurance. While I did, Dick Weber and Sam Huffman passed by, and David Rowe pulled up to the Black Bear Cafe with his group. Good choice by David and crew, I've eaten there before and its great.

With the tire holding air again, it was time to climb back up to Timber. I'd never traveled this road in this direction before, but I remembered that it was about 10 miles back to the highway 26 junction, and another 3 to Timber. I settled into my "keep pedaling" mode. Just keep the cranks turning, don't worry about whether your destination is around the next bend or not. Just be in the moment. And the miles melted away. I caught Dick just before Highway 26, and Sam just after.

I was somewhat trepidatious about the climb up to Timber, and then out of Timber. I wasn't sure if I'd pushed too hard for the first 100 miles or if I had enough left in the tank. As it turned out, I didn't need to worry; the climbs weren't bad at all. And before I knew it, I was at the summit beyond Timber, looking at a long, rolling downhill all the way back to Forest Grove.

I played it very conservatively on the twisty descent from the top of the hill, having noted several patches of gravel on the outbound leg, and then let the bike go when I rounded the last turn at the bottom. A few exhilerating miles swooping through the woods, and then I was back on familiar ground on highway 6. The Glenwood control came shortly after. At that last control, I upped the octane by opting for a 4-pack of Twix, which I figured would get my mixture to just the right place to let me power over the last 12 miles without bonking. Sam pulled up just as I was leaving, and we gave each other a friendly greeting.

Then it was back on the road, and I noted the first significant tailwind of the day. I've ridden Gale's Creek Road many times in both directions, and I don't remember ever going so fast either way. It was amazing to feel so fast and strong after giving such an effort for almost 120 miles. I passed the quarry, rounded a couple bends, and climbed up into the outskirts of Forest Grove. A mile or two later I was downtown. I got lucky with the lights, and was back at the Grand Lodge with an elapsed time of around 7:45.

3/23/2007 to 3/25/2007 -- Bagby Hotsprings, 140 miles

2007-04-02T16:07:00.000-07:00

Winter here in the Portland area has recently shown signs of passing, and between that and being cooped up finishing term projects for the end of the quarter, I had a deep and abiding need to get out of town when my spring break began. Fortunately, as my first free weekend approached, the forecast kept getting revised towards the mild end, and my sweet and indulgent sweetie Jen agreed to join me on a bicycle adventure up the Clackamas River.

As I may have said before, the Clackamas River is a first-rate destination for beginning cyclotouristes. It's beautiful, camping is plentiful, and it's easy to get to. So on Friday morning, Jen and I loaded up our bikes and pedaled out the Springwater Corridor to it's end, took Telford to Boring, then Richey, Amisigger, and 224 to Estacada. We got refreshments at the Thriftway, ate lunch in front of the library, were on our way.

One particularly inviting aspect of touring the Clackamas has been the prospect of using the old Highway 224 to cover the first 6 miles past Estacada. A dozen years ago or so, the mainline 224 was routed over the hill, where it could be wider and straighter. But the old twisty and narrow 224 was still in place as an access road for the dams down on the river, and bicycles and pedestrians are allowed to use it, too. So by taking the old road, you get to take a level, quiet, and scenic route out of town, and rejoin 224 after the traffic has dispersed somewhat.

We did just that, and enjoyed beautiful scenery and lush vegetation of the vernal Clackamas. We arrived at our campsite in the mid-afternoon, set up camp, and had a relaxing evening exploring and reading.

The next day, I spent a great deal of time trying to cook pancakes evenly over a tiny camp stove. Eventually, we managed to embark on our excursion: we left our camp, and continued on our unladen bikes up the Clackamas River to Ripplebrook and beyond to forest road 63, where we started following the Collowash river upstream, on a ledge under moss-covered cliffs. Immediately upon emerging from the canyon, we turned onto forest road 70, which we followed further up the Collowash to Bagby Hotsprings. Jen and I wheeled our bikes along the mile and a half hiking trail into the springs, ate lunch, and enjoyed a good long refreshing soak there.

We wheeled our bikes back to the road, and started back to camp in worsening weather. Fortunately, though the rain was insistent, it never got denser than mist. And even more fortunately, Jen and I discovered quickly that we hadn't been fatigued on the outbound trip; rather, we had been pedaling uphill at river grade for 25 or so miles. That made the trip back to camp very fast and a great deal of fun to boot. We made it back to camp with plenty of daylight and feasted on Tasty Bites.

We both slept fitfully, as our luck with the weather had just about played out. It rained torrentially that night. It slackened somewhat with dawn, and we ate a quick breakfast and managed to strike the tent in relative comfort. But upon pulling out of camp, the rain picked up again. Then, finally, a few miles down the road, the weather finally broke, and I began looking forward to the rest of the ride home. We proceeded past Promontory Park and onto Faraday Road, and I was just contemplating what a wonderful resource that quiet route was, when we came around the corner, and what should we find?

Yep, a landslide. The hillside must have given way during the hard rains of the previous night, and created a slide twenty feet tall and 150 feet long. I wanted to portage it, but Jen talked me out of that insanity. But unfortunately, the alternative was to go back to mainline 224, and over the hill. Two miles up at 7% grade, and 3 miles down at 7% grade. Jen was amazingly sweet during the whole thing. Alas, future expeditions up the Clackamas will require pedaling up and over the hill, at least for the time being. That makes exploring the Clackamas a little less inviting to beginners, unfortunately.

Click on the maps to take you to the gmaps pedometer for more detail.
You can see more pictures from the trip here.

Winter Rerun: 2005 Human Power Challenge

2007-03-15T19:20:00.000-07:00

The first time the road race at PIR didn't devolve into a time trial. -ed.

OHPV’s 2005 Human Power Challenge started with the stock/superstock time trial, 5 laps (roughly 9.6 miles). Joe Kochanowski, rehabilitating from a bad accident and major leg surgery, was actually nuts enough to do this event on his home-brew lowracer, and didn't do half bad, either. Well, about half bad, I guess. Understandable, as he had half as many legs to use as the rest of us. I had the best time overall, 21:02, which was my best time ever for anything close to 10 miles. Works out to around 27.25 mph, which I'm quite pleased with (and which I may improve upon if I get a disc rear wheel). I knew I had done well when I nearly caught Chris Sandmel (who took 3rd at Wasco) at the finish. To be fair, he started a few minutes behind me, but the point was that I clearly made up some time on him. Chris was on his Aero, while I rode my M5 CLR through the whole weekend.

We did the drag race on the infield this year, which worked out well, because it let us keep having events the whole day, and gave us Monday off. The field was about 14 or so racers, double elimination. I got beat by John Climaldi on his Bacchetta Corsa in the first round. It's hard drag racing with a 12-21 cassette, because it's so much better to be able to just stay in one ring up front, and the 12-21 simply doesn't have the breadth you need to be useful from both a standing start and at the top end. Chris Sandmel walked away from everyone he was matched with. John and Keith Kohan had an incredibly tight finish later on, with Keith just barely edging John. Chris steamrolled over Keith. That set up a loser's bracket final between me and John, with him edging me again. Then it was Chris and John C in the final, and Chris got him pretty decisively.

For the streamer/superstreet road race, we only had 4 entrants. With Joe allegedly sidelined, and Todd and Lonnie riding across the country, we didn't have the mojo to entice the Rotator crew to come up this year. We hope to be restored to full streamliner glory again next year. So the streamer race was a group of folks on socked bikes. The winner was tbonesk8, up from Medford, on a very handsome Volae Club with a sock. He did the whole hour at an impressive 23-24 mph rate. Bruce Parker and Dave "Slug" Van Gundy came across the line together hand in hand as the spectators booed and screamed for blood (just kidding about the booing). Rick Valbuena made a valiant go of it, but succumbed to cramps about halfway in.

The next morning we started with the 200. I don't know what my deal was; if I was sick, or was putting on the juice too early, or putting on the juice too late, or what, but I did 2 runs and got a mediocre mid 33 mph both times. I saw that my main competition, Chris S., did a 32 on his first try, and figured it was just a breezy day, so everyone would be slow, and decided to let it lie. I watched John Williams get within a breath of 40 mph on his Quest and John Climaldi get up to 38.5 in his second run ever in the Varnowski, and then went over to sit down and relax. I was chatting with my dad when Keith and Alex Kohan came over on their tandem-linked Kettweisels and told me Sandmel had just put together a 36 mph run. Crap. I sighed heavily and figured I had to give it a third go -- for honor's sake, this aggression would not stand. I gave it my all even though I wanted to save something for the road race that afternoon, but still only managed to push my score up to 34.4. Meanwhile Chris put in another 36 mph run.

Then we had the fully faired TT. John Williams joined us for that one, along with Joe K in the Varnowski. For a guy who isn't supposed to be riding he sure does a lot of riding. Edna Van Gundy and Rick Valbuena rounded out the field. Joe K had another gutty performance, and pulled out the win, though there was a moment when we thought John Williams had bested him by a second. Then we realized Joe and John were 30 seconds apart at the start, not 60 -- Joe's time was actually 29 seconds faster than John's. Simply amazing for a guy with a bunch of screws in his knee. Well, I guess they are titanium, and everyone knows titanium is fast.

Bill S. set up the autocross, and it looked like a really fun course. I sat out, being equiped with naught but my completely inappropriate for the event lowracer, but it was sure great to watch. Keith and Alex Kohan were incredibly competitive, and went head-to-head several times. Kelsey Wood from Seattle handled Joe K's weird articulated trike quite skillfully to capture the men's multitrack title. But there was also a certain amount of carnage, as you might expect when folks are pushing the limits of adhesion. Chris S. nicked his knee on his chainring, and Cindy Licuanian agravated an old leg or thigh injury. I hope everyone who took a fall feels better soon. In the end, young Alex was strong and skillful enough to have the best time overall in an incredibly tight field.

Finally, we got to what in my opinion was the main event (at least, this year): the unfaired road race. At this point, Chris S had 2 firsts and a second to my 1 first, 1 second, and 1 show. If I won here, I'd have a pretty good claim on the overall title. If Chris won, his claim would be pretty indisputable. Also, Joe K, lowracer partisan that he is, would personally kill me if I lost to a guy on a highracer. I'd had low-level butterflies about this race all day.

So, the stage was set, when at the last minute Rand Milam agreed to join the field on his newly rehabilitated VK2. That made me feel a bit better, as I felt that made me a little safer from getting Kochanowskilled.

We lined up, and at the gun, I took off. I knew I'd TT'd at around 1.5 mph faster than Chris, and I wanted to see if I could open up enough of a gap to turn it back into a TT. I didn't work too hard to do so, however, because I figured Rand, John, and Chris would be able to put together paceline and reel me in. Plus, I wasn't really all that enthusiastic about the prospect of a 1 hour TT. So it didn't take too long for the three of them to catch me. Dave Neilson latched on before too long, too, on his tailfaired Optima Baron.

We settled into a nice, 24 mph groove in the paceline. Now in that situation, I had to balance a couple of conflicting goals. I wanted to sit on someone else's wheel as much as possible, but at the same time, I had to make sure that the pace didn't flag too much. Chris Sandmel's obvious strength in sprint events was quite fresh in my mind. So I was agressive in attacking, but also opportunistic about it. I attacked on the right, as most people had mirrors on the left sides of their bikes, and I figured I might get an extra half second of surprise on that side. I attacked when the wind was behind us, and got back on a wheel when the wind was in front. I attacked on the turns, when we already had a natural tendency to get a little more spaced out. And when they were reeling me back in, I weaved around the long notches in the crappy pavement on PIR's straightaway. Dave Neilson fell off the back after about 4 laps of this.

Chris was also aggressive. Once, I let John C. into the paceline to sit on Chris's wheel, and when Chris made a break later that lap, I admonished John, "If you're gonna be on his wheel, you've gotta keep on it!" But really, I must say, John C. had the gutsiest, bravest strategy in the race. He spent more time than any of us out in front, which I thought was odd, because he didn't have as much of an aero advantage as Rand or I, and Wasco showed that Chris had the edge in strength. When I called him on it later, he said that he basically had to stay up there because there wasn't enough of a draft from Rand or I for him to hang on at the speeds we did, so unless he was on Chris's wheel, he had to be up front so that he could dictate a pace that was manageable for him, and hope he could hang around until the end when it was anyone's game.

That succeeded in keeping him in the race until the last lap. I managed to get enough information out of Jeff Wills as we zoomed by to figure out when we had 2 laps to go, and started turning up the heat with 1.5 laps left. We came around and got the white flag with me leading the paceline, and at that point I really turned on the afterburners. Our little pack stretched way out, and I saw that the two highracers had dropped well back by around turn 3 or so. But Rand was about halfway back there and closing as we got into the back stretch. Before we got to turn 7, he was on my wheel again.

I took turns 7, 8, and 9 as close to the redline as I could, and stuck them pretty well. I think I threw Rand off my wheel a little bit as we came through turn 9. Heading down the straight, Rand got out of my draft and started putting the hammer down. It was deja vu all over again. I could see his cranks in my peripheral vision as he started to pull alongside me. I reached down deep for more, and shifted into 9th gear. I pulled a little bit ahead. He found more power and started inching up on me again. I found what I had left and gave the pedals everything. His cranks were even with my thigh. Then they were at my shoulder. Then my rear wheel. Then, with maybe two dozen feet to the finish line, I couldn't see him anymore. I punched the air as Jeff gave me the first checkered flag of the race. Rand, Chris, John and I did a cooldown lap and blew kisses as we came across the finish line one last time, 4 abreast, together.

Winter Rerun: 2005 Wasco Wild West 75

2007-03-01T11:44:00.000-08:00

Here is the third report in my series of old ride narratives that I'm re-posting here. This one concerns the second edition of the Wasco Wild West 75, which featured top-shelf international competition. That, plus my experience the previous year led me to work hard training all spring to give myself the best possible chance out there. As you'll see, the bad-luck bug bit me again this year, but you'll also see if I let all my hard work be for naught. -ed

We set ourselves up on the starting line at around noon. I was riding my Challenge Seiran SL, so I wanted to be sure and stay close to the other high racers. The gun went off, and away we went.

Hans Wessels (a former world-champion HPV racer, over for the race from the Netherlands) was aggressive from the get-go, which wasn't really a surprise. The strong high racer riders, including J. Schlitter, J. Climaldi, Chris Sandmel from OSU, and myself, plus Rand Milam on his socked GRR were getting ourselves sorted out and getting into a rhythm. I figured we'd sort out a paceline and see what we could do to reel in Wessels in when we were good and warmed up.

This process had only just begun when I hit a rock.

My first thought was, oh dear god.
My second was, oh please no pinch flat.
My third was obscured by the loud BANG that followed as my front tire blew out.

I hadn't pinched, but apparently I hadn't seated the bead of my tire quite perfectly, and the rock caused the tube to squirm out around the tire. And then blammo. I pulled off to the side, and cursed my terrible luck as the whole pack sailed by, offering their sympathy. I was disconsolate.

I have to say, I nearly bagged it right there. But I decided that I was made of sterner stuff, and the wheels in my head started turning, even while the wheel on my bicycle would not.

I did not have a tube, pump, or patch kit. But I did have three resources.

The first was the motorcycle escort that was bringing up the back of the recumbent heat. She pulled over and offered to help.

My second resource was the spare wheel that I had left back at the start/finish line, in case of wheel trouble. I asked her to be so good as to go back and retrieve it for me. She agreed.

My third resource came from a new wrinkle that the race organizer, Clay Smith, added this year. Last year Wasco was a recumbent race. This year, Wasco was a recumbent and tandem race. And the tandems were scheduled to start exactly 10 minutes after the recumbents.

Well, I sat on pins and needles for those ten minutes, waiting for the race escort to show up with my wheel. Then, the phalanx of four tandems came around the bend. Behind them came the tandem heat escort, and then the motorcyclist with my salvation. The tandemers offered their condolences. I just replied, "I'll see you soon."

The escort handed me my spare wheel, and I gave her my old one. I threw the new one on as quickly as I could. It was agonizing, trying to work with haste and accuracy at the same time -- lining up the wheel with the brakes and the dropouts, and keeping everything out of the spokes is incredibly difficult when you're shaking from adrenaline.

I was rolling 2 or 3 minutes later, pushing as hard as I could maintain. I do a flat, 10 mile time trial on the Seiran at 25.5 mph, and I feel like puking afterward. I wasn't going that hard, but I wasn't too far from it. I had to catch the tandems, or I was sunk.

The Wasco race course is mostly gentle rollers and creek grade for the north half of the loop, with a huge 3 mile climb (and one false summit) and a 4 mile drop on the south half of the loop. I pushed through 3 or 4 rollers when I came up over a crest and saw my quarry climbing up the other side, about half a mile away.

I proceeded to reel in that tandem paceline, oh so agonizingly slowly. In doing so, I passed a few of the stragglers from the recumbent race. I felt a brief glimmer of gladness to be back in it, but I knew that I had come out to compete, and that meant finding some way to get back up to the leaders, and that meant catching those tandems.

It was touch and go for the rest of the north half of the lap. Finally, I made it to the base of the hill and saw the tandems about 200 yards ahead. I figured I would make up some time on them on the climb; I'm light and strong, and I've been doing hills 3 times a week since January. These were obviously 4 very athletic tandem teams, but they're almost as legendary for lack of climbing performance as bents are, right?

Well, that's another legend to put to bed -- these guys were strong, and strong climbers. I made up some time on them before the top, and in fact got within a softball pitch of their paceline's rear wheel before they rolled over the crest and out of sight. That feeling was like being a castaway on a rubber raft in the middle of the ocean and watching a ship pass by without noticing you.

But I wasn't done yet. Coming over the top of the hill, I was greeted by a face full of wind, which I hoped would dampen their downhill advantage. I threw my chain into 3 and 9, and plowed full bore down that hill. I had no hope of catching them on the descent, but I was going to do everything I could to minimize the damage. It worked -- they took it easy on that first drop, and I didn't lose more than a couple seconds.

I made up some more time on them on the winding flat part before the start/finish line, and came around the 180 degree turn that comes right before it to find myself almost in their lap. I finished my first lap to rousing cheers from the spectators and only a couple seconds behind the tandems.

I got on their wheel at almost the exact same point where I had flatted, meaning it had taken me a full lap of intense exertion to reel them in, but merciful heaven, was it worth it. Being behind those guys was like drafting a freight train. We were barreling along at 23, no problem. I figured I'd hang out with them for a couple laps and see how far that got me.

We started reeling in more bent riders at this point, and the ones we passed were getting stronger and stronger. I took a couple turns towing, and I took a few flyers off the front, but realized that while I could do bursts that outran the tandem train, I couldn't sustain a faster pace than theirs without some serious pain.

One of the stokers asked me what place I thought I was in. I realized that we had passed enough riders that all of a sudden I was in the thick of it again. I did a quick mental calculation, and figured out that unless there was someone out there that I hadn't noticed, I was in 7th place. Then, on the 3rd lap in the middle of the hill, we passed my friend Chris Alling, who was riding my Vision Sabre. Chris is a very strong rider -- Cat 3 and Masters -- but this was his first ride on a bent of any real distance. I told him to hook on, but he just didn't have the reserves. So then I found myself in 6th place as we started the fourth and final lap.

A quarter of the way into the lap, we met my friend John Climaldi, who greeted me cheerily, and said, "I'm tired of riding alone, I'm going to hook on with you guys!" Which was really cool. But he was on my wheel for maybe a mile or so before the tandem team in front made their move. The couple up front pounced, and before any of us knew it, they had opened up a hundred yard lead on us.

I love John like a brother, but there's nobody more competitive than the two of us. So, when I saw my opportunity to turn up the heat on John a little, I leapt at it. If I could catch the lead tandem and hang on, I might be able to make it onto the podium. So I pulled out of the trailing tandems' slipstream, and started putting the hammer down. Then the three tandems still in the paceline saw that I was going to go for it, and they got on my wheel. And John just didn't have enough left to hang on.

I felt pretty good at that point, and I actually outran the tandems who were drafting me. I closed the gap on the breakaway bike to maybe 20 yards. But then, once again, they crested a hill and sailed away. I let the remaining three tandems overtake me, and not long after that, we came up on my friend Rand. Rand rode with us for several miles, but seemed to have used up his reserves, and then I found myself in fourth place.

The remaining three tandems powered up the hill very aggressively, figuring that this was where 2nd place would be decided. I just tried to stay out of the way. I did my best to stay with the leader when it was clear he had broken away, without influencing things by bridging the gap behind him. By the time we got to the top, two tandems had pulled away in front of me, and one had fallen behind, and I set about keeping myself together long enough to hang on to 4th. I pushed down the hill through the wind, and caught the tandems again on the flat at the bottom. I whizzed around the 180 hairpin turn, and crossed the finish line.

So, it certainly wasn't plan A. Plan A was to mix it up with John and John and OSU Chris and maybe close the gap on Hans a little bit, so that we Yanks didn't get skunked quite so bad. I think I would have been a big help with that, and I think we could have been pretty successful. But as Plan B's go, this wasn't too bad. Certainly beat going home and crying in my beer.

Hans Wessels has some great pictures of the race here.

Winter Rerun: 2004 Wasco Wild West 75

2007-02-28T10:27:00.000-08:00

This is the second in a series of ride narratives that I've done in the past that I want to collect on this blog. This one concerns the first edition of the Wasco Wild West 75, the toughest recumbent road race in the world. As you'll see, the first edition started a long-running tradition of things not going quite right for me out in the Dalles. I hope you enjoy it! -ed.
Even though he's from Texas, I have to wonder how many bike races Lance Armstrong has entered where a Stetson hat was offered up as a bonus prize to the overall winner, and that were started by a genuine six-gun. I'm sure that he's never been in a race that used such a liberal definition of "bicycle" as Clay Smith's Wasco Wild West 75. But it was for that event that I and twelve other recumbent bicycle enthusiasts lined up last Saturday, May 1, without Lance, to test our mettle against each other in the Eastern Oregon heat.

There were several bikes with lexan windshields and cloth streamlining, there was Joe Kochanowski's home-built street-luge-with-a-drivetrain contraption, and there were even a couple bikes that were, in fact, trikes, including my friend John Williams' Quest Streamliner . For my part, I was most interested in the bikes that would form my most direct competition; sadly, they were comparatively conventional. Five of us were racing on a style of bike called a highracer, characterized by two full sized wheels and a laid-back position a couple feet in the air. Three competitors who had come in from out of state, lured by the prospect of prize money, were on Bacchetta Aeros , a 22 lb., $3700 titanium wonderbike. My buddy John Climaldi was on his Kahuna GT (Garage Tech), which is his own (slightly heavier) version of the Bacchetta. I was racing my orange custom kitted Sabre, from the defunct manufacturer Vision. I expected the five of us to be quite competitive with each other, as we were obviously all strong riders, were all in the same race class, and had bikes that both performed similarly and could take advantage of each other's slipstreams.

The race was to consist of four laps of an 18.5 mile open road course, among the foothills above the Columbia River, near The Dalles, Oregon. For
the first half lap, the race played out exactly as I had envisioned it would, with the five riders on highracers forming a pack and leaping out into the lead. Joe was with us for much of that time, but soon fell off the back, the victim of Joe-mentum (a virtual tie for 5th!) The first half of the course was a long series of gentle rolling hills as the road follows a creek valley upstream, and we were taking it easy in that stretch, knowing it was going to be a long race.

But then, of course, the gentle rollers ended and the hills began. At the bottom of the big, main hill, our little pack immediately stretched out, led by John Schlitter (one of the founders and owners of Bacchetta). I was right there alongside him, and the rest of the pack fell away behind us. Schlitter only had a double chainring, and he was just hammering up the hill. I was in my middle ring, and downshifting on my rear cog at intervals. I ran out of cogs in the back, with lots of hill and even more race left. I knew I didn't want to blow up this early in the game, so I dropped into my little ring up front, the "granny". Schlitter smelled blood, and roared out ahead.

I got to the top of the hill not far behind him. I reasoned that he might lose his wind after being so aggressive so early in the race, and if I could just catch up to him, then he'd be too tired to fight me off and I could sit in his slipstream and just let him tow me along. I was close enough to lob a pebble at him by the top of the second rise, where there was a water station. Unfortunately, while the Sabre has a very efficient drive train (it has a direct path from the cranks to the rear wheel, while the Aero has a drive-side idler), the Aero is much more aerodynamic, and Schlitter opened up a chunk of distance on me in the ensuing descent.

I managed to keep him in sight for the next half lap, always about half a mile ahead. I'd crest a rise, and see him climbing up the other side. I figured if I was going to catch him, I would do it on the hill, where he might wear out, and I had to be in a pretty good position if I wanted to do that. I also checked my six periodically, but just saw open road, so I figured I was holding onto second place pretty well.

Meanwhile, it was getting hot. Eastern Oregon is basically a desert, and though it's early in the season, it's been a very hot spring. And we were going at it in the heat of the day, thanks to a 12:30 start time (the only aspect of the race, by the way, that wasn't perfectly planned and executed; Clay really did a tremendous job of pulling the event off.) I later learned that the mercury had gotten up to the high eighties.

I reached the bottom of the hill, and started pulling myself up it, when heard a clank, like a pebble hitting a hollow pipe. And all of a sudden, it got a lot harder to pedal. I had, of course, broken a spoke, which caused the wheel to come out of true, which meant that it was rubbing on my brakes with every revolution. Fortunately, I had had the foresight to bring a spare set of wheels, but unfortunately, they were at the start line, nine miles away. I performed damage control by reaching under my seat and flipping the brake's quick release, which gave the wheel another centimeter or so of clearance, and greatly reduced the rubbing, and figured that I'd just try and hold on for another half lap until I could swap out my wheel.

But clearly, the wind was out of my sails. Not only had the broken spoke on the hill impeded me when my muscles were already at maximum output, but I took the descent back to the start pretty gingerly on a no-longer-whole rear wheel. I had been working so hard up to that point that I was pretty pooped. So it was no surprise when Jim Verheul of California overtook me right at the end of the second lap. I swapped wheels, and replaced my hydration pack with a new, full one in record time and tore off after Jim.

I did manage to catch up to him, not more than three miles into the third lap, and felt pretty good about myself for managing to do so. I sat on his wheel for a little while to catch my breath. Jim was very friendly, and not averse to working together to see if we could make up some time on John Schlitter. I was game, too, and felt that we were probably similarly strong riders, given that we had each caught the other. Alas, it turned out that my tank was empty, and when it was my turn to pull, I was precious little help to him. He quite rightfully (and distressingly easily) left me in the dust about a mile before we got to the hill again.

Well, he was still in sight when I got there, but only as a speck, really. I gave it a go, but no sooner had I started the hill than the muscles in my legs started feeling like surgical hose that was being stretched and plucked and contracted simultaneously. Ah, these must be cramps.

I evened out my cadence as well as I could, and fought my way through the hills. At the water stop, I grabbed a bottle, took a swig, and doused myself with rest of it. For the next half lap or so, the wonderful evaporating water made me feel almost human again.

By this point, though, I had run up the white flag. No mas. No more thoughts of catching anyone. I would be damned if I was going to DNF, but there was no more thought in my head of doing anything other than a) finishing b) in front of John Climaldi, in that order. I passed Clay at the line and yelled out, "Any chance of making it the Wasco Wild West 57?"

The last lap was agony. My legs felt like they were threatening to fold themselves into all sorts of awkward angles, my feet were on fire (I am never, ever, EVER going to race in SPD sandals again), and there simply wasn't any gas left in the tank. At the bottom of the hill, just before I started my last ascent, the course crew there offered me a bottle of water, which I took. It had been in a cooler! The first cold course water of the day, and it was heaven (eighty degree water in eighty degree weather is not as good). By design, more of it ended up on me than in me, but that's probably the main thing that got me home.

I finished the race in 4 hours, 5 minutes, about 40 minutes behind John Schlitter, happy with third place, but happier still just to have finished under my own power. I can't wait until next year.

Pictures available at the WWW75 official Web site, here.

Winter Rerun: 2002 Transcontinental Bike Ride

2007-02-27T17:22:00.000-08:00

It's completely, totally pissing down rain in my part of the world right now.

I had a nice 4 weeks between mid-January and mid-February, and got 4 or so 90+ mile rides in, in addition to several shorter rides with plenty of climbing and my usual commuting. But for the last week or so, the idea of going out and having a bike adventure has been completely unappealing.

So I've decided to go into re-runs. Not of stuff that I've already posted here, but things I've written for various other bike forums. Race and ride reports, just like I've been doing. I'm pretty happy with much of the stuff that I'll be putting up, and have long thought that I would like to collect it into one place. This blog is as good a spot as any, and you guys may get a kick out of it.

I'll start with a link to my write-up of a ride across the US that I took in 2002. The other pieces, I'll put on this blog in their entirety, but in this case, a link is better. My tour journal (consisting in part of emails that I sent to the folks back home) is a bit ungainly to put up here.

2/3/2007 -- Chehalem Mountains, 95 miles

2007-02-04T09:59:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about some of the roads that I like to ride in the country around Portland last week when the inspiration for this ride struck me. The thought that I had was, these are a bunch of roads that I enjoy riding seperately, but I had never considered associating them with each other in the same ride. But something in my head clicked, and I realized that if I hooked them all up, I'd have a pretty nice route.

So I went out and pedaled it on Saturday, and it was fantastic. The route covers a huge amount of ground around Portland, but manages to stay on bike-friendly roads the entire way. The only exceptions are a mile on 99E north of Canby, and a stretch on 219 south of Newberg which crosses the Willamette River. As I rode it on Saturday, I came into town on Highway 30, which isn't so good for riding, but which I chose because it's flat and I was pressed for time. Ordinarily, I would have stayed on Skyline all the way to Cornell (much nicer). I would also amend the route south of Forest Grove, turning onto Geiger and then Lafollett to get to 10th in Cornelius. Having made those changes, though, all the roads on this ride get a solid 3 stars or better. Plus, services are available at regular intervals.

The general idea is to head south through Oregon City to Canby. You can take any route you like; I mentioned some options in my post about my Salem trip. From Canby, take Knight's Bridge and Arndt west to Butteville and Champoeg. Then keep going west to 219, and cross into Newberg. Wind through Newberg to 240, but then get on the Old Yamhill Road, and turn north on Tangen Road. This leads to North Valley Road, Spring Hill Road, and Fern Hill Road, and the next thing you know, you're in Forest Grove (or Cornelius). Your options from that point are open; you can call it a good ride, and hop a MAX in Hillsboro back into town, or you can make a beeline for the north edge of the Hillsboro Airport, and then Helvetia and go up Cornelius Pass (as I did), or you can add challenge and distance by taking the less direct route through North Plains, and maybe up Logie Trail to Skyline. Once you're on top of Skyline, it's a pleasant pedal on its rolling hills back into town, where you get one last screaming descent before you finish up.

Highlights of my specific route included the Butteville-Champoeg bike path, Champoeg Park, North Valley Road, Spring Hill Road, the Rock Creek Tavern, Old Cornelius Pass Road, and Skyline Boulevard. The Rock Creek Tavern is especially nice -- it's a McMenamins, yes, but it's an awesome McMenamins, and it's there just before you start your last big push up the West Hills.

Race Across Oregon 2007

2007-01-26T15:06:00.000-08:00

I've done George and Terri's race for the last two years. In 2007, I'll make it 3 in a row. The difference, though, is that in the past I've been a part of a 4-man relay team. This year, I'll be doing it solo.

I sent my registration and entry fee in this week.

Fast Times on the HCRH

2007-01-23T13:28:00.000-08:00

...the HCRH being the Historic Columbia River Highway, of course. One of the best places around Portland to ride.

The wind stopped blowing and the temperature got high enough to melt snow this weekend, so I saddled up the Aero and stretched my legs a bit. The ride up the gorge to the end of the scenic highway is well known in these parts, and even on a winter day, I saw several other cyclists between home and Crown Point.

Below Crown Point, I got a couple treats: first, the natural beauty of the gorge was accented by spectacular ice formations clinging to the basalt walls. And secondly, the HCRH has been repaved in the last six months, from Latourell Falls all the way to the end, past Ainsworth State Park. The only blemish on the lovely cycling there (the lousy pavement) has been entirely erased -- the new surface is smooth and straight, and wonderful to pedal on.

The round trip is about 75 miles, a distance which felt pretty good for this time of year. I'm sure I'll be doing this ride in some form or another several more times in the coming months -- in the form I did it this last Sunday, as part of the Bridge of the Gods loop, or to pedal out to Ainsworth and camp for a night. It's nice to know that I won't need 35 mm tires now!

I took some pictures, too.

Out of the Mouths of Babes...

2007-01-12T16:15:00.000-08:00

Just before the turn of the new year, I did this ride from my house. It's about 40 miles, and involves probably 2500-3000 feet of climbing, total (I can't tell exactly because the gmaps pedometer elevation function is non-responsive.) The route involves climbing steep pitches from just above sea level to around 1000 feet twice, in addition to dealing with some fairly good rollers on the ridgeline at the top. It's my secret training weapon -- the best way to get good at hills is to ride hills, and bike races are won and lost on the hills. I attribute all of my success last year to going out and riding up the west hills of Portland at least 3 times per week on my lunch hours.

So, it was good to get back out there. I felt pretty good, not a world beater after all my time off of William Tell, but not bad. I didn't have any trouble getting up to Skyline on Newberry, and had fun on the second ascent up Barnes. I kept reminding myself that this was my January form, and I'd be in fine shape for racing come May if I kept at it.

I was on my way home, feeling encouraged and satisfied with my endeavor, riding on a mixed-use path, when I overtook a fellow in a wheelchair. He looked up at me on my recumbent and exclaimed, "Awh, dude! Get a real bike! Those things don't climb worth shit!"

A man who did not have use of his legs was telling me that I would not be able to climb on my bike, after doing a ride that was expressly designed to go up as many hills as I could in a short amount of time. I think that pretty much sums it all up, don't you?

Mailbag -- Hood to Coast

2006-12-19T12:49:00.000-08:00

Paul writes:

This isn't exactly about Portland to Seattle, but I was wondering if you know of a good route to take from Mt. Hood (Rhododendron/Welches area) to Astoria and avoiding Highways 26 and 30 as much as possible.
A friend of mine is turning 60 this summer and he wants to go from his cabin on Hood to the beach following the path of the water, specifically the Sandy River drainage to the Columbia and then out to the coast.

You've come to the right place, Paul. To get from the mountain to Portland without getting on highway 26, the Barlow Trail Century route is a great starting point. You can use it in toto, or you can use bits of it to get off the mountain, and then follow the Sandy River more closely. Below is a map of the Barlow Century route, which I wrote up seperately here. Click on any map to take you to the route on the Gmaps Pedometer, where you will be able to zoom in and move around:

From Zig Zag, go north on Lolo Pass Road, and then turn left onto Barlow Trail Road. Alternatively, you can get onto the route from Brightwood Loop Road and Brightwood Bridge Road. You've got a big climb over the Devil's Backbone on Marmot Road, and then a descent to Roslyn Lake.

From there you and your friend have a choice: you can track the Sandy on the east side, following Ten Eyck north to Bull Run Road, to Gordon Creek Road, to Hurlburt Road. This will then put you on the HCRH at Springdale, and you can enjoy a quick descent all the way down to the mouth of the Sandy. Be warned: Ten Eyck, Bull Run, and Gordon Creek roads are extremely hilly -- they drop into and climb out of the Sandy River gorge several times. But they are also very beautiful roads.

Your other alternative is to track the Sandy on the west side. From Roslyn Lake, just stay on the Barlow Century route down to Dodge Park, and then up the other side. From there, you can continue on the Barlow Century route through Boring and onto the Springwater Trail into Gresham, or you can track the Sandy more closely by staying on Lusted, turning onto Hosner, then Oxbow, then 302nd, then Kerslake, and down Stark Street to the Sandy River. The climbs aren't as tough on this route, but you don't spend quite as much time on the Sandy.

Wherever you end up, it's not hard to get into downtown Portland. If you go to Gresham, just take the Springwater. If you go all the way to the mouth of the Sandy, then Marine Drive makes a lot of sense. You'll probably want to go further than just downtown Portland on your first day, though, as it's still a hundred miles and change to Astoria, and that "and change" can be a killer.

To get to Astoria from Portland while avoiding Highway 30, your first step is to get to Vernonia. Alas, Vernonia is over the hills from the Columbia, and so you're not really taking Columbia river grade down to the sea, but your compensation comes from the fact that once you get to Vernonia, you get on 202 all the way into Astoria, and 202 follows the Nehalem River grade until Jewell. The Nehalem River is actually really cool -- it starts out in the coast range flowing east, but doesn't flow into the Willamette; instead, it then turns north, and carves a valley through the coast range that goes west, south, and then west into the ocean near, well, Nehalem. The ride from Vernonia to the coast is also blessed with extremely light traffic and very reasonable grades.

Personally, I like the route above very much. It doesn't completely avoid highway 30, though, going from downtown Portland to Scappoose on that road, before taking the Scappoose-Vernonia Road over the hills. It is written up in more detail here. But there are two other ways to get into Vernonia: Highway 47 and Timber Road. Both start in Forest Grove, and of the two Timber Road is far superior.

If you decide to go by way of Forest Grove, here's how to pedal out there: pedal up to the Oregon Zoo from downtown by way of Fairview and Kingston. Take Canyon Ct up to Sylvan, and then the bike bypass past the cemetery, cross the bridge and take a right down to the bike path. Take the bike path down to Wilshire, take Wilshire to Park, and Park down to Cedar Hills Blvd. Left on Cedar Hills to Jenkins, right on Jenkins, Jenkins becomes Baseline, which will take you all the way into downtown Hillsboro. From Hillsboro, take Highway 8 to Forest Grove.

If you're going by way of Timber, continue on Highway 8 through Gales Creek until it meets up with Highway 6. Then take 6 a few miles west to Timber Junction, and turn onto Timber Road. Take Timber Road through Timber, cross Highway 26, and then continue on to Vernonia. If you want to go by way of Highway 47, it's pretty self-explanatory.

If you are hell-bent on staying as close to the Columbia as possible without going on Highway 30, you can take my Washington-side route to Longview and then take SR 4 from Longview to the mouth of the Columbia. I would advise against this, though, as SR 4 is extremely narrow and winding between Longview and Cathlamet, and fairly heavily trafficked.

If you would like more detail on the Forest Grove or Longview options, just let me know, and I'll do a Gmap for you. Write back, and let us know how the ride goes!

Portland to Seattle

2006-12-14T13:05:00.000-08:00

I've never ridden this exact route as a single ride. But I have ridden every piece of it at some time or another. Most of it I did with my friend Carolyn in 2004, when we rode up to Seattle to attend Bumbershoot on Labor Day weekend. We broke the trip up into two days in each direction (staying in Centralia at the McMenamin's Olympic Club -- highly recomended!), and found it to be quite a fun trek, with a fairly humane distance each day.

The difference between the route we took on that trip and this one, though, is that we took Highway 30 between Portland and Longview. The traffic on that stretch of road drove Carolyn to distraction, which was the impetus for me to scout out the alternate route on the Washington side. It's a more challenging road, but more scenic and more pleasant, too, so on the whole, probably a better way to go. If you're interested in making the trip to Seattle, you can choose either way to get to Longview -- just know what the pros and cons are of each.

From Longview, the route takes the tried-and-true StP route all the way to Spanaway, with a modification between Napavine and Centralia -- my route stays out of Chehalis, instead going on 603 to Shorey Road, joining up with the main route again near the Centralia airport.

In Spanaway, the route goes around the back of Spanaway Lake on the Spanaway Loop Road, and then takes a combination of Ainsworth, Sheridan, and M Streets to get into downtown Tacoma. In Tacoma, it's best to try to stay on top of the ridge above the urban core, because you'll just have to climb back up it if you go down. From there, wind through the neighborhoods in the northern part of the city to Point Defiance, where you can take a ferry to Vashon Island.

This is the inspired part of this route: you don't have to deal with the wearisome Puyallup-Sumner-Auburn-Kent-Renton stretch of southern Seattle suburbs. Instead, once you get through Tacoma, you take a nice ferry ride, pedal across bucolic Vashon Island, and then take the passenger ferry from the northern tip of the island right into the heart of downtown Seattle. Much better. Be sure to stop in at the bakery in the village in the middle of the island (should be at around 176th street.)

Here is a link to the detailed map on the gmaps pedometer.

Fuel

2006-12-01T13:26:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the long silence. It's the end of the term, and I've got lots of other writing to do for the moment. Another week, and I'll be good to go again.

In the interim, this might be of interest. Here is a list of what I consumed during the 508:

396 ounces water
396 ounces water mixed with 34 scoops of perpetuem (4420 calories)
24 ounces of Ensure (1050 calories)
18 doses Hammergel (1978 calories)
16 ounces Starbucks Frappucino (300 calories)
1/2 peanut butter sandwich (200 calories)
2000 mg ibuprofen
43 Endurolytes capsules

Total calories consumed: 7898
Average calories per hour: 220

Ride Your Own Ride

2006-11-07T13:18:00.000-08:00

I did a shorter brevet the other weekend, 100k, and had a fun time. My friend John Climaldi hooked up with me for the first part of the ride, and it was good to have the company. We had a fun conversation going, but after about 25 miles or so, John pulled ahead to ride with some other folks he knew. He ended up finishing half an hour or so before I did.

It was surprising that we stayed together for as long as we did, when it gets down to it. John was on a Redline 925 fixie, and I was on my Tour Easy. Also, I had ridden 25 miles to get to the ride start, so I'd done 50 miles by the time we split up. None of this is to make excuses for "getting beat"; it just seems inconceivable that our speed profiles would overlap at all, given our radically different equipment. I bring it up because it brought home for me another facet of one of the classic cycling maxims: "Ride your own ride."

Ride your own ride. On recreational rides, on brevets, and in races. I have had more fun and more success when I've approached rides firmly grounded in the reality of my own limitations.

First of all, the wisdom of this approach should be self-evident for recreational rides. Especially when you have two riders of differing capabilities or who are on different platforms, as John and I were. It is a recipe for madness to try to fit the square peg of the quick descending, (ostensibly) slower climbing performance profile of a 'bent into the round hole of a roadbike paceline. You'll go crazy, blowing up your legs on the climbs and riding your brakes on the roll-outs.

But this holds, even for races?

Yep. I contend that it does. In its most basic sense, knowing your capabilities and staying within them is the key to finishing strong. Push yourself, by all means, and don't lose the guy in front of you's wheel if you can help it. But if you blow up, you'll spend the whole rest of the race limping, and that speed you got while you were burning through your matchbook won't make up for the miles of misery in the final calculus.

But maybe on a more profound level, I realized something very important about "riding my own ride" this last racing season. And that is, I have two twin goals in racing that kind of contradict each other. One is to win. The other is to use that will to win, combine it with excellent competition, and use that motivation to see just what I am capable of. To leave every last drop of blood, sweat, and tears on the course. These goals contradict each other because, if I just wanted to win, I wouldn't seek out strong competition -- I'd just race against patsies all the time. But if I don't really care about winning, then I lose some of the fuel that I need to get as much out of myself as possible. So it's kind of funny to try to hold those two opposing ideas at the same time, but I find that, ultimately, if I pushed myself beyond what I thought I could do, it was a good race wherever I ended up placing.

So that's the thing about riding your own ride -- it changes how you physically tackle the ride, but it also changes the yardstick by which you are measured on the ride. If your aim when you race (or ride a brevet, or whatever) is something internal like seeing just what you are personally capable of, then it only makes sense to ride in such a way that you are intimately in tune with your capabilities.

Here's an example. Suppose you have a buddy that is just a little bit faster than you are. You race all the time, just out on the local roads, and he always seems to nip you in the end. You resolve that this year, you are going to beat him, so you go out and train and train and train. And you go out on a ride together, and your usual friendly competition emerges. He gets the drop on you, but this time you hang tough and you don't lose his wheel. You're just about to pull around him and see if you can haul up next to (and hopefully past) this guy when he gets a flat. So of course you "beat" him easily. But is the monkey really off your back? Have you actually measured anything other than your ability to beat a guy with zero psi in his rear tire? In order to actually be satisfying, to be meaningful, your victory has to be the result of something internal to yourself, not some external factor.

Conversely, in one of the races that I've ridden that I am most proud of, I came in fourth. It was the 2005 edition of Wasco, where I hit a rock and got a pinch flat a few miles into a 75 mile road race. It would have been very easy to just bag it right there, but I employed a certain amount of quick thinking, a dash of resourcefulness, and a pretty good dose of mental toughness to get back into it. The folks that I felt were my chief competition got a ten or twelve minute head start on me, and I didn't think I had a chance against that kind of handicap, but I got back on the bike anyway. I am proud that I managed to claw my way back onto the podium, but I am even more proud that I didn't fold when I was dealt a potentially crippling blow.

Finally, I would just like to say that, by these standards, the folks who finished in the last hour of the Furnace Creek 508 are superheroes. Those are the folks who kept pedaling not just through Saturday night, but all of Sunday night, who soaked up every bit of hot and cold that the desert could throw at them, who lived with all of the accumulating pain for every moment that I did plus another 12 hours, who subsisted on that godawful Perpetuem or whatever for another 12 hours, who reached the last time station outside of Amboy after the official left and went home, and who still had 60 miles and a major climb left, and who had to be wondering if they would push their bodies over the red line only to come up a minute short of an official finish -- those people who did all that and still didn't throw in the towel, those people are f***ing badasses.

Here they are:
Emily "Archaeopteryx" O'Brien (Women's Fixed Gear, 47:23:23)
Sandy "Blandy Dragons" Mohr-Bader, Blake "Blandy Dragons" Bader (MixedTandem, 47:22:02)
Steve "Giant Water Bug" Gray (Men's Solo, 47:55:50)
Mike "Red Wolf" DeNoma (Men's Solo, 47:55:57)

And of course, Patty-Jo Struve, who finished RAO in 47:40 this year also belongs on the list.

Long Hauls: To Do List

2006-10-26T20:59:00.000-07:00

UPDATED: Added the Nestucca River Road

I love riding brevets. It's been especially nice in this my rookie season, as I was exposed to each of the routes that I've done for the first time, and there's nothing better than riding a new road, in my book. I may get less of that thrill next year as I do some of the same routes for the second time in the '07 series. That's fine; I am looking forward to revisiting Susan France's wonderful Three Capes route, and I certainly would have no problem with re-doing John Kramer's Klickitat Explorer route (though I don't believe that it's going to be offered next year.)

However, I've got to have that thrill of discovery in my riding, at least part of the time. The exploration of new roads and new areas is a huge part of why I started riding the long haul in the first place. I had ridden many of the interesting roads close to home, so I had to pedal farther and farther afield to find new routes. Pretty soon, it was for the sake of riding the unridden road that was itself the motivation for going out on the ride. So I keep staring at maps, and thinking to myself, "I wonder if that would be a nice road to bike on?" Such was the impetus that pushed me to do my Mt. Hood circumnavigation, my Longview ride, Old Man Pass, Detroit Lake, and High Rock (which I'll write up soon).

Fortunately, I live in an area with plenty of opportunities to explore, and my docket keeps getting new fodder for rides. Here are some of the roads that I'm looking forward to pedaling in the next year.

Forest Service Road 45

Here's the type of road that my Atlantis was made for, and the type of road that I had in mind when I got the bike. It starts off paved, at the Clackamas River, and goes right up the hillside. The pavement soon ends, and the road winds through the Cascade foothills. After a few miles, it passes a trailhead for the short hike up to Memaloose Lake. That's as far as I've been, and it's very pretty country. From there, it's possible to do a loop that takes you back down to Estacada. When the snow melts around the Clackamas River area, I'll look for a Saturday to saddle up the Atlantis and ride out to Estacada, do the loop, and ride back into town on Springwater Road.

Cherryville Road

I've written up the Barlow Road route up to Mt. Hood, and I love that route. But sometimes, making that climb up the Devil's Backbone to get out of the Sandy River valley just seems like a lot of work. And in those times, one might be tempted to ride highway 26. If one takes Sleepy Hollow Road to 26, and rides up the highway for just a mile or so, Cherryville Road offers another possibility, one that features far less traffic. I've never ridden it, however, but it is an ideal candidate to be part of a medium-length day ride from Portland. I'll have to get on William Tell out and give it a look, but checking the elevation profile on google maps, it looks like it might be pretty hilly -- certainly, that climb up to Sandy on Ten Eyck is kinda brutal.

Apiary Road

The roads around Vernonia have been a big discovery for me in the last 15 months or so. There is some wonderful scenic riding to be in the Nehalem River valley, through the coast range. Little traffic, forests and farmlands, and a couple good options for rest stops in the area. The last couple times I rode to Astoria, I took highway 202.

Before that, I took highway 30. So, staring at the map, I had to wonder what the country in between the two routes was like. One more prominent road in the intervening country is Apiary Road. I am told that it is paved for its whole length, but I'd like to find out for myself, and to see what kind of hills and scenery it features.

The neat thing about the road is that if it is reasonably navigable, it closes a couple of loops. Ride Apiary to Fern Hill, and it'll take you down to Rainier, Oregon. From Rainier, you can ride back into Portland on Highway 30, or you could cross the Lewis & Clark bridge, and take my Washington route down through Vancouver. Or, you could stay on the ridge above the river, connect up to Old Highway 30, and explore...

Alston-Mayger Road

Before I discovered the 202 route to Astoria, I wondered if there were any good side roads that would take me off of highway 30 and provide some relief, if only for part of the trip. The Alston-Mayger Road looked like a fantastic candidate -- not only could I nix several miles of traffic in the middle of the journey, it also neatly circumvented a pretty big climb above Clatskanie. I never got around to checking it out, but I'm still curious about it. It should be possible to ride out to Scappoose, take the Scappoose-Vernonia Road over the hills, turn onto Apiary Road, take that up to the Alston-Mayger Road, then take the Clatskanie-Mist Road back to 202, and from there pick any of three routes back into the Portland area. I think that would make a pretty nice long day, with a respectable amount of climbing.

Nestucca River Road

How could I forget the Nestucca River Road! A by all accounts beautiful route from the coast to the valley. No traffic, coastal forests, campgrounds along the way, and the reasonable grades of the coast range. I'm definitely looking forward to checking this one out, most likely as part of a day loop that starts at the Hillsboro MAX terminus, goes out to the coast on Highway 6, over Cape Lookout, and picks up the route after taking Sand Lake road in to 101. Then maybe if it's everything it's cracked up to be, I'll return someday as part of a loaded expedition.

Here are links to more detailed maps of these roads, in gmaps:
Forest Road 45
Cherryville Road
Apiary Road
Alston-Mayger Road
Nestucca River Road

10/7/2006 to 10/8/2006 -- Furnace Creek 508, 508 miles

2006-10-18T13:36:00.000-07:00

On the night before I was supposed to pedal my bike farther than I ever had before, I couldn't sleep.

I just lay there, next to my sweetie Jennifer, a baseball-sized lump of anxiety congealing in my stomach. Occasionally, I would roll over, or shift, to try to keep myself comfortable. But within an hour of lying down and shutting my eyes, I knew that on that night, sleep would be something that other people did.

Curiously, the fact that my anxiousness was keeping me awake did not add to my anxiousness. I just accepted it, and laid there. I would get up in the morning, and I would deal with the race the best I could in whatever state I arose in. I'm certainly no stranger to embarking on a long ride after a sleepless night. I did my 400k after tossing and turning all night in a bunk room filled with snorers, in a hostel where trains went through the back yard twice an hour. That prior experience gave me some small peace.

So when the alarm went off at five, I sat up, sighed, and rousted my crew. My anxiety had dissipated, and so I was reasonably comfortable (no pre-race jitters), but at the same time, I still felt a complete absence of drowsiness. Recognizing that I only had a limited number of bullets in the caffeine gun, I opted to forgo my customary coffee. I'd save the caffeine boost for later, when I would surely need it.

My crew consisted of Jennifer Rupert (going above and beyond the girlfriend call of duty to see me safely through this), Mark Wolfe (whom I had met once), and Philip Dresser (whom I had never met at all). Phil was in it for the adventure. Jen was there because she cared about me, and for the new experience. I think Mark was there because he feels a lot of pride in Bacchetta bicycles, that he knew that I was a strong rider with a chance to do well, and that with his help, I had a chance to show the world (or, at least some small part of it) what a Bacchetta Aero is capable of. Besides, he was the one who planted the idea to do this back at the Race Across Oregon banquet, and since he got me into this, he darn well was going to help see me through it! On top of that, and perhaps most importantly, I think all three are just kind and generous people.

We busied ourselves with last-minute preparations, and then, after grabbing a bite to eat, rolled the bike out to the starting line. I chatted with the folks around me, wishing luck and a strong race to all. I saw my fellow 'bent rider, Tim Woudenberg, and greeted several people from the northwest whom I recognized from brevets that I'd done. Then Chris Kostman came out with a few last-minute reminders, counted down, and all eighty of us rolled out of the parking lot.

I rode with Tim Woudenberg at the start, chatting amiably. We pedalled through the subdivisions around Santa Clarita, staying to the right of the 5 lane roads. Then, after a few miles, we took a quick left turn and found ourselves spread out on a narrow, two lane road that wound up through San Francisquito Canyon. Evidence of human habitation thinned out drastically in that red-brown gorge, reduced mostly to aqueducts snaking up and down the hillsides. I passed a few riders near the bottom, then got passed by a bunch in the middle, and then overtook some more near the top. No matter, it was me versus the course, as far as I was concerned. Just ride strong, finish, and my placing would take care of itself.

At the top of the hill, there was a long line of support vehicles lined up on the side of the road waiting for their riders. I had just run out of Perpetuem, and so looked for my crew, and found them in the middle. I got a fresh bottle and a couple electrolyte tablets, crested the next rise, and then it was miles and miles of downhill for me.

A steep drop for a couple, and then a gentle downgrade across the desert to the base of the windmills climb. I didn't see my crew for a while, and started to get a little worried, as my plain water was running out. I was hauling ass, though, and felt plenty strong, so I kept cruising. Finally, they overtook me, and I got my fresh water bottle. We also switched out wheels for the set of tubulars that John Climaldi had loaned me.

The downward desert gradually turned upward, and the white toothpicks sticking out of the distant hillside became windmills, and I knew that I was on the second mountain section. Up a gentle slope to a creek cut, up the bottom of the creek cut between the turbines to a pass, and then a right turn down the hill towards Mojave. Simple as that. Except that three quarters of the way down the hill, my rear wheel started to handle a little spooky, so I pulled off the road the next time I saw my support vehicle, and sure enough, the tubular was leaking. A quick wheel swap, and I was back on the road, and soon in Mojave.

Mojave was recognizable from a distance by the airliner chop shop that it contains. Fields and fields of shiny jet airplanes put out to pasture. The course took a quick, efficient route around town, and then onto a highway to California City, and the first time station.

On the gradual descent north out of Cali City, I caught Del Scharffenberg, a fellow Oregon Randonneur and a very strong rider. He was clearly suffering; I learned later that he had some bad digestive troubles. He still finished the race, though -- he's tough as nails. After a couple miles, right onto Neuralia towards Randsburg. Neuralia featured several miles of rollers that I was still plenty strong enough to jam on, and thus enjoy.

Around this time, Jen started leaning out the window and blowing kisses whenever the van overtook me, which lifted my heart and did me no end of good.

Then I turned off of Neuralia, and onto a road that went up towards Randsburg. I proceeded across what looked like a broad, flat desert towards some hills in the distance. Perspective was playing tricks on me, however -- the broad, "flat" desert was the hill. I soon became conscious of the truth, though on some level the visual cue made for a discouraging match to my effort level. But I did finally reach the "hills", and came around a corner to see a run-down little town with a quarry on a peak in the distance: Randsburg. Johannesburg followed close on its heels after a short stretch on a highway, and then I was on Trona Road.

Trona Road was empty, and featured long rollouts followed by upgrades that you'd have to call either baby climbs or monster rollers. I got another flat on this stretch, this time due to a piece of a tire's steel belt, but was able to ride the bike to where my crew was stopped, and so didn't lose any time. This section featured classic high desert landscape with the snow-covered Southern Sierra Nevadas in the distance to the west. I had just started to notice encouragement spray-painted onto the road for "Fast Rabbit" when I came to the crest of the last mega-roller. There was stationed Fast Rabbit's fan club, who gave me encouragement, but all the encouragement I needed came from seeing the miles of descending I had laid out before me.

I screamed down that hillside, and made my right turn. Onto a highway that wound through a shallow basalt canyon -- a classic western landscape. Then I came around a corner, and there laid out in front of me was a vista that dropped my jaw. A barren landscape with the bones of the earth in piles, blasted and shattered, and William Blake's "dark satanic mills" in the background. This would be Trona, the second time station.

My crew checked into the time station for me, and refueled while I continued on. We met a bit further down the road to switch wheels -- my backup had a 12-27 cassette, while my main wheels had a tighter 11-23. I decided I wanted every bit of mechanical advantage I could get for the impending climb up Townes Pass, so I had them put on the 27. After the wheel swap, the road started going up -- that would make this the Trona bump.

I crested the bump, where my crew was waiting to hand me some more water and perpetuem. I was just about to tell them to put a little more space between handoffs so that I could stow the first bottle before I took the second, when once again I was taken aback by the view, this time mid-admonishment. I came around the corner, and there spread below me in all her glory was Panamint Valley.

I zoomed down into the valley and got a good ways through it, when that magic hour of 6 PM rolled around. That meant that my team could go from leapfrog support to close-follow support. And that meant tunes. Having my crew's company, the killer music, the downhill, the cool air, and the beautiful scenery gave me another wind, and I was nigh euphoric when Chris Kostman pulled up alongside for a little interview and to snap some pictures. I felt good on the bike, and I felt strong, and it showed. "Hey Ya" has a tendency to do that to a guy. After he pulled away, I reeled in 3 or 4 other riders before I began my climb up Townes Pass in the darkness.

I knew I would be on the pass for a while, so I just kept those cranks turning. I pushed my cadence as much as possible, and when the grade let me, I shifted into a smaller cog in the back. I won't lie, though -- I spent a lot of that hill in my 26 in the front and 27 in the back. This let me keep my cadence up and save my legs for the remaining half of the race. The high point of the climb came when Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" came up on my mix, because it's an awesome rhythm for a climbing song, and it goes on forever. A few miles from the top, I got a bad case of numb/hot feet, and I had to stop. We switched out the inserts in my shoes, and that did a world of good. Two riders who I had passed went by me while I was stopped, but as it turned out, I reeled both in before the top.

At the top I threw on a jacket, yelled "Geronimo!" and dove into the black. I had 20 miles forward and 5000 feet down to travel. Mark drove the van behind me like a champ, but the descent featured a couple interesting turns and an occasional bump where I didn't have his lights on the road, and just had to rely on my Cateye to reflect off the posts that demarked the edge of the road. Keep the bike pointed between the little white reflected spots, and the headlights would be back on the road in an instant.

I passed Kenny "Fast Truck Gecko" Souza (last year's winner, and the course record holder) on that descent at 50+ miles per hour.

Then, finally, I was down to sea level. Then I was below sea level. I pushed through the easy rollers across the valley floor and down the east side of it to Furnace Creek, where I checked in at the third time station. The seam of my shorts was starting to rub at my crotch the wrong way, so I put on a little bit of chamois butter. (You wouldn't think that a 'bent rider would think to bring such an item, would you? Possibly saved my ride.) Then I was on the road again, and after a few more miles, I got my music again.

The bottom of Death Valley was my playground. My bike just ate up the flat-to-rolling terrain, and I reeled in riders to the strains of Indigo Swing's "Hot Pot Boogie". It was not that I had been bitten by the competition bug. It was just that Death Valley had instilled in me a sense of urgency. I was in my element now, but even at midnight, Death Valley was hot, and I absolutely did not want to get caught still there when the sun rose. I felt like I was tiptoeing through a den of sleeping lions, and I wanted to get as much distance between me and that den as I could while the conditions were good, and that meant turning on the jets.

So I arrived at the bottom of Jubilee pass, the gateway out, with a string of fireflies winding up the valley behind me. The Jubilee-Salsberry Pass double whammy is supposed to be easier than Townes, but I did not find it to be appreciably so. It's basically a single climb, and it's steep, and it's long. A bunch of folks went by me, and I didn't worry about it. Finally, I crested the top, and sailed down the other side. It was a dark, long drop into Shoshone, and drowsiness was starting to soak through my body like spilled wine.

I pulled into Shoshone and checked into Time Station 4. The official there asked me about how the 'bent was doing for me on the course so far, and I gave my boilerplate answer, somehow managing to sound halfway articulate. The official commented that I sounded far more chipper and with it than any other rider he'd seen. It was Potemkin consciousness, though -- I was ready to keel over at any second. But the next leg was an easy 54 miles to Baker with no climbs of note, and there was a good stiff wind blowing in the very direction I wanted to go in. There was no telling how long that would last once the sun rose. So I got back on the bike.

The wind lasted for a 5 miles or so before the geography changed, and not long after that I crested Ibex Pass. Then I got a long, long straight descent. This was exactly the worst thing for me at that moment. There was no technical challenge to it and no exertion. What's more, it was still dark, and what I could see of the road was just a vanishing point where the perspective lines joined in the distance. I was sure I was going to doze off and end up at the bottom of a ditch. Finally, the grade leveled off, and I pulled over. It was just getting too dangerous to be on the bike, so I told my crew that I needed 15 minutes to half an hour to close my eyes. I got into the van, and laid my head on Jen's lap.

Twenty minutes later, I was up, and feeling much more alert, if still somewhat fatigued and sluggish. I limped into Baker under the rising sun, and pushed on while the crew checked in for me and gassed up. The road leading out of Baker was pretty crappy, and I wasn't inspired to impose my will on it, so I pushed along at maybe 70% or so. I knew that this was just a low point; I had had several in the race so far. The first one (around the Randsburg climb) really worried me, because I was scared that even though it wasn't bad yet, that things would only get worse. That turned out not to be the case -- things actually got a lot better at times. But I knew that part of the problem was low energy, and to get more energy, I needed to consume more energy. So I stepped up on taking in the Hammergel and Perpetuem. Then my crew caught up, and turned on the tunes. And the long hill seemed to even out a bit. And as I knew I would, I started to feel better.

After something like 5 false summits, I finally crested the climb up out of Baker, and started descending down to Kelso on the crappiest pavement I hope to never descend on again. I pulled into town, only to discover a queue at a railroad crossing, with the guardrails down. Some thoughtful engineer put a railroad siding right across the only road crossing for 20 miles in either direction! This was almost too much to handle. I was running on mental fumes at that point, but as long as I could keep pedaling, I knew that I would finish the race. Now I couldn't even do that. My heart nearly broke, but then I sat down and just made the most of it by taking another 20 minute nap, and by getting ahead in my calorie intake.

Finally, after an hour and twenty minutes, the damn train left, and the guard rails went up, and we could cross. I let the other riders waiting there go first, because I was in slow and steady mode. There were just two more climbs left, and that was all the competition I needed. The climb out of Kelso went well, though -- I felt strong and the grade was short and shallow by the standards of the course. I crested near the microwave tower, wound around at the top through some snarling basalt rock formations, and then began a long descent down to the final time station before the finish line, just outside of Amboy. It was a long, straight descent that I averaged maybe 40 mph on, and it still took forever it was so long. It was another one where I had to blink a couple times once or twice to keep myself awake. It was long!

From the time station, I turned right and jetted down to Amboy, a decrepit little hovel in the middle of the desert. In Amboy, I turned south towards Sheephole Summit. One last climb. It was really heating up. The terrain to my left appeared to be a dry lake bed, and to my right, the desert hills stretched out as far as I could see. Just one more climb. It was getting very difficult to take it a mile at a time. I knew the top of that hill would be a huge relief, and that finishing this climb would mean beginning the home stretch. The road wound around the shoulder of the hill, and I could see where it stretched up the broad, featureless desert slope. I just kept pedaling. My feet were in agony. I stopped for a break, and Jen rubbed them to try to get some circulation back into them. I got back on the bike. The grade got much steeper, but it looked like it was going to crest. No. False summit. But maybe around that next bend...? And there it was. The valley that I would take all the way into Twentynine Palms, the goal of all this travail, laid out before me. Mark played "29 Palms" by Robert Plant over the P.A., and then I pointed the bike downhill for my final descent.

The ride the rest of the way into Twentynine Palms was indeed the home stretch. All of the aches and ailments that had accumulated on my ride were threatening to reach a crescendo, the sun was going down and shining right into my eyes, and the road had the crappiest surface yet. And then my left knee cramped up. I would be god damned before I gave up though; I eased off on the left leg, perfectly willing to go in on one leg if need be. As it turned out, it wasn't necessary. There was the town on the horizon, then a left turn, and then a right on Twentynine Palms Highway, then up one last sucker-punch hill, and then the finish line, and glory.

Jennifer took some wonderful pictures, which I've posted on my flickr site, here.

The 508

2006-10-05T13:02:00.001-07:00

Updates have been light recently, I know. That's not me flaking out on this project. I've simply been consumed by preparing for a rather large event that's kind of occluding everything else in my life right now. I'm talking about the Furnace Creek 508, so named because it's 508 miles, and goes right down the middle of Death Valley (passing through Furnace Creek). This will be my first solo ultra race, and my longest uninterrupted ride ever. So, not only have I been training, but I've also been getting the logistics sorted out, and trying to get enough ahead on my school work that my time down there and subsequent recovery doesn't set me back too much.

But we're down to crunch time now. The event is this weekend, starting Saturday morning at 7 A.M.

Right now, the forecast is for temperatures in the mid-70's for the first third of the ride, daytime highs in around 92 in Death Valley (and nighttime lows in the mid-60's, which is when I will be there), and temperatures in the low to mid 80's in the Mojave for the final stretch of the race. Winds look to be under 10 mph, and generally favorable. If these predictions come to pass, then I could not possibly get better conditions, weather-wise.

In preparation for the race, I took a test to be certified at the technician level to be an amateur radio operator. This will let me use a more powerful radio to keep in contact with my support vehicle. It will also let those of you out there who are interested track my progress at FindU.com. Unfortunately, I have not been assigned a call sign yet, which is what you need to plug into the site to get my position. When I have a call sign you can enter, I'll try to put it up here as an addendum to this post.

I fly down to Burbank tomorrow morning. Pretty soon, all that will be left will be to get on the bike and do this thing. I've just got to keep pedaling, and I certainly know how to do that. Wish me luck.

UPDATE: You will be able to follow my progress by clicking on this link: http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?n7ymw-4

6/25/2006 -- Barlow Trail Century, 120 miles

2006-09-29T09:51:00.000-07:00

The Barlow Trail Century is my favorite organized ride. The 2006 edition was the third iteration, and my third time doing it. It's a little on the expensive side, at $35 to pre-register, but it's a fundraiser for Bicycles and Ideas for Kids Empowerment, so the money goes to a good cause. Plus, the food and support is absolutely top-notch, culminating in awesome tasty burritos and local microbrew at the finish line.

It's also kind of a tough ride, with about 7000' of climbing, total, including an ascent up Lolo Pass on the northwest corner of Mt. Hood. But it's a beautiful route that goes the way it does for good reason; I love the Torture 10000, too, but the route kind of tries a little too hard to pack in the elevation at the cost of not really feeling like it's going somewhere. With Barlow, getting to the top of Lolo Pass feels like it's an accomplishment, and the ride out and back feels like an epic -- all of the climbing is for an ultimate purpose, none is gratuitous.

I finally convinced my buddy John Climaldi to join me for the ride this year. John and I are an excellent team for brevets and fast recreational rides, we're fairly well matched, strengthwise, and we ride similar platforms (John on a Carbon Aero, me on a Ti Aero). He's also good company for the long haul. Also, I knew he'd get a kick out of the course and scenery.

I rode from my house to the start at Paesano Park, and met John. We made some last-minute bike adjustments, and promptly hit the road. Actually, bike path. The route starts out on the Springwater Corridor, and goes to the end of the pavement, just outside Boring. Then it gets on some secondary country roads to Dodge Park Boulevard. There was a slight amendment to the route this year, so I ended up leading JC somewhat off the path to a gas station on Orient Road which had been on the route in previous years. (Just as well, as I needed to find a restroom.)

We followed Dodge Park Boulevard to Lusted Road, and took that down through the wooded switchbacks to the Sandy River, and then up the other side. We were at the first rest stop at Bull Run School in no time, and we met up with fellow OHPV'ers Joe Keenan and Marilyn Hayward. We chatted for a little while, and then pressed on. The day was really heating up, and we wanted to get some climbing out of the way before the sun got too high.

Out of Bull Run, we got on Shipley, which was a gently climbing, winding road with plenty of shade from the surrounding alder trees. When Shipley ended, we turned onto Marmot Road, which took us along a ridge called the Devil's Backbone, so named by pioneers who hauled their wagons up the ridge after taking the Barlow Road across the mountain. The top of the ridge included fir forests and horse pastures, and gave us occasional glimpses of the mountain.

After rolling along the top for a couple miles, the road plummeted down through the trees and before we knew it we were out in a clear alpine valley, threading our way between hay fields, with the mountain rising above the hills in front of us. Little Switzerland. I started singing "The hills are alive with the sound of muuuussiiiic" in my campiest falsetto.

A few miles later, we entered the dry pumice-y forest of pines and firs to the north of the Sandy River, in the area around Brightwood. Here, the Barlow Road blessed us with almost brand new, smooth pavement, as it gradually climbed up the valley past the occasional vacation cottage. Before we knew it, John and I were at Lolo Pass Road, ready to start the day's big climb.

There was another rest stop there, though, so we took advantage. We loaded up on fresh fruit and berries, grabbed a cookie or two, and refilled our water. Then we began the big push up to the pass.

The climb up to Lolo Pass is on a small, twisty forest service road that switches back and forth, winding along the edge of the hillside. The grade varies greatly, going from 5% on up to 15% or so for short stretches. Fortunately for us on that hot day, it was almost entirely shaded. I left John behind because I wanted to see what kind of shape I was in, to really test myself against that climb, whereas John took a more relaxed approach to it.

We met again at rest stop at the top of the pass, where it was pretty much a party. There was all kinds of great food, from the traditional fresh fruit and breads to ravioli and italian sausage. There was also a beautiful view of the peak from the pass, and John and I got our picture taken.

It was really heating up by that point, though, so after resting and refueling, we got rolling, looking forward to the 12 mile descent off of the pass that was in front of us. The road down is different from the road up, and much better suited to a high-speed descent. It was a white-knuckler, and the Aero handled it like a champ. Though I made a couple questionable judgements, and had to feather the brakes a bit when I went into a couple of the corners a little too hot.

We regrouped at the junction with Barlow Road, and then sailed along back down that sweetly paved road at 26 mph while hardly breaking a sweat. The route is mostly out-and-back, which gave us the same scenery from a new perspective, but it was so nice the first time that we weren't at all unhappy to get it again. We started climbing again at Little Switzerland, and then there were a couple steep pitches as we scaled the Backbone from the opposite direction. The heat was in full force by that point, and I think John and I were really feeling it. But the rollers at the top went by easily enough, and then we were sailing back down towards Bull Run. We stopped briefly when John got a flat, and I realized just how much I craved speed when the sweat on my body stopped evaporating quite so quickly.

We watered up at Bull Run, and then went down the to river, up the other side, and wound through the country east of Boring. At that point, my strength was somewhat down, and I was in my "keep pedaling" mode. But in Boring, a sweet couple was giving out popsicles from a roadside awning. Oh MAN! Talk about hitting the spot on a hot day! That little frozen chunk of fructose was plenty to refresh us and power us back the rest of the way to Paesano, and then home.

This is a great ride in and of itself, and the organized version definitely adds a lot of value over just riding it on your own (but that is fun, too). But another great aspect of it is that it is a wonderful way to get onto Mt. Hood without having to ride on Highway 26. Furthermore, once the Barlow Road ends, and you find yourself near Zig Zag on Lolo Pass Road, there are a number of really nice campgrounds that very easily accessible. This is a very reasonable (though somewhat challenging) ~60 mile ride from east Portland -- well within what most touring cyclists are comfortable doing in a day.

Here's a link to the map of the route on gmaps.

9/16/2006 to 9/17/2006 -- SIR 600k Brevet, 400 miles

2006-09-18T15:07:00.000-07:00

I did SIR's (Seattle International Randonneurs) 600 kilometer brevet this weekend. I rode it straight through, with no breaks for sleep.

It was the hardest thing I've ever done. No joke.

My original plan was to ride to the overnight control, get 5 or 6 hours of sleep, and then finish up the ride the next day. As the overnight control was about 380k into the ride, I figured that would end the first day well before midnight, giving me plenty of sleep time. I could then get up before dawn and knock out the remaining 135 miles pretty easily.

I talked with experienced randonneurs, though, and they suggested going straight through. As it turns out, I will be doing an ultracycling race in 3 weeks, The Furnace Creek 508, and they thought it might be good for me to get a feel for what I'm in for.

So I showed up at the start planning to make a straight shot of it. There were about 35 of us gathered there in the Motel 6 parking lot in Tumwater, and I was the only one on a 'bent (my brevet-configured Aero). Six o'clock rolled around, and we pedalled off into the cold, foggy morning.

We negotiated a couple of quick turns, but soon found ourselves on Littlerock road, which took us out into the country surprisingly easily. The road was flat and true, and took us to an un-named suburban community between Olympia and Centralia. Beyond that, the route put us on small back roads that did more winding around (and especially over) hills. The thick darkness tentatively let go of the morning, replaced by a thick fog. The winding road took us through charming, lush nooks and hollows, past green pastures nestled in the trees between hills, and along quiet brooks.

On the outskirts of Centralia, the Tolkien-esque landscape was replaced by broad, flat agricultural vistas. Over a few more rollers, and I found myself in Winlock, Washington, home of the world's largest egg. From there, it was south on the familiar StP route to Vader, location of the first control. A rest, a snack, a stamp, and I was on my way.

From Vader, the route continued on roads that were quite characteristic of the coastal mountains here in the northwest. Lush green valleys and forested hillsides with the occasional clear cut. I was on backroads to Pe Ell, where I got on SR 6, which was a more major road, but still very quiet, and with a decent shoulder for most of its length (the shoulder did disappear a few times, though.) I crested an easy, early summit, and pushed through some inconsequential headwinds all the way into Raymond, the location of the second control, where I took another break. I considered briefly that I had done 112 miles on the day, and what was in front of me was still longer than the longest ride I had ever done. Then I tried not to think along those lines any more.

I had to deal with a flat tire on my way out of town, but soon found myself rolling south along Willapa Bay on highway 101. The country for this section was rolling, as I was crossing rivers and streams that drained into the bay. There were also frequent stretches that put me right up next to the water. My favorite section of road was right after the junction with SR 4, a lonely section of highway near the Willapa Bay Wildlife refuge. The combination of the water, the hills, the trees, the distant islands, and the solitude of the place was terribly atmospheric. The miles into the third control, Long Beach, went by easily.

In Long Beach, I got some more food, and took another break. I definitely knew that I had done something that day. I was starting to feel some fatigue. But my joints and muscles felt pretty good, and I felt comfortable that I was doing a good job staying on top of my eating. So, I ate some more, got back on the bike, and pedaled on out of town.

South to Ilwaco, and then east along the mouth of the Columbia River. Lewis and Clark country. World War II era coastal defense country. Along the riverside, past the Astoria Bridge, and then inland to Naselle, through a sweet and tidy coast range valley. Up over the inscrutably named K-M Mountain, and then down to Cathlamet. There was supposed to be a feed stop before the climb, but I was too fast; they set up after dark, and it wasn't until Cathlamet that night had really fallen on me, so I took a stop there to eat. The road after Cathlamet wound along the riverside, on a narrow ledge. At one point, I looked to my right, out over the river, and saw a freighter heading up the channel close enough to touch! She was going almost exactly the same speed as I was, 17 or 18 mph, and so we traveled together for several miles. I think I even saw a crewman out on the deck looking my way, trying to discern what my strange configuration of lights signified.

Other than that, the stretch between Cathlamet and Kelso was a lowlight (no pun intended). Darkness had fallen, but it wasn't late enough yet that the traffic had really fallen off. Plus it was a narrow winding road, making for some nervous riding. Still, I pulled into the overnight control just after 10, feeling none the worse for wear.

It was really cooling off, and the folks at the control were angels. Unfortunately, I had just eaten at Cathlament, and wasn't really at a good point to eat much again yet, so I didn't really take full advantage. I did call my girlfriend Jennifer, though, and let her know that I had made it, that I was all right, and that I was feeling good. She was clearly worried about me -- she could hear the fatigue in my voice -- but helped me get up the courage to plunge back out there into the thick, cold night.

It was hard to go out again into the night, and even harder when I found that I had another flat tire. Like this needed to be any harder. But I patched it, and made sure my spares were in order (didn't want to be waiting for a patch to dry in the event of another flat!), and set out. It was drizzling as I pushed north on SR 411.

I could give you a play by play of what I remember of each turn and every hill in my night ride, but I don't think that would tell very much. It was generally uphill (including a couple stiff climbs) to the control at Toutle, and then there was some descending and drainage crossing down to Toledo, and finally a major prolonged climb up to a summit above Morton that ended with a screaming descent down into town. That doesn't really capture what I was up against, though. Riding alone at night, in the cold, in the drizzle, through the woods and wilds, with not a single other soul for company is paradoxically both soporific and existentially terrifying. There is very little that communicates the reality of an uncaring universe as effectively as being out on an empty highway, passing through tiny towns where all the lights are out and everything is closed, in pitch blackness. The night was mostly overcast, so I didn't even have the stars for company. And at the same time as my own cosmic insignificance was being bludgeoned into me, my body's response to the late hour and the low light was to make it almost impossible to stay awake. It was like being sung a lullaby by your executioner.

I did finally make it into Morton, a much smaller person than I was when I left Kelso. It was right around 6 AM when I pulled in, and it was easy to find an open mini-mart. I ate a breakfast sandwich, I sat in a booth, and I let myself doze off for a few 10 second naps. That was all the sleep I could manage under the circumstances, but between that and the lightening sky, I found the energy to get back on the bike and keep it pointed straight. I headed out of town on SR 508, which wound through the Tilton River Canyon.

I felt better, and I had elevation to burn. SR 508 did not disappoint on that score; though there were a couple climbs as the road went along the hillside, the trend was quite discernably downhill, and my speed and ease of travel was commensurate. I covered the next 20 miles in a hurry.

I then turned onto the Alpha-Centralia Road, which announced its intentions right away by beginning with a short, steep climb. The road's 20 miles into Centralia were generally descending, but punctuated by long, sharp drops into drainages, followed by climbs up the other side. Not typically terrain that I shy away from, but my body and spirit were in no shape for this kind of tussle. I just kept pedaling, that was all I could do.

Centralia finally came, and my spirits lifted. Feeling comfortable with my ability to estimate my final arrival time, I stopped at the train station to buy a ticket from Olympia back home. Then I pressed on, heading north on the comfortably familiar SR 507, back on the old StP route through Bucoda and Tenino. In Tenino, I got onto Old Highway 99, and wound through the forest, farms, and residential areas south of Tumwater. Around the airport, and back onto wide (though empty, at this hour on a Sunday) streets, onto the I-5 frontage road, and back to the Motel 6. I signed my brevet card and turned it in, knowing for the first time exactly what it takes to earn the designation, super randonneur.

I completed the ride in 28 hours, 49 minutes, finishing at 10:49, Sunday morning. Official course distance was 375 miles, but navigational errors and the ride to the Olympia train station after I completed the event added enough additional mileage to get me to 400.

Details about the ride and a complete cue sheet are available at the Seattle International Randonneurs' site, here.

9/9/2006 -- Klickitat Explorer 400k Brevet, 250 miles

2006-09-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

People interested in this blog should either already know about randonneuring or get to know about it. Randonneuring is a wonderful non-competitive sport that involves riding one's bicycle a very long way. The original idea when the sport was devised was to demonstrate the distances that were attainable in reasonable lengths of time by the combination of a person's muscle power and a bicycle's mechanical advantage. To that end, randonneuring events (called randonnees or brevets) come in 200, 300, 400, and 600k lengths, and must be done within a specified time limit (typically around 15 kph). The rider who completes this cycle then has an opportunity to do a grande randonnee of 1000 or 1200k, if he is up for it. The randonneur has a card that he gets signed at various control points, which verifies that he has ridden the entire route.

The best part about randonneuring for me is the opportunity it gives me to share the road with fellow long haulers, even if our mis-matched capabilities and platforms mean that we only share our company for a limited time. There is a camaraderie and an esprit de corps that in many ways is even stronger than it is among racers, because of the massive challenge of the longer events and their non-competitive nature. Everyone who finishes is an equal, and riders take pride in keeping the DNQ rates as low as possible.

Which brings us to the Klickitat Explorer 400k. This ride was organized by John Kramer, and was the second 400k event put on by the Oregon Randonneurs this year. In many ways, the 400k is considered to be the most difficult distance of all brevets in the regular series -- the distance is daunting for a single day, but the time control is 27 hours (not long enough to take a whole night off), so there is no way to avoid a fair chunk of night riding. (Obviously, the 1000k and 1200k events are daunting for the sheer magnitude of the distances involved.)

We set off from Bingen, Washington, at 5:00 AM under the silver light of a full moon. The wind was already freshening at my back, and after I wound the cranks up, I found myself flying low along Washington's SR-14. I've now ridden eastbound on both sides of the Columbia as it borders Oregon and Washington, and I must say (though it pains my provincial heart), SR-14 is vastly superior for cycling -- good shoulder, low traffic, beautiful views. Good surface for most of it (though we did have a couple stretches of chipseal). The only complaint was that the road is somewhat hilly, but even so there were no particularly difficult grades.

I arrived at the first control 4 minutes after it opened, and so felt very good about my pace so far. I knew, though, that this was the flat section with a tailwind, and that the real work was ahead of me. This pace was going to be the exception today, rather than the rule. So I ate a ham sandwich and drank a pint of chocolate milk, and was on my way.

A few more flat, wind-assisted miles along the gorge, and then it was time to get down to work. The route turned north up Alderdale road, which started out winding up out of a creek cut, and then seemed to level off on a smooth plain. The road zig-zagged the to north and west, and soon I got a taste of what kind of wind I'd have to climb my way out of for the rest of the day. The wind didn't seem too bad, but yet I was working hard to little perceived effect. The plains that the road wound through were deceptive -- the lack of actual "hills" disguised the fact that I was climbing up a pretty good grade!

When I got to the top, I could see just how much elevation I had gained. Looking down, I could see the Yakima River Valley, and the town with the next control point, Mabton. I sped down the hill, checked in at the control, ate, replenished my water, and was soon on my way.

The next stretch of road was described as "flat as a pancake." A flat, but very rough pancake. With plenty of contrary wind. 19 miles to Toppenish seemed to drag on interminably. Then I turned southwest on US 97, to tackle the major climb of the day.

97 between Toppenish and the top of Satus Pass wasn't a bad road, but there was plenty of traffic and a shoulder that came and went. The road followed a creek grade through dry hills typical of the northwest United States east of the Cascades. The ground around the creek was a lush oasis, and climbed very gradually. But about 5 miles from the top, the grade increased, and it was all business the rest of the way up. After a brief descent, I pulled off the road at Brooks Campground to check into the next control.

A quick break, and I got to enjoy the fruits of my labors, as I had a fairly easy and quick descent (though still impeded by the headwind) down the other side of the pass to Goldendale. In Goldendale, the route turned west, and spent about 20 miles on some pretty unpleasant rollers. Normally, I'm way cool with rollers, but the headwind was preventing me from getting up the momentum I need to really tame them.

Then, as all things must when you keep pedaling, the rollers ended, and I found myself at the top of the Klickitat River Gorge. An absolutely stunning, surprising sight that just took my breath away when it emerged around the corner. I was incredibly grateful to have been strong enough to get there before the daylight ended, both to be able to see it, and to have the light for the twisty descent down to the river.

Of course, what goes down, must come up, but aside from a short, stiff section just on the other side of the river, the climb back out was surprisingly painless. I soon found myself at the final control in Glenwood, near the base of Mt. Adams. I took a break there, letting my legs recover and taking in some fuel for the home stretch, and when I emerged to tackle the last 30 miles, the dark of night had fallen.

Fortunately, the twin E6 lamps on the front of my Aero lit up the road with aplomb, and I was able to navigate the dark country roads unerringly. There was very little to see, naturally, but at one point I did look towards the horizon on my right, and noticed an owl flying along with me against the backlit sky. This final leg featured a heaping helping of elevation loss, and I got the bracing experience of a fairly high-speed descent down to BZ Corner. Then it was just a matter of winding through White Salmon, down the hill, and back to the start point for a 7up and a nice hot bowl of ravioli, finishing 17 hours and 1 minute after I started.

I've put up some pictures from the ride on my flickr site.
I haven't done a google map of the route, because John Kramer did the nice jpeg map that I've attached. If anyone needs more detail than that provides, I believe there is a cue sheet on the Oregon Randonneurs site.

The Stable

2006-09-06T16:04:00.000-07:00

I've got a few personal mottos, one of which is: more bikes equals more happiness. I don't drive, which not only keeps me in shape, but lets me feel free to be as extravagant as I want with my human powered vehicle collection.

My current collection of bikes numbers 7, including such exotics as a Brompton, a Santa Cruz Blur with Jones Bars, and an M5 Carbon Lowracer. Those are all bikes with rather narrow specializations, though, and I would like to introduce you to the bikes I use for the Long Haul. I'll do so over a few posts, and I'll start with a bike that I have great deal of love for, my Bacchetta Aero.

William Tell

William Tell is my custom titanium Aero, generously supplied by my sponsor Bacchetta. I've pretty much customized every component on it, with the exception of the headset, brake levers, and rear brake. It is shown here in brevet configuration.

The Aero is a wonderful, versatile bike. It's handling characteristics are everything you could ask for; I've ridden major miles on 3 different highracer designs, and Bacchetta's geometry blows them all away. The bike has turned me from a mediocre descender into an enthusiastic one. It is simply planted in the corners at the same time as it swoops through them. The bike is also slippery as all getout.

As I say, it's versatile. In its brevet configuration, it features a Schmidt hub with twin E6 headlights, an Avid disc brake, and (soon) fenders. Outfitted thusly, it is perfect for the long night miles and lousy weather that one can frequently encounter on brevets. With the addition of Radical bags, I have even done light touring on the bike.

At the other end of the spectrum, the bike is quite a capable racer, and in its race configuration, weighs in at right around 22 lbs. I don't keep it in this configuration as a rule, but when I need to break out the secret weapons, the Aero sports a carbon fork with a caliper front brake, HED Alps wheels, 23 mm tires, and a closely spaced 11-23 Dura Ace cassette. Doing most of my riding with the heavier equipment makes the bike feel much faster when I break out the high zoot stuff, and preserves expensive gear at the same time.

(The picture above is courtesy of Joey Grimaldi.)

To facilitate re-configuring the bike, I've used a combination of a DaVinci cable splitter on the front brake and TerraCycle cable guides/stops on the stem riser. This lets me switch front forks by simply loosening two 5mm allen bolts and unscrewing the cable splitter, sliding the new fork in, tightening the bolts and headset, and connecting the brake cable on the other fork (which has its own half cable that ends in a splitter) up to the half cable attached to the brake lever. Since the front fender, the cable disc brake, and the lighting system (the hub, wiring, and lights are all contained by the fork) are all entirely of a single piece with the brevet fork, it makes completely changing the character of the bike a snap.

Here's the complete component spec for William Tell:
Shimano R700 compact crankset (50/34)
Shimano Dura Ace bottom bracket
Shimano Dura Ace front derailleur
Shimano Dura Ace rear derailleur
Shimano Dura Ace bar con shifters
SRAM PC-89R chain
Terracycle over/under idler
Avid speed dial SL brake levers
Bacchetta dual pivot calipers
FSA Orbit headset

Race configuration adds:
Shimano Dura Ace cassette (11/23)
HED Alps wheels
Michelin Pro Race 650x23 tires
Speedplay X5 pedals

Brevet configuration adds:
Harris Cyclery High & Wide cassette (11/28)
CXP-33 wheels w/ 105 hub (rear) and Schmidt hub (front)
Avid BB-7 disc brake (front)
Terry Tellus 650x28 tires
Crank Brothers Eggbeater pedals

You can see pictures of my long haul bikes in this flickr gallery.

8/27/2006 to 8/28/2006 -- Salem, 130 miles

2006-09-04T21:04:00.000-07:00

While the coast, the gorge, and Mt. Hood represent the glamour destinations for Portland cyclotouristes, Salem is an afterthought at best. At first, it doesn't make sense: the ride is an easy, flat 65 miles, there are plenty of beautiful and low traffic roads from Portland down to Salem, and the town is large enough to provide all of the services that a bicycle traveler could want. So why don't Portland cyclists frequently hear of two or three day excursions taken by riders down the valley to our state capitol?

The answer is very simple: Salem provides no good answer to the question, why bother? Generally, there really isn't any good reason to make the trip. Salem doesn't have any particular attraction, and while the ride down the valley is first rate, actually riding through the outskirts of town consists of your typical 5 lane highways and strip malls. Earlier this summer, though, I got wind of a concert that would take place at the state fair that I thought would be really fun to see (The Decemberists, The Violent Femmes, and Cake). So I brought up the idea of taking the weekend and riding down there with my friend Jeme, and we made our plans.

Let's go to the fair!

Since Jeme is an upright rider, and since this was his first loaded bike trip, I thought that it would be good to show some solidarity with him, and to ride a bike that would let us be relatively evenly matched. For this reason, I selected my Rivendell Atlantis for the trip.

Jeme and I got a late start, and proceeded south on the Oaks Bottom bike path under the warming sun. We found our way through Sellwood and Milwaukie to River Road, and took that to Oregon City. From there, we crossed the Willamette River to West Linn, and took Willamette Falls Road through the historic downtown and around Pete's Mountain to Turner Road, which we took over the hill's shoulder. Turning onto Mountain Road, we had a fun set of descending rollers all the way down to the Canby Ferry, which took us back across the Willamette River to the town of Canby.

From Canby we went south, through country that I knew well from day rides that I've done with my friends Bruce and Bill, who live in the area. We pedalled through Lone Elder, and took secondary roads such as Gribble and Zimmerman to Meridian Road, which runs up the spine of Elliott Prairie from Aurora to Silverton. Meridian is a wonderful road, with long lines of sight, little traffic, easy grades, and nicely spaced opportunities to buy refreshments at Whiskey Hill and Monitor.

In the charming little town of Silverton we took a rest break in the city park. Then we headed southwest out of town past the Oregon Garden, but I had us turn west one road too soon, and we found ourselves on the Silverton-Salem Highway. I had hoped to take secondary roads on this leg, but it was the part of the ride that I was least familiar with. The main road was fine, though, with plenty of shoulder and traffic that was reasonably light (6 cars per minute or so) and not overly fast. It also took us almost right to the doorstep of my friend Keith's house, in whose yard Jeme and I were to camp.

The fair was something of an alien cultural experience, and I got more than enough of it in the 90 minutes we had to look around before the show. The concert was great fun -- The Decemberist's new album should be excellent, judging from their new material, and Cake was in fine form. It was a little painful to watch the poor Femmes play the same 10 songs they've been playing for the last 25 years, though.

The next morning we packed up and headed north on Cherry and then River Road out of Salem (different River Road). This took us very cleanly out of Salem and then Keizer, and soon we found ourselves on French Prairie, rolling through fields of hops. The wind was contrary, so I let Jeme sit on my wheel all the way up to Champoeg park -- the birthplace of Oregon's state government. It was a straight shot all the way up from Salem.

We took a moment in the park to enjoy the Willamette River, and then took the park's bike path through the woods to Butteville. From Butteville we proceeded on Arndt and Knight's Bridge Roads into Canby, a route which was very familiar to me from the Portland Wheelmen's Spring Century. We got onto Territorial in Canby, rode to 99E, and took South End Road over the hill back into Oregon City. Just past Oregon City, we crossed the Clackamas River, and Jeme decided that the water simply looked too inviting to pass up, so I bid him farewell, and proceeded up the I-205 bike path back home, concluding a fun trip.

This expedition is a great illustration of the best options for accessing the Willamette Valley from East Portland. The first step is to get to Oregon City, and my favorite ways to do that are to take the Oaks Bottom Path and River Road, or the I-205 path. (Another option would be to take Terwilliger from downtown and 43 from Lake Oswego.) From Oregon City, Canby is a logical next waypoint, and both the West Linn-Turner Road-Canby Ferry route (for the scenery) and the South End-Territorial Road route (for speed, if you can manage the steep climb out of Oregon City) are good ways to get there. Finally, to go further south, you almost can't go wrong with any secondary road in the valley, but for my money, Meridian Road and French Prairie Road/River Road stand out because of their directness and the sheer amount of ground they cover.

Here is a link to the route on the google maps pedometer.
Here is a link to my photos on flickr.

Coming Attractions

2006-08-29T10:59:00.000-07:00

I've got big plans for this little blog. Here's a prevue of what's to come (as well as a check list to help me keep track of the stuff that I want to do):

Did you know the google maps pedometer now displays roads for non-US countries? It does! So I'll be tracing out the route that I took on my New Zealand adventure this spring. It'll be neat to see exactly what kind of mileages (kilometerages?) and climbs I did. I'll also include my correspondences to the folks back home, for narrative goodness.

I intend do a full write up of RAO Speedwagon's Race Across Oregon title defense, including a map of the route (which I've also ridden as a bike tour.)

I'll also trace out trips that I've taken to Salem (OR), Seattle, High Rock, Lost Creek, Lolo Pass (Barlow Century), the Three Capes, and the Bridge of the Gods.

I'll give a photo-tour of the equipment (i.e., bikes) that I use on my expeditions, as one can never have too much bike pr0n around.

I'll put together a catalogue of roads that I'm interested in exploring, with some ideas for rides that I might take to facilitate said exploration. By the way, if anyone out there has a suggestion for a road or area around here for me to check out, by all means, lay it on me.

So, if any of that interests you, check back in the coming weeks!

8/18/06 to 8/21/06 -- North Oregon Coast, 320 miles

2006-08-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

Riding to the Oregon Coast represents something of a holy grail to many budding bike tourists in the Portland area. The beach is a wonderful destination that seems just close enough to be doable. And once you get there, there's the whole Oregon Coast Bike Route to pedal. But there are a number of obstacles to getting there that can pose quite a challenge if you're not prepared for them. There's enough interest in the trip that the Portland Office of Transportation even has a web resource on the topic. (For the record, I much prefer the two options that they list as "alternates" to the main routes that they illustrate.)

I made my first trip to the coast when I was home from college for the summer, riding to Astoria on one of the hottest days of the year, and it was one of the first loaded tours I ever did. I made it, but only just. Since then, I've figured out a bunch of the important details to help me get all the way out there in good shape. Every year, OHPV has a campout at Ft. Stevens State Park, and I ride my bike out. This has given me plenty of chance to refine my route.

To make the trip this year, I put my gear into my Radical Designs recumbent panniers so that I could take my Aero. These bags let me carry enough on that sporty bike for a light weekend tour without having to compromise the bike's highest and best use by putting a rack on it.

I left Portland by crossing the St. John's bridge and heading north on US 30. In the past, I took 30 all the way to Astoria. And one can do that, but it's not too fun (even though there's a generous shoulder) mainly because of a large volume of high-speed traffic. But the first 50 miles isn't too bad, and I turned off after 20, in Scappoose.

My latest favorite route to Astoria is via OR 202, which is a beautiful, quiet, flat road that goes through the coastal mountains of northwest Oregon at more or less river grade. The route basically starts in Vernonia, though, and one has three options for getting there. I've tried the road through Timber and OR 47, and both are pretty good options. By going to Scappoose, I was finally getting around to trying the third option: via the Scappoose-Vernonia road.

I found it to be a fine route for riding. No shoulder and a stiff climb, of course, but not much traffic and fine scenery. Then the road flattened out, and these conditions continued all the way through Mist, Birkenfeld, and Jewell. Past the Jewell Wildlife Refuge, the road began climbing up to the summit of the coast range, and a couple miles later, I had a wide open downhill the rest of the way to camp.

I wasn't quite at my destination, though, and I still had some exploring that I wanted to do. So rather than take 202 into Astoria, I turned a little early, onto the Olney Cutoff Road. This took me to Young's River Road, and up to Young's River Falls (which was a beautiful spot, well worth the detour). From the map, I wanted to turn onto Turner Creek Lane, but missed it because it wasn't signed. So I ended up on familiar ground heading into camp on the 101 business loop.

This made for a long (120 mile) day, but the trip could easily be done in two, and splits into nice 60 mile pieces if you overnight at either Vernonia City Park or Big Eddy County Park.

I spent Saturday socializing and generally having a good time. Much of that was done while riding. The back road route down to Seaside is wonderful, and beats the pants off the 101 route both in terms of scenery and traffic, with gentle, easy rollers and only a single climb to get you out of the river valley and over the hill into Seaside. Also, for next year's get together, I'm planning to lead a Saturday ride out to Young's River Falls, and up to the Astoria Column. (You can see some of the roads that my route will follow on the right side of the map here.) There's also some nice riding just within the park, which was a little more detail than I wanted to get into. Still in all, a day of social rides that totaled a surprising 80 miles when all was said and done.

Sunday, I hung around and spent time with friends until around noon, when Mike Porter and I headed south. Our destination was Barview Jetty County Park, where there's a terrible campground with awesome hiker-biker sites. We basically just stayed on 101 the whole way, with a small side trip into Cannon Beach for lunch. Even with the late start, it was a very humane day at 50 miles.

If I had never ridden the coast before, or if we hadn't waited until 12 to start out, I would have taken some of the lower traffic, scenic backroads such as the Lewis & Clark River Road and the Miami River Road. As it stands, though, 101 on the Oregon Coast isn't too shabby in the southbound direction at least. ODOT favors that shoulder when they have to make a choice, and that the wind blows out of the northwest. So it's best to go south (feels like going downhill). The traffic is annoying in either direction.

Finally, for my last day on the road, I continued on 101 to the outskirts of Tillamook, where I got on the Wilson River Loop/Latimer Road. That saved me from having to deal with downtown Tillamook, and dropped me off on highway 6. Highway 6 is another of my favorite routes to the coast -- it's beautiful, the pavement is good, the shoulders are fine, and the traffic is moderate. What recomends this route most to the beginner is that it consists of a single climb that summits at around 1600', and descends the rest of the way to the coast (or inland, if you are heading east).

I took my time, stopping at the River's Edge Grill for an awesome chocolate chip cookie, exploring some intriguing rock stairs that turned out to lead up to a waterfall, and checking out the new Tillamook Forest Interpretive Center. After I crested the summit, I zipped down the other side, 9 miles to the junction with highway 8, and turned onto that. That took me through lovely rural Gales Creek Valley to Forest Grove, and from there I continued on 8 through the much less scenic portion that goes through Cornelius to Hillsboro. There, I got on the MAX, as I felt that riding through the western suburbs of Portland represented very little added value to my bike tour. Ending the ride at that point meant that the final day of my little tour weighed in at around 75 miles.

The whole ride:
Here is a link to the pictures I took on the trip.

Here is a link to the loop in gmaps.

Here is a link to the local rides that I did around Fort Stevens. This might be of interest because it shows the back road to Seaside, and it shows how I would have gone into Fort Stevens if I hadn't missed the turn onto Turner Creek Lane.

7/9/2005 -- Longview Loop, 120 miles

2006-08-16T09:45:00.000-07:00

I've done this ride twice, most recently on the first day of Seattle to Portland (StP) in 2005. After training hard all spring, my friend Dave was going to do StP in one day for the first time. My friend Carolyn and I wanted to give him some encouragement by riding the last 50 miles or so with him, or by at least saying hi to him at the Lexington rest stop. So on a cool July morning, we saddled up the Tour Easies and headed north.

The first half of this ride, the northbound leg to Longview, was another piece of map-inspiration. After a particularly unpleasant experience on Highway 30, I wondered if there was a reasonably direct alternate route between Portland and Longview. A little digging in Google maps gave me a good candidate on the Washington side, so in early spring of 2005, I checked it out. Then Carolyn and I refined it a little bit when we did this ride.

We started off by going across the I-5 bridge and straight up Columbia Street for a couple miles. Then we jogged over to Hazel Dell, and stayed on that for a while, and then finally over to highway 99. As you might guess, 99 isn't that great a road, but at least has a bike lane, and is pretty much par for the course for suburban riding.

Eventually, we cut over one more time to 29th St., zoomed down a big hill, and found ourselves out in the country. At this point the scenery took a big change for the better -- farmland, pastures, forests, and gently rolling hills all the way into La Center. In La Center, we pedaled past the tacky casinos, briefly got on the RACC route, but in reverse, and continued on the Old Pacific Highway towards Woodland.

That stretch of the Old Pacific Highway winds on the side of a hill through lush greenery, which reduces nearby I-5 to a mere rumor. Before we knew it, we had crossed the Lewis River and entered Woodland. We passed through Woodland efficiently, taking an I-5 frontage road, and then after a couple turns, found ourselves on Green Mountain Road.

Green Mountain Road is appropriately named. It goes up a mountain, and a fairly steep one at that. It's about 3 miles and change of tough grades to the top. Fortunately, the road was very quiet, and when we reached the summit, we were treated to a spectacular and unusual view of the lower Columbia River. The descent down the other side was quick and twisty, and deposited us onto Cloverdale Road. Cloverdale Road rolled into Kalama through some pretty tree-covered hillsides with small farms nestled in them, but we heard a bit more of I-5 in this stretch.

We stopped in Kalama for a short break, and learned about that town's Polynesian(!) origins. Then we pressed on for Longview on more low-traffic roads, and though the scenery wasn't quite as nice as before, we did cross an intriguing looking road a couple miles out of Kalama that seemed to follow the Kalama River up towards Mt. St. Helens, and which promised some potential bike-camping opportunities.

Traffic got gradually denser until the interchange with 432 and I-5. At that junction, we got on the on-ramp for I-5 to Seattle, but at the last minute turned off on Kelso Dr. From there, it was a fairly trivial matter to get into downtown Longview, and north to the big StP rest stop at Lexington.

At Lexington, we soon met up with our friends Bill Phillips, Rand Milam, and Rand's brother Kip, and had a great time socializing with them. Carolyn and I realized that Dave was probably still a good ways from Longview, and I had to get home to take a phone call that I was expecting from a friend who was living in New Zealand, so we left the rest stop with Bill and Rand.

The rest of the ride was just following the StP route home. Go through Longview, cross the Lewis and Clark Bridge, and get on Highway 30 all the way into town. Not a terrible ride -- pretty nice scenery, and certainly more fun and easier with 2000 other cyclists on the road, but also still more traffic than we had had to contend with for the first half of the trip.

Here is a link to the route on the gmaps pedometer.

7/8/2006 to 7/12/2006 -- RAO Recon, 200 miles

2006-08-14T14:01:00.000-07:00

So far, I've talked about long single-day rides. It's a whole lot of fun to go out and knock out 160 miles in a day, over river, hill, and mountain -- you know that you've done something with your day. But it takes a certain amount of athleticism to be on the bike for that long, and those kinds of distances are especially hard on my cycling brothers and sisters who have not yet discovered the joys of recumbents.

So let me just point out that there is no reason why any of these rides has to be done in a single day. The ride that is the subject of this post could have easily been done in one, especially if I had elided the side-trip up Lolo Pass. But I thought it would be more fun to take it easy, to spend some time in the outdoors, and to take the chance to enjoy myself.

Last year, my friend Carolyn and I did a self-supported bike tour out in eastern Oregon to reconnoiter the Race Across Oregon route. This year, I planned to enter the race again, but this time it was not necessary to see the whole route, as it was the same as last year, with a couple small exceptions. However, because we had so much fun last year, we decided to go out and have a look at some of the new bits. There were also a couple roads that I wanted to check out that weren't on the course, but that I just had a curiosity about.

So, we loaded up the Tour Easies and pedalled out of my driveway. Our journey began exactly as my Detroit Lake ride (which I actually did afterwards) began. We rode down the I-205 bike path to the Springwater Corridor, out the corridor to Boring, took Richey and Amisigger to 224, and merrily made our way to Estacada on that road's broad, flat shoulder. We stopped in Estacada for a lunch of meatloaf sandwiches and chocolate.

Going out of Estacada, we turned onto Faraday Road, and enjoyed its quiet pavement and views of the river. Then we rejoined 224, and just as it later would on the Detroit ride, the traffic slackened away to nothing once we were past Promontory Park, a mile or so later. We took our time pedalling up the Clackamas River, feeling free to stop to take pictures of the frequent scenic vistas. After an easy, flat 50 miles from my front door, we arrived at the Roaring River campground, and decided to relax there the rest of the afternoon.

We figured that we would get a better workout the second day, and we weren't disappointed. We had a mountain to climb, after all. So we packed up the bikes and started turning the cranks.

A few miles from Roaring River, we had a 1.5 mile climb up to Ripplebrook, where we stopped briefly to get our bearings. The we went a short ways further down 224 to the junction with FR 57, which we were going to take to Timothy Lake.

These days, the main road to Timothy Lake is FR 4630, which is gravel. The old main road was 57, but it washed out three years ago, and hasn't been repaired since. However, the slide is a minor one, and it's a matter of a minute to get off your bike, walk it around the washed-out section, and be on your merry way. So, for the second time in our trip, we had a beautiful, smooth, scenic road through the forest all to ourselves.

On the other side of the slide, we zipped back down to the river, and re-joined the main route through some tall old trees with "dispersed camping" scattered throughout. Then, when FR 57 turned to gravel, we took a left up FR 58 towards High Rock.

We could have taken 58 all the way up to Skyline Road (FR 42), but that's a tough climb. On a fully loaded bike, I was daunted, and I figured Carolyn would be too, if she knew what she would be getting into. Fortunately, I drew inspiration from a bike adventure Jonathan Maus wrote up a year or so ago, and after a mile, we turned onto 5810, which parallels 57, but is fully paved.

Well, almost fully paved, anyway.

5810 was steep and winding, but we kept plugging away. Then, after 4 miles or so, we hit the summit, and enjoyed smooth sailing down the other side. Then we came around a bend and the pavement ran out. I told Carolyn that we just had to forge on, and that the pavement would pick up again shortly. I projected way more assurance than I had any right to. The road had become a dirt path, and then that dirt path led straight down to a stream and up the bank on the other side. I confidently said that all we had to do was ford the stream and push our bikes up the hill (with no actual knowledge or experience to back up that assertion, other than that I was pretty sure I remembered reading that Jonathan had come this way).

But so we brought our bikes across the stream, ate lunch, and unloaded the bikes in preparation for pushing them up the hill. When we got the first bike to the top, what should we see but that familiar, welcome smooth pavement, picking right up where it left off, just a few yards away. Fortune favors the foolish, indeed.

At Timothy Lake, we were cruising along when disaster struck. Carolyn's bike began swerving uncontrollably from side to side, just spontaneously. She hadn't hit so much as a pebble, but the next thing I knew, her bike went down. She had a serious case of road rash and even burns from the friction and the hot pavement. She sat in the shade while I helped dress her wounds, and then I looked over her bike. It turned out that her headset had come far out of adjustment, and was so loose that the front wheel no longer pivoted on a single point, and thus could not track straight. I tightened the headset down as much as I could, and tried to get her to call it a day, and camp at one of the sites on the lake, but she wanted to press onward.

So we continued on FR 42, a beautiful road that winds through some high, dry alpine forests up to 26, and then took that down a quick couple miles to FR 43. 43 featured a couple easy rolling miles, and then a screaming descent to the White River. We scratched our heads for a while, looking for the Barlow Crossing Campground, found it, found the current occupants to be undesirable neighbors, and left. We figured that we'd be better off going off the road and finding a "dispersed" site with less loud music. We found a decent spot in the woods just off the junction of FR 43 and FR 48, and Carolyn cleaned her wounds in the White River.

Poor Carolyn had a rough night -- it's hard to get comfortable lying down when you've got a bunch of road rash. But we fortified ourselves the next morning with coffee and oatmeal, and set out north on FR 48, which did a lot to lift our spirits. It was a pleasant road, well shaded in the morning and with a moderate grade. It undulated uphill to Highway 35, where it joined that road on the blasted floodplain around the White River. The sections on FR 43 and 48 were the entirety of the new RAO sections that we had come to look at, and our verdict was, no problem. Just don't stick the streamliner on them.

On 35, we went down to Barlow Pass, and then down to the 26-35 junction. 35 is pretty quiet, but 26 is a madhouse, so we had to contend with traffic whizzing by for a couple miles before we crested Summit pass and arrived in Government Camp. We got to Government Camp right at noon, which could mean only one thing: fish tacos! We stopped at the Mt. Hood Brew Pub and each got an order of fish tacos, a beer, and a desert, and drank a bunch of their awesome water (their beer is incredible and I think it's due in large part to the water they use.) I love that place!

Then we went across the highway to the Skibowl Action Park, which I knew had mountain bike rentals. Since they did rentals, I figured they had a shop, and thus a tool to tighten Carolyn's headset. I did not want her screaming down the mountain on a finger-tight headset! All my suppositions proved correct, and we got her bike taken care of.

At the top of the hill, Carolyn took a picture of the truck sign before we flew down the side of the mountain.

In Rhodedendron, we loaded up on more groceries and water, since we knew the water at that night's campground wasn't so great. After loading up the groceries, we got onto Lolo Pass road and took it up to FR 1820, then up past McNeil Campground, Riley Horse Camp, and up to Lost Creek. Lost Creek is one of my favorite car campgrounds around -- an oasis of lush growth in a sea of dry, pumicey soil. What's more, the creepy campground host who had been the only blemish on my last couple stays there had been replaced by a really nice couple.

For the fourth day, we wanted to do a hike. So we left our tent set up in our site, and pedaled up FR 1828 to Topspur road. 1828 is a narrow, winding road that is featured on my favorite organized ride, the Barlow Trail Century. It's steep, but almost completely shaded, and very little traffic. The surface is just okay, but certainly good enough for climbing. It's the kind of road where, you'll round the corner, and there'll be a view that'll just take your breath away.

We did pretty well getting up 1828, but we had another 1.5 miles to go on the gravel road to Topspur. We were doing okay, but then Carolyn's wounds and low blood sugar combined with the tough climb and lousy surface and we had to take a break. Just around the next bend, though, we made it to the trailhead. We ate some lunch and felt a lot better.

From the Topspur trailhead, we hiked around Bald Mountain and up to McNeil Point. Carolyn had been here the previous week without her camera, and the wildflowers had been a riot. So she wanted to come back, and when she realized we'd be in the area, suggested that we do a day trip up here. We had to pedal on gravel, and hike in bike shoes, but we still managed to scramble up and down the steep slopes up to the McNeil shelter. We were rewarded for our efforts by an amazing display of beautiful plants and views of distant glacier-fed waterfalls.

Before long, a cloud rolled in and threatened to catch us up there on the exposed ridge, so we beat a hasty retreat back to our bikes. At that lower elevation, the weather was much more stable, and we had no trouble at all on the roaring descent on FR 18 back to our campsite.

The last day started off grey. The clouds that had chased us off the ridge the day before had established themselves to the horizon, and packing up I felt a couple ominous drops. We broke camp and enjoyed the steady descent down the Muddy Fork Road, and then down Lolo Pass Road to the Barlow Road. The Barlow Road is another route that I was introduced to by the Barlow Century, and I think it's an absolutely wonderful piece of pavement. Easy going up, speedy going down. Fun twists to keep it interesting, but no turns that require you to even think about reaching for your brakes. Gorgeous scenery, gorgeous surface, low traffic, and keeps you from having to do Highway 26. What's not to love?

We've done a couple of trips just out to Lost Creek before, and it's a great 2 or 3 day excursion. Usually we lift the Barlow Century route wholesale, and take roads that go over a hill called The Devil's Backbone each way. But with the weather going bad, I wanted to get home, so we got onto Sleepy Hollow Road, and took that to 26. We pushed on up 26 to Sandy. There are a couple other back roads that parallel 26 that might have worked (Cherryville, etc.), but I didn't think it would be a good idea to go exploring, under the circumstances. I'll have to go look at them before the summer's out, though. In Sandy, we got on Bluff Road, and turned left on Dunn to 352nd, and then onto Compton, which took us straight into Boring. This turned out to be a reasonable route between Sandy and Boring that doesn't require you to get on Highway 26. Nice!

From Boring, we just picked up the Springwater, and from there, the ride home is a pretty trivial exercise.

Here's a map of the whole route.

I would highly recomend this loop to the novice bike tourist. The days are 50 miles or less, the roads are quiet and pretty, and there are lots of camping options so you can always knock off early if a day is too much for you, or later if you want to keep pedaling. Plus, if you take the Devil's Backbone option (which I'll illustrate in a future post), the only time you're climbing on Highway 26 is between the 26-35 junction and Government Camp. The rest of the time, you hardly even have to think about cars. Good stuff!

Here are the rest of my photos.

Here is a link to the route in the gmaps pedometer.

8/27/2005 -- Mt. Hood, 160 Miles

2006-08-10T13:13:00.000-07:00

If there wasn't already a local ride called "The Big Lebowski", I think this one would be a good candidate for that moniker. What could be a bigger Lebowski than completely circumnavigating a mountain, including bagging 3 of its passes?

I got a chance to do this ride for the first time late last summer, and enjoyed it immensely, both for the sheer challenge of it, and for the wonderful roads that I got to explore along the way. This is definitely a ride that I will be returning to (though at the moment there's a fire in the Elk Meadow area that has closed highway 35 up to Bennett Pass).

I started out by heading out of town on Marine Drive, enjoying the smooth, level road to Troutdale. Then I went up the Historic Columbia River Highway, over Chanticleer Point, and down through waterfall country. These roads are the bread and butter of most Portland area riders, but it was fun to go out on them knowing that I'd be coming back a different way.

Finally, past Warrendale, I had to get onto I-84 for about 2 miles. Not the most fun road in the world, but plenty of shoulder, and not too much trash. Supposedly, Congressman Peter DeFazio is looking into funding enough connections to make it possible to pedal from Portland to The Dalles without having to go on 84, which would be lovely. Truth be told, it's not a terribly challenging project, actually, as there are only two gaps left that I know about (more on the second in a moment).

I got off of 84 at Bonneville, and got on the 6 mile stretch of the HCRH that is only open to bike and pedestrian traffic, which I took into Cascade Locks. Through town, onto Forest Lane (pretty much a frontage road), and then Herman Creek Road. Not overly scenic (although there's always something pretty to look at in the gorge), and not quiet (next to 84), but very little traffic, so good enough. Finally, Herman Creek Road ended, and I had a choice to make: either get back on the freeway, or turn right to take a back road on over to Wyeth, which I wasn't very knowledgeable about.

Being an adventuresome soul, of course I took the road to Wyeth. Nice road, but very steep. Lots of false summits, and each time the climbing resumes, it comes back steeper than before. But it kept me off of 84 for a few miles, and got me some very nice scenery. Finally, though, I had to get back onto the freeway for the last pull into Hood River.

The stretch of freeway between Wyeth and Hood River is pretty hairy. It's 12 miles, and there is a hair-raising half mile or so where the shoulder gets a lot narrower than I am comfortable with. The one saving grace of this piece of road is that you almost always have a tailwind in the summer. Get it done, Representative DeFazio!

I stopped briefly in Hood River to ask whether I was better off going south on 35 or the Hood River Highway. I ended up taking 35, but it was pretty exposed; next time I'll try the Hood River Highway. 35 features several large stair-steps before you get up to Parkdale, where it starts climbing steadily up the mountainside. Though out in the open, the road did feature very little traffic -- it occurred to me that the ski traffic would be non-existant in the summer, and that almost any two points that one might haul freight between would be better connected by 26, 84, or 197, so no trucks, either. And the scenery was absolutely stunning.

Finally, I attained the summit at Bennett Pass. From there, it was actually an easy descent down to the next pass, Barlow, and not much further to the third and final pass of the day, Summit Pass at Government Camp. I got some much-needed dinner at the Mt. Hood Brewing restaurant, and then positively flew home via 26 to Boring, and the Springwater Corridor the rest of the way. Gov't Camp to my front door, 55 miles in under 2.5 hours. Smokin'! But then, that's what descending 3500 feet will get you.

Here's the route on gmaps:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=353536

7/1/2006 -- Old Man Pass, 165 miles

2006-08-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

The idea for this ride came (as so many of my ideas for rides do) from staring at a map. I was looking at the backroads of southwest Washington, and tracing the little filaments that represented roads as they wound around north of the Columbia River. Pretty soon I saw one that went all the way through to the Lewis River. "I wonder if that's paved," I thought. If it was, then it would be possible to make a very long, but still doable loop that starts off going up the Columbia Gorge, and ends up in the foothills below Mt. St. Helens before coming back home through Vancouver.

Well, only one way to find out. When a day came up that I could dedicate to a long ride, I got up early and set out on my sport touring/racing bike, a Bacchetta Aero.

I started off, as I often do, on the I-205 bike path, which I took over to Vancouver. There, I got on the old Evergreen Highway and headed east. The road surface was mediocre, and there was no shoulder to speak of, but also no traffic. This took me through downtown Camas to Washougal, where I turned north on the Washougal River Road. This is a slight detour from the more standard SR-14 route up the Washington side of the gorge, but a very pretty one. It's an easier grade, too (not that I mind a good climb), and the traffic is generally lighter and calmer. So, on the balance, worth an extra couple miles.

The rest of the ride out to Carson is easy and scenic, with smooth pavement, a good shoulder, and a reliable tailwind (in the summer). I stopped both in Stevenson and Carson to have a bit of a snack, and then proceeded up the Wind River Road, which is long and straight. Some decent shoulder and decent pavement. Traffic falls off as you go north, but near Carson, there's a pretty fair amount of it. Then, when you get to the junction with "Meadow Creek Road" (which is only named that on the maps, as far as I can tell -- the signage on the road still indicated "Wind River Road"), you have pretty much the whole road to yourself. There's a gorgeous camping option at the base of this ride's big climb, at Paradise Creek Campground.

The climb up to Old Man Pass is a 7 mile long grind. The road snakes around up the side of the hill, and keeps going around corners. I kept seeing blue sky around the next bend, which often indicates that there is downhill on the other side. This kept happening, and the terrain around the bend kept featuring more up. It'd be more fun now, knowing exactly what I was in for. So be warned: it's 7 miles from Paradise Creek to the top of Old Man Pass. Period.

At the top, I took another blow. A sweet couple in an RV got to chatting with me, and I mentioned that I would kill for a popsicle. They generously offered me a cold Sprite, which was just as good. Thus fortified, I proceeded down the hill.

There was a small downhill followed by a couple miles of flat/rolling terrain at the top of the pass, and then I turned left onto Curly Creek Road. Around a corner, and blammo, there was Mt. St. Helens in all her glory. I got some great pictures at McClellan Viewpoint, and blasted down a technical descent to FR-90. The last stretch of Curly Creek Road was a straight, steep section that plummeted down a corridor of trees, with the mountain right in front of you. Eminently picture-worthy, but I was doing 45+ at the time, and not inclined to stop.

There was a resort at Northwoods where I had some more food, and chatted with some backroads mountain bike cyclotourists. Ah, there's something I'd love to try soon! They raved about having hundreds of miles of roads, all to themselves. The thrill of exploration, peace and quiet, and beautiful scenery; what's not to love?

From Northwoods on, the traffic picked up a bunch. FR-90 and then WA 503 zig-zagged around the northern edges of first Swift Creek Reservoir, and then Yale Lake. It was some fairly challenging, rolling terrain without too much extra room on the road. Past Yale Lake, I stayed on 503 through Amboy and into Battleground. I would not recomend this at all -- 503 is a steep, windy road with lousy sight lines and too much traffic. Take 503 to Amboy, but then pick up the RACC route by either going southeast to Yacolt and Moulton Falls, or even better, by going west on Cedar Creek Road and going over the hill at 21st to La Center. The route from La Center south is much nicer and safer than the stretch of 503 from Amboy to Battleground.

When I finally did get to Battleground, cycling conditions on 503 improved quite a bit, but there was still a distastefully high level of traffic, and the scenery was terrible. It did the job, though, and got me to Orchards, where I stopped for a Burgerville cheeseburger and shake before I found my way through eastern Vancouver back to the Glen Jackson Bridge.

Pictures here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49813305@N00/sets/72157594202815279/

Gmaps route here:
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=347662

8/5/2006 -- Detroit Lake, 200 miles

2006-08-07T15:46:00.000-07:00

Late last summer, I finally got a chance to ride on Highway 224, up the Clackamas River. I fell in love with the area for biking, and since then I've daydreamed about doing a ride to explore the entire length of that highway. On Saturday, I got up early and set out on my custom Bacchetta Aero to do just that.

There's nothing easier than getting to Estacada from central Portland; simply follow the Springwater Corridor to its terminus in Boring, follow Richey and Amisigger down the hill, and get on the generously-shouldered 224 to Estacada. And then, just past town, divert onto Faraday Road (the old Highway 224) for 5 miles of car-free bliss, right above the river. Rejoin 224, and past Promontory Park traffic on the highway diminishes into nigh non-existence.

For the next 70 miles, pedal through beautiful forests, above roaring rapids, and below basalt cliffs. Except for a snack stand at Ripplebrook, there are no services in this stretch, so pack a lunch. The trees for the last 15 miles or so before the pass above the Breitenbush River are rather generic second growth stock, but upon plummetting down the other side, the forest regains a lush, older growth character.

Detroit has plenty of options for refueling, and represents something of a high point, elevation-wise, in the ride. The next 30 miles consist of gradually descending rollers, and feature a fairly heavy accompaniment of traffic. To it's credit, the road here also has a pretty good shoulder. I had a nasty headwind for this stretch, which was somewhat demoralizing, given the traffic, and given how much effort I had already expended on the day. Plenty of services in this stretch.

When I got to Stayton, I turned north on the Cascade Highway, west of Silver Falls Park. This road is straight, but crosses a number of drainages of the foothills of the Cascades. So it's pretty hilly. Once I got to Silverton, I proceeded north over the pancake-esque Elliott Prairie on Meridian Road, which took me to within spitting distance of Canby, and from there I took my pick of several options to get me back within Portland proper.

Here's the route in gmaps:
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=347558