Reach the Beach

Kasia & I and two of our friends did the "Reach the Beach" ride from Portland to Pacific City this past Saturday. The ride itself was well organized, but our experience was, in a word, nightmarish.

We planned to hit the road about 7:00am, but I had mechanical problems with my bike (I thought it was a rear hub issue, but it turned out to be a disc brake problem). We finally hit the road about 8:40am. By then, it was already getting warm.

More mechanical issues (lazy rear shifting, mostly due to my stupidly-placed Bento Box) were resolved at the first rest stop, but this caused even further delays.

The 100-mile route had about 3200 feet elevation gain, with 2200 feet in the first 20 miles. So, in theory, the remaining 80 miles should have been a piece-o-cake.

Except for the heat.

The official highs in the Portland area on Saturday were in the 93-95 range, but temperatures on the road were much higher. While cruising down the sun-baked asphalt, my friend Emily's cyclocomputer showed 104! Throw in a fierce headwind, and it was like cycling in a desiccant-filled convection oven.

The heat was killing us. Our pace slowed, and our rest stops lengthened (and we added a few impromptu side-of-the-road rest stops as well).

Kasia is from Poland, and just cannot handle heat like this. (I'm a native Texan, so I may have some genetic advantage here.) By the time we reached the half-way point, Kasia was running out of steam and feeling nauseous and dizzy -- classic heat exhaustion symptoms. We put her on a SAG wagon and she rode in air-conditioned comfort the rest of the way to Pacific City. My friend Emily was also feeling bad by this point, so she SAG'd it, too.

That left Mike (Emily's boyfriend) and me. We were starting to feel time pressure (we had to make it to Pacific City by 7:00pm to get the bus back to Portland), so we picked-up the pace and pressed on. We decided to make the Sheridan rest stop as fast as possible, and we succeeded -- fill water bottles, eat a banana, hit the road.

Mike started winding down a bit by the time we hit the Grand Ronde stop, so we decided to make this a longer rest. After one baked potato with everything, a banana, lots of water, a few cookies to stash in the Bento Box, and some quiet time in the shade, we hit the road.

By this point, Mike had set a new personal best for single-day distance, but was fading quickly. He's a strong guy and in good physical shape, he's just relatively new to this. I suspect he just needs more saddle time -- by this time next year, he'll likely be a very strong cyclist.

We had 2 hours to complete 25 not-so-hilly (but certainly not flat) miles on dead-tired legs. Press on regardless.

At the 95 mile point, we met another SAG wagon. It was 6:30pm, and we had allegedly had 8 miles to go. Mike was done, so he opted to SAG-it the final 8 miles.

I'm somewhat familiar with the Pacific City area -- Kasia & I have biked around here before. Mike & I met this final SAG wagon near where Little Nestucca River Road meets Highway 101, and I was rather sure it was only about 5 miles from there to the finish line.

Just in case the SAG driver was correct, I cranked the speed up to 16-18 (not that impressive, but I was dead tired and the headwind was not helping). I made it to the finish line just in time to put my bike on the truck, change t-shirts, and jump on the bus back to Portland.

Overall, this was one of the least-fun organized rides I've ever done, but only because of elements unrelated to the ride itself. The ride was well organized, the route was mostly well marked, the volunteers were friendly and helpful, and the food at the rest stops was great.

If the temperature had been lower (the high that day was 30 degrees above normal), and if my bike had behaved, then I'm sure we all would have finished, and we would all have had a great time.

We're all planning to do this next year, although we'll do some things differently. We'll probably arrange to leave a car at Pacific City for the trip back to Portland. This would eliminate the pressure to finish by a certain time to catch the bus. It would also allow us to spend a night or two in Pacific City (great town!) before returning.

Next year!

Win Susan!

Fat Cyclist is one of the more entertaining cycling-centric blogs around. Over the past few years, Elden (a.k.a. Mr Fatty) has recorded many of his victories and losses, cycling and otherwise. I've read his blog off and on for a while, but I've only recently become a "regular".

While catching-up on his blog entries, I read the terrible news about his wife. Susan has been fighting breast cancer for a few years, and it recently took a turn for the worse. Much worse. The cancer has metastasized throughout her body, including her brain.

A growing number of cycling blogs are displaying the Fat Cyclist pink jersey shown above, trying to generate as much support as possible for Elden, Susan & family. To that end, their friend Kenny has established the "Elden Nelsen Family Fund" to accept donations to provide support during this difficult (and expensive) struggle. Please donate if you can -- every dollar helps.

Why do I care? I've never met Elden, although we do have mutual friends. He's a former Microsoft employee, and I've been there long enough to be 2 degrees of separation from just about everyone. Helping another person in need just seems like the human thing to do.

Besides, I've seen how cancer can disrupt a family:

• My father beat Hodgkin's Disease twice before suffering a fatal heart attack.
• My father's brother died from acute leukemia.
• My mother has chronic leukemia and multiple myeloma.
• My mother's father died from leukemia.
  
• All of my mother's 9 brothers and sisters had some form of cancer; many died from it. (There's a lot of melanoma in my mom's family, mostly because they grew up picking cotton in the central Texas sun.)

In addition to these blood relations, my brother's long-term girlfriend Sara is a breast cancer survivor, as is her mother. Her brother is a kidney cancer survivor.

No, I don't know exactly what Elden (and especially Susan) are going through, but I think I can appreciate a tiny percentage of what their children are experiencing. That's why I want to help.

Five Miles to Twinkie-Land

This past Sunday four of us rode the 2008 May Day Metric, sponsored by Phil's South Side Cyclery. The ride was well organized, the food stops were well stocked, the route clearly marked, and the Twinkies were fresh. More on the Twinkies in a moment.

Registration began at 6:00am, and the course opened at 6:30am. Knowing our usual riding pace falls somewhere between "geologic" and "sedated banana slug", we decided to hit the trail as early as possible. Hmm... to start riding at 6:30am, we must register at 6:00am, which means we must leave the house at 5:00am, which means we must wake up at 3:30am. Ugh -- I hate waking up while it's still dark outside.

Why I hate the rear wheel latching gizmo on my Thule bike rack.

The official gathering point for the ride was Phil's South Side Cyclery, but registration and post-ride pie was in Johnny's Famous Grill & Bar next to the shop.

You gotta love a bike ride that starts and finishes in a bar.

Kasia, Emily, Mike and I have ridden together many times, but this ride held a number of notable "firsts":

• Emily's first metric century (I think).
• Mike's first metric century (definitely).
• Emily's & Mike's first organized rides.
• Emily's & Mike's longest single-day rides ever.
  
• Kasia's longest single-day ride this season.
• Mike's first big ride on his new bike.

The last point is especially impressive. Mike has been riding an old loaner bike that was much too small for him (54cm). This past Friday he bought a new Specialized Allez in a more appropriate size -- 60cm. Jumping into a relatively long-distance ride on a brand new bike may not be the best route, but when given the choice between "brand new but correctly sized bike" and "old bike you know is 3 sizes too small", I think he chose wisely. Note that "skip this ride" