Daily Summary

Crazy Day! We’ll Start With A Summary

We had one adventure after another today. The overall ride course was solid, but almost everyone had a major problem at some point. I’ll cover that later.

When we started, it wasn’t supposed to rain, but then it rained on us for the first 2 hours. If you zoom in on the first picture of my jacket, you can see all the dirt that got kicked up onto us. You can also see two pictures from the bridge near Portland that we rode over.

The next two pictures are from when we rode behind the Portland airport. In the first one, if you zoom over my shoulder, you’ll see the main runway pointing almost right at me. The next picture has the Delta part of the terminal with some Delta planes. I’ve flown in and out of there literally a couple dozen times over the years.

There was a 5 mile climb that lunch was in the middle of. After that, it warmed up a bit and we ended up with an amazing set of unexpected sights. We expected one stop at the famous Multnomah falls but kept passing other cool stuff. The first picture is a view over my shoulder from an historic monument towards the top of the mountain.

Next, there are pictures of not just Multnomah falls, but also three others. The third one is Multnomah. The name of the first is in the picture. I didn’t capture the names of the other two, but they were cool!

The last picture is the view from the dinner table.

The Bad

Other than the rain, we had various mishaps. When we started, we had to take a right out of the hotel and then just go straight for 20 miles until the first pit stop. Two people accidentally went left and didn’t realize until they got 20 miles the wrong direction and couldn’t see the rest stop. They got teased bad for not using their navigation! The van had to drive 40 miles and back to get them and it caused the rest of us to have a cancelled 2nd pit stop. Two other people also made a wrong turn at one point, but realized after just a few miles and so they only lost about 30 minutes.

There were a variety of flat tires too. The person I was with got a flat. We had a ton of trouble getting his tire off because it was tightly fit. After about 30 – 35 minutes we finally had it. In the meantime, another guy caught up to us and his tire was losing air and so we had to change his tire too.

Amidst that, one gentleman had left early and so he got to lunch way before the van made it back and just self-supported the rest of the way in.

To add insult to injury, 9 miles from the finish there was a mudslide that blocked part of the road and also the bike path. So, there was no way to finish the ride unless we wanted to go on the interstate. Thus, we had to get the van to take us the final 9 miles to bypass the problems.

The Good

While it started really wet, the road was awesome. If you haven’t ridden bikes much, you wouldn’t realize how much the type of pavement matters. The first 20 miles was pretty new and very smooth pavement. We were able to average 16 – 17 mph without even trying to go fast. And, there was virtually no bumpiness. We enjoyed that.

The bonus sights we saw made everyone’s day. We were all a bit grumpy at lunch at mile 50. But then the things we saw the following 15 miles made up for it. We lost a ton of time with all the stops, but we all agreed that’s what we are here for.

Honestly, it is kind of funny how many things went wrong and yet how much we ended up enjoying the day. Hopefully our bad luck is done for a bit!

Planned Vs Actual

As mentioned, we didn’t get to ride the last 9 miles due to the mudslide. Since I had already missed some miles yesterday to protect my leg, it didn’t bother me. But, now nobody will be able to truly ride every mile. At the same time, the guides told us at the start that pretty much 100% of the time some type of weather event, bike problem, road closure, etc ends up causing folks to have to miss some miles. They said we’d be crazy to assume we would ride every mile and they were proven right pretty early!

Leg Update

My leg held up well today. My new pedaling style is helping avoid putting much pressure on it. I made it up the 5 mile hill without issue. It was my first real test of it. It is a little sore tonight like every night, but no worse even with all the use. So, I am still hopeful that if I keep being smart with it, all will be ok.

Today’s pace was again sustainable. I was in zone 1 or zone 2 for 70% of the ride. I hit zone 4 for the first time this week for a little while on the big climb. It felt good after holding back for a few days! I am realizing that I definitely ride too hard, too often. I am going to make a point to work in more slow and moderate rides ongoing. I have tried to do that in the past, but apparently didn’t dial them down enough.

The Food

It was a good food day. Breakfast was so-so. Just a Best Western freebee. But I got some eggs, potatoes, bacon and tea. It is what I needed to start the day.

They had some gels that are the tastiest I’ve ever had. They are big and firm. The flavor was dark cherry and they were strong cherry flavored. I plan to make those my go-to gel for a while. I also had some raisins and nutbars at breaks.

Lunch was sandwiches, chips, cherries, dates, and an amazing seafood salad. It was like a potato salad but with seafood and was awesome.

Dinner was even better. We hit a popular local place. You can see the picture of my grilled sturgeon (never had that before), ceviche, and huckleberry lemonade. We had frozen yogurt for dessert, and I also had a candy bar back at the room to top off the day.