Our ride was on Sunday, June 22. Since we were uncertain of how long it was going to take us to pull off the ride, we were wanting to be pedaling by 3:30am. That meant a short night of sleep on Saturday night, which meant that we REALLY wanted to get a good night's sleep on Friday night, except that Jeff's plane got in late [I knew the news wasn't good when the captain and co-pilot got off the plane ten minutes before the scheduled departure, and then it was announced that it'd be forty-five minutes before they'd announce their best guess as to when the actual departure would be. We got off the ground at 9:30, an hour and fifteen minutes late.] and we had to get up early (6:45-ish) in order to get down to the starting line on Saturday to pick up Jeff's rider packet. We COULD have done it on Sunday, but the starting line didn't officially open until 4:30, and we wanted to be 15 miles on down the road by then. Sometimes the logistics of pulling things off will eat you alive. [Did you have to mention "eat" so early?]

Jeff spent part of Saturday assembling his bike. [It arrived on the same flight, and in the same condition as when I packed it Thursday evening. That was good.] In general Saturday was low-key [except for a solstice parade we took in, which can be the topic of another report if one of us or Carol gets around to it. But in general, it was a "you had to be there to appreciate it" affair. :-)]. I made spaghetti for a final carbo-loading. We attached our numbers to the bikes and to our helmets, double checked to make sure our equipment was all in order, and hit the sack around 9pm.

On Sunday our alarms went off at 2:30am. Fortunately, most of my training rides involved getting up between 3:30am and 5am, so it really wasn't as foreign to me as it could have been. And Jeff wasn't all that far removed from CDT, so it was more like 4:30am to him. [I was on CDT all day long. Just for kicks, you can add 2 hours to every time quoted here to see where my body was at. It became more significant when the sun set two hours later than it was supposed to have. Try explaining that to a tired body.] I'm sure Todd can appreciate the amount of effort that it took to choke down a bowl of granola, but we tried to use our time efficiently by making sandwiches, checking and double-checking our bags. Checking again. Gosh, is the granola done yet? Okay, one more check. [My bowl was farther from the kitchen door than his. I'd contemplated moving it closer to see if he'd accidentally help me finish mine off.] We didn't actually leave the house until about 3:20am, so we were already behind on our theoretical schedule.

We arrived near the Kingdome at 3:45, unloaded our bikes and rode a couple blocks to the official starting line to dump off a bag of clean clothes and showering supplies (uh, just in case we happened to get to Portland with a little time to spare). One woman approached us to fasten some "200 miles in one day" ribbons to our bikes. [I don't even recall this happening. I'm glad Peter drove to the Kingdome.] A man sent us off to a table to grab some bananas, and off we went at approximately five minutes before 4. Part of our master strategy was to take turns "pulling" or breaking wind. I took the first shift, in part because I figured I had a bit of a "home court advantage" in deciphering all the turns to get us out of Seattle. We had a solo biker tagging along with us at this point -- he had those fancy five-spoke wheels on his bike, so after awhile when he went passed us, I figured he was long gone and just the first of many that would be going by us during the course of the day (there were guesstimates of 1000 riders doing it in one day). [I knew it was going to be a long day and that egos wouldn't get us to Portland. My Competitive Spirit doesn't like to let others pass, but I subdued it quite easily all day. Most of the time.] Since neither of us have ever done anything of this (crazy) magnitude, we were mostly just interested in making it -- not making it in blazing fast times. I can go a step farther and say that my training was geared only toward making it -- in the four weekends leading up to STP I had ridden 45, 65, 90, and 115 miles in one day. [I think the quote I heard from Peter earlier was that since it was only a one day event, he could leave himself "all over the pavement" if that's what it took. :-) ]

The first few intersections were only marked with paint on the pavement. As we got out of Seattle, though, many of the intersections were "marked" with policemen who did their best to wave us on through stop signs and red lights. Normally I figured this was reserved for funeral processions, but then maybe they weren't so far off on this ride . . . :-) [And can you believe that I actually wondered if the first one we met would bust us for riding without headlights? I was using too much energy in thinking that early in the ride.]

Any time you do anything physically challenging, whether it is biking, hiking, running, basketball, soccer, etc. you've always got certain parts of your body that you figure are "weak links", and therefore much of your early focus is on "listening" for signs that they are going to fail you. I had been having troubles with my right hand during the previous week (a strained thumb, possibly from picking up the big "A" incorrectly), my left knee was feeling a little "off", and the big "A" had brought home a daycare cold that I was trying to hold at bay. Jeff has a trick knee that bothers him [What do you mean "trick?" I ain't seen it do no tricks! The hurting seems to be related to something, like the weather, but I've ruled out the weather.], and he had been fighting a cold for the past couple of weeks. The early returns said that my hand at least wasn't going to get worse, the daycare cold hadn't latched on yet, Jeff's knee was okay, and I didn't need my mirror very much to know that Jeff was behind me -- I just listened for the coughing and hacking. [He embarrassed me at one of the rest stops by saying, "You know, you *should* really cut down to only one pack a day." Yes, there were a couple of odd looks in my direction.]

We were bucking a bit of a headwind [uh, breeze] early on -- 5-10 mph is my guess. I bucked it for the first six miles, Jeff took the next six, and I took the next eight because right around 16 miles we took our first stop at a bank of porto-potties to keep the fluids moving in and out, and to eat our stash of bananas. [I don't think the potties were an official stop, but they were sure convenient, and there were a dozen or more to choose from. I'm not one to enjoy standing in lines.] At some point during the first 16 miles, we realized that the lady back at the starting line never did get our ribbons attached. Not that big a deal, but supposedly we needed them for "admittance" to some of the free food on down the line. We figured we could get them at one of the stops, but it never happened. It also never turned out to be an issue as far as the food stops. [We didn't see any recreational bikers who'd dare be seen with us, especially just to crash food stops.]

Between 20-25 miles, we hit our first "official" stop. Actually, I don't think it was listed on the schedule -- it was just a few porto-potties at a gas station [maybe four, the main supplier on the route being Honey Bucket], a repair van, and a couple jugs of water. While we were there, we got our first look at the Red Wing motorcycles that continued to ride up and down the route through most of the day. [Red Wing? Was that the name of the particular club? They were all Honda Gold Wing cycles. {Red Wing, Gold Wing, ya, whatever}]

By now, the early winds had subsided, and when we turned the corner at 27 miles and started heading west toward Puyallup (gasp!) we actually had a slight tail wind, so every one was flying. [Hey, we were hanging around 20mph! Portland in 10 hours!] Any information I had about the route was very vague and I had no clue where any of these "landmarks" actually existed. [We were given route booklets that had details mapped out to the hundredth of a mile. It'd have taken us two days to get there if we'd tried to follow them.] Nevertheless, I had been warned of "the hill", and our flying crash-landed quickly when we suddenly came upon "the hill" at about 35 miles. No sense in drafting when you can only go 5-10 [it was more like 5-6] miles per hour, so we each picked our own pace and slogged the one-mile to the top. [I pushed it too hard going up this hill, which was a mistake as it took several miles to get my natural rhythm going again.]

The route was actually fairly hilly from this point on into Spanaway at mile 48 for the first food stop of the day at the school. The last five miles or so we got our first rain, so the rooster tails were flying by the time we rolled into Spanaway around 7:15am. [I'd say something about Peter's rear tire kicking up more water than any other bike's on the ride, but he covers that later. We were pretty soggy when we rolled in. Rain gear wouldn't have helped either, as we'd be soggy from sweat instead of rain. The temperature was 55-60, so it was a wash as to which way we'd have been wetter.]

I had great expectations for the food stops, if not a great appetite. [Same here.] Unfortunately, the selections were barely appetizing enough for me to choke down -- nothing but sugar, sugar, and more sugar -- muffins, cookies, fruit, etc. Normally I like fruit, but I really wanted something salty and something substantial. I ended up spending most of my efforts at the bowl of boiled red potatoes. [I'd have preferred Stove Top Stuffing at this point.]

We probably spent a good 15 minutes at Spanaway and then were off. [I think the first stage of hypothermia--uncontrollable shivering--had hit me. That was certainly incentive to get back on the bike.] If there IS any benefit to being out on the road with 1000 other riders it's that you will get your opportunities to draft. We hadn't been rolling again for too long before a pack to 20 bikes came on by, and I opted to pull us onto the tail of the pack for awhile. We were getting fairly consistent rains by now, so it was an art to stay in the draft but out of line of the rooster tails. Jeff informs me that my tire kicked up the water as bad or worse than any of them. :-) The drafting only lasted a few miles before Jeff started to drop off the pace. I'm definitely more of a power biker when given the chance, so I wouldn't have minded hanging with the pack for longer, but I think Jeff was already feeling the effects of his cold and the hacking and coughing at this point and didn't feel like he could put out the energy to keep up. So, I dropped back with Jeff and we continued on our merry (wet) way. [Your thinking is correct. It was frustrating to be ailing already, but I had to deal with it, and that meant pacing myself. The groups that passed us were within 1 or 2 mph of what I was comfortable with, but I couldn't keep it up all day.]

5-10 miles out of Spanaway we came to the (unofficial) worst railroad crossing. Our route paralleled I-5 all the way on down, and there were a number of RR crossings, most of which seemed to be at an angle. As you can imagine, wet RR crossings at an angle are a recipe for a locked tire and flipped riders. They rolled out the red carpet for us on this one, though. Or at least SOME color of carpet was stretched across the tracks for our riding convenience. [I think it was green. Or maybe blue. When I browsed the very detailed booklet and saw "bad RR" and "worst RR" and "Whoa, dudes. Look at this RR!", I thought they were talking about rough crossings like the pot-holed mess in the Twin Cities. This angled stuff was pretty nice in my opinion. :-) ]

We hit the stops at Yelm (64 miles) and Tenino (78 miles), riding in and out of rain. [You *were* looking at the booklet when you wrote this, weren't you? I don't even recall seeing the city limits signs for half of these bergs.] I can't tell you anything about the stop in Yelm [it was the one I felt obligated to eat the first of the peanut butter sandwiches I'd prepared while eating granola at 2:30am. The granola was sounding better at this point, so I actually washed down the sandwich with a granola bar. It makes me shudder to think of it now.] -- the one in Tenino was in a little park with a half dozen porto-potties. They had started a fire for the riders to stay warm. [Actually, I think it was for them to warm up. I wasn't very toasty rolling into that place. The "donations only" food booth people had given a rider a lot of grief for picking up a hot cup of cocoa without contributing to whatever cause/organization, that I didn't think it was worth the effort to warm up in that manner.] The water source was a hose with a sprayer attached. [It was almost one of those Candid Camera scenarios, with the unsuspecting cyclists putting the sprayer to the mouths of their water bottles, and then getting a face full when the 120 lbs. of pressure kicked in. The lucky ones weren't hanging onto their bottles tightly and dropped them during the initial blast.] We kept on forcing down our stash of fig bars, sandwiches, bananas, and Gatorade. Jeff was still hacking away. [As if I'd improve the further we went.] We pushed on toward Centralia.

This was not a pleasure stop. I don't know what Jeff was feeling like at this point, but I was almost dizzy. [I was actually in fairly decent spirits. I just didn't have a lot of oomph to back them up.] We weren't the only ones feeling it at this point -- the chatter out on the road had mostly died off and people were getting down to the business of putting in their time. I think I did eventually start to feel better after awhile of eating and drinking (I developed a new strategy for gagging down food at this stop -- the bagels were so dry and chewy, relatively speaking, that it was easier to take a bite, squirt in some Gatorade to turn it to mush, and then swallow it on down) and sitting in a non-moving chair, but there was also the cold factor -- stopping for too long made you cold, and so we figured we might as well push on at whatever pace we could stand and see where it got us. [I knew he was right when he suggested moving out, but I was a little irked. So, with as much of a smile as I could muster, I muttered, "Sure." and off we went.]

As if we needed it, this was the point that the headwinds REALLY started (10-20mph) and our pace had dropped down to the 10-12 mph range. A 16 mph pace would have meant 12-1/2 hours of biking. 15 mph means 13-1/2. Early on, we were in the 15-16 mph range. With 108 miles to go at 10-12 mph, we were looking at 9-10 more hours of biking NOT INCLUDING STOPS and it was already noon. The head games were definitely at work at this point -- when should we bail out and where should we bail out were the questions going through my head. At this point, I stopped looking at the odometer because I didn't want to know anymore. [I'd never been going by the odometer, rather watching the clock instead. The 9-10 hours was weighing heavily on my mind as that had been the longest stretch of biking I'd ever done, last summer on a 130 mile day between Shoreview and Winona, MN. I tried imagining what it'd be like to start that trip in the condition we were in, but had to stop before I totally demoralized myself. Yeah, the head games had begun.]

[Somewhere along this stretch, when visibility was probably less than a mile because of the weather, Peter asked me how I was enjoying the different trees and terrain (that neither of us could really see at the time). This question was in reference to an article published in an STP newsletter sent to all the participants before the event (although Linda said mine showed up while I was in Seattle). Peter had discovered that his older brother had been interviewed by the author as to why someone would be coming from a distance to take in the STP. The call had come last spring sometime, out of the blue, and before I'd gotten honed up for job interviewing. I managed to mutter something about being challenged by Peter to do the ride, and then mumbled something about needing a change of pace from the trees and terrain in Minnesota. It was an awkward situation in which I felt the author was looking for some revelation that'd bring foreigners in by the hundreds next year, and I let her down.]

We stopped at a church in a small town for water and a potty break. [That was a *church*? I guess I'll buy that. I just looked at it as a big wind break for a few minutes.] A solo biker pulled up and said that he HAD been planning to do the Cannonball Run the next weekend (Seattle to Spokane in one day at 280 miles), but he had been sufficiently humbled by the wind to realize that he wasn't in good enough condition at this point. We stopped near Vader [you really *were* looking at that booklet, weren't you?] at a farmer's little stop near 2 o'clock. [Actually, I think it was a church group's. I don't think they made much money on this group of people.] We still had a good 20 miles to go to get to the Longview bridge and they were going to be stopping the escorts at 2. Oh well. Another stop at Castle Rock at a gas station, mile 128. [We'd been in and out of quite a bit of rain by this point. While we were there, it started raining again, and hardly a cyclist bothered to seek shelter.] A food stop at Lexington around 4pm (more bagel mush and grapes for me) and they looked like they were getting ready to wrap things up. Mile 140 and we still had 60 to go!

Did I mention that according to our info, the last bus was scheduled to leave Portland at 7:30pm? Let's see, 60 miles in three and a half hours? NOW what time do we bail out? [We were having the same *thoughts*, but as I recall, we didn't discuss them even once. I was thinking that if we did, we'd probably talk ourselves into bailing and I didn't want to take that chance by bringing it up.] We had been watching bikes sail by on the racks of the support vehicles for the past few hours as other cyclists demoralized by the head winds and rain had called it a day. Nevertheless, I keep telling myself that our best option is still to get to Portland at WHATEVER time. [Same here. We'd invested too much to bag the trip while our bodies were still holding out in reasonably good condition. <cough><cough><cough> Yeah, cut down to one pack. <cough>]

We leave Lexington and soon the Longview bridge "sneaks up" on us. Now I'm totally discombobulated as to where we are, because I didn't think we'd be crossing into Oregon until just before Portland and we're still 48 miles out! Further, my recollection was that Longview was closer to the mouth of the Columbia, which makes us WEST of Portland? [That's what I was thinking too, that we'd be heading east, getting a break from the wind.] However, crossing that bridge into Oregon (not a trivial task since it is darn near two miles long including quite a climb to the center. Also, you're right there on the road with the cars so there isn't a lot of wiggle room if things turn ugly) and seeing the "48 miles to Portland" sign has got me thinking for the first time that we actually might make it. That and the fact that we FINALLY ducked out of the headwind. [Hey, my faulty thinking at least got *that* part right. :-) To re-iterate, the bridge was quite the long haul. I ended up in my lowest gear normally reserved for pulling 110 lbs. of kids and trailer up a 7-8% grade not too far from home. But coasting down the other side, into Oregon, and around a clover leaf onto US30, and out of the wind made it worth it.] The actuality of the situation is that if you look at a map, there is a ~30 mile section of the Columbia (and hence the Wash./Ore. border) that runs north-south. I-5 (the route I'm used to) goes down the east side or Washington side of this stretch. We had just crossed over onto U.S. 30, which goes down the west side or Oregon side. By dropping into the valley, we were mostly shielded from the headwinds, and so now we were back to a more reasonable 15-16 mph pace. [I hadn't been doing a lot of drafting since Centralia, thanks to the rain and Peter's rooster tail. I was pleased with this speed so far into the trip. He could still out-pace me on the hills though when it came to the more anaerobic biking. And there *were* a couple of hills right off the bat that rivaled The Hill. Fortunately the grades tamed down a bit.]

Onto the rest stop at Goble (152 miles) where we encounter our first two-day riders -- a father and daughter. [We caught a few more, but it couldn't have been more than a dozen or two. The ones we did catch weren't in good shape. At least our form still looked good, for whatever that was worth. :-) ] Did I mention that my left knee was stiffening up by now, that my butt was all but numb, and that my neck was getting sore? [I wasn't doing too badly (except for the lack of energy problem), although the index finger on my left hand sort of disappeared from my nervous system. I think my right hand fared better in that it was getting some relief from occasional shifting, and more than occasional pushing my glasses back onto my face after they slipped down in the rain.] Have I ever fed you my line about how "not everything that is worth doing is fun?" Ask Uncle Paul sometime if he is having fun at mile 22 or 23 in his marathon and see what he says.

We had another scheduled food stop in St. Helens at mile 164, but we were getting murdered by the stop lights and figured we had had enough "rest" in St. Helens for one trip. We are also getting murdered by downpour squall after squall. The most memorable one hit a ways before St. Helens when we encountered some road construction. All the cars had been forced onto northbound lane and shoulder while they laid cement for the south bound lanes. I think we were supposed to jockey with the cars over on the northbound lanes -- ya, right -- but the cement was obviously cured and so with what little vision we had we rolled onto our own private bike lane. During any of the squalls, I could barely see at times with the water on my glasses. My gloves are now slipping and sliding all over the handlebars. [And salt deposits in the helmet pads are once again flowing freely in the rain, into our eyes. Fortunately, it was only affecting one eye apiece with the stinging.] We keep plugging on to Scappoose (mile 172) and make our own stop at a gas station where we polished off some more fig bars, sandwiches, bananas, and Gatorade. Yum!! [Oh, but I had a secret stash of chocolate that I was dipping into every once in a while. I did offer some to Peter at one point, but he said it didn't even sound good. He's always been the unique one in the family. Anyway, after that little incident, I didn't have to sneak it anymore. :-) It was at this rest stop that I managed to choke down 3/4 of my last peanut butter sandwich. I found the remnants of it when I got back to Shoreview.]

With less than 30 miles to go, I was starting to smell the barn. [And that's doing darn well for someone who can't smell. What a trip--kill off two or three senses and resurrect another.] Nevertheless, we also knew that one more stop was in order before the final push. Funny thing is, I don't remember nothing about our last stop except that I wanted one more stop. [I sort of seem to remember the same thing, and now I can't picture much other than rain.]

On to the Portland city limits, and who should pass us but a lone biker with those fancy five spoke wheels. He sure looked familiar. [All I could say was "Jeez, what a memory!" I feel a little better now that he can't remember anything about that last stop. I guess I'll have to check the little booklet to see what it says about it.] A perfectly timed stoplight for us (and not for him) and we returned the favor and went past him. Now I was ready to push and he loosely fell in line with us as we knocked off the miles. He pushed on ahead, we worked our way up onto a city street (as opposed to the industrial road we had been on), [and it *was* "up onto" as the grade was short and sweet..er..steep] and again the stoplights evened us out. Yes, it WAS the biker that had started out with us back in Seattle. His comment to me was "I've got these fancy wheels, but I've still got the same old legs -- I'm definitely a two-day rider." One final turn toward Portland State, and endless supply of red lights, Jeff's tire going flat literally blocks away from the finish line [six, but it took half a block for me to acknowledge that yes, it was really flat], but he rode in on it anyway. [The street was very smooth and I wasn't jumping curves, so I wasn't too concerned about ruining the rim or tire.] A small welcoming party clapping [two of which did the actual clapping] for we late bikers (it was nearly 9 by now [11 by my clock, and an hour past bedtime]), an "official" handing out patches to the finishers [two officials! We came in side by side, and there was one on each side of us], all the finish line gazebos and tents in various stages of disassembly, we had definitely missed the party. Final stats: 14.1 mph, which means we were sitting on our bikes for 14 hours (!!!) with three hours total break time.

We ride up to a bank of porto-potties, I start looking around for official types to find out if there are any more buses going to Seattle. Across the lawn is an information booth, so I run down there. [And he literally ran!! I told him to get going because I have a bum bike, and he takes off running instead of riding!! Whatever. While he was gone, I stood there in front of the honey buckets not moving, wondering what we were going to do as we didn't know anyone in Portland, the bus was probably gone, I'd have to fix a flat if we were to get to a hotel, it was getting pretty dark, etc., etc. I don't think it even occurred to me that we'd accomplished our goal.] She tells me there is still another bus that will be leaving and that if I hurry I can get my bike on a truck. Jeff is still up by the porto-potties and can't translate my arm waving so I run up to him and tell him that if we hurry we can still catch a bus.

We start trotting over to where the information lady had pointed me and I find someone who tells me that the last bus will be going back to Seattle at 9:30. [Hey, I thought *I* heard that the bus was going at 9:30! You were still in truck mode! Oh wait. I think the woman told you that she thought it was leaving at 9:30, and I heard confirmation. But it was past my bedtime, so you may be correct.] A Bekins truck driver (the company hauling bikes back to Seattle) informs me that they are no longer loading up bikes, but that there is a Ryder truck to take back the late bikes coming in. The Ryder truck driver tells me that it just ain't so. Somewhere in there I find the baggage truck and get my bag. They are loading up some bikes to go back to Seattle, but the driver tells me they aren't taking any more bikes because they need to save the room for bags. I run back up toward the information booth and find someone who tells me that, yes, the Ryder truck really IS going to be taking bikes back tonight. I relay this to an official who had (sorta) been helping me find out what was going on, and he says that if we just leave our bikes by the Ryder truck (unopened at this point), he will make sure that they get loaded on because we needed to be getting on our bus about now. So he does and we do and since there are only 6-10 of us on a bus for 40 people, we each get our own seat and we're off. Past our bikes by the Ryder truck with no one in sight watching them. Will we ever see them again? Somehow, I don't care much at this point. [Hey, that's what homeowner's insurance is for. For $250 I could get a brand new..... Yeah, I think I was delirious at this point.]

I am right on the edge of coldness for the entire trip back, but I am also asleep for most of it. [Same here. I did have some dry clothing along, but didn't have the energy to get into it.] My only recollection is opening my eyes every now and then and watching us sail on past other vehicles. [This driver *was* cruising. I don't ever recall *not* being in the left lane.] I wake up around 12:30am and we are rolling into the Kingdome lot. A man steps onto the bus and says that our Ryder truck is due with our bicycles in 15 minutes. We weren't planning to stick around for it, but since it was only 15 minutes, we walk to the truck, shivering to beat the band. I start it up, we drive around a bit to warm up the engine, and then crank on the heater to bake ourselves -- finally some heat on this wet and cold day! [The windows sure fogged up in a hurry when the heat met us.]

Fifteen minutes comes and goes. It's now 1:30 [uh, 3:30 CDT] and we are parked right next to the bike lot and drifting in and out. I hear someone mention that the truck now is REALLY only 15 minutes away, and that a bus that had broken down is also due by 2am. We wake up, it's now 2:30, not a car in sight, not a bike in sight, not a truck in sight. We are the only ones in the lot, and somehow, we've managed to sleep through all the commotion of unloading and loading bikes onto a truck, and a bus load of people catching their rides. Halfway in disbelief and halfway in disgust, I start up the truck and we drive home almost exactly 24 hours after we had gotten up. A quick shower, a quick bite to eat, and off to bed. [by 3:15, or 5:15CDT, fifteen minutes before I'd normally be getting up for work on a Monday morning. You took a shower? I think I just dried off with a towel. And food? Yeah, I guess I remember you saying something about needing a salt fix.]

The next morning, Alek doesn't care that Daddy has just ridden 200 miles. He's got a cold and wakes up at 7am instead of his normal 9. Carol has to go to work, I have to watch Alek. Better yet, Alek's cold is no longer "at bay" in my system. We all (Jeff, Alek, and I) stay home except for a quick trip back to the Kingdome at noon to pick up our bikes. NOW we are done. [And when we got back home, we learned that there had been an earthquake that had everyone talking about it. We'd been on the road so hadn't felt a thing. Darn. My first earthquake experience was pretty anti-climactic compared to the first (and I won't *absolutely* say last) double century.]

Peter [and Jeff]

All righty, then. That's a wrap.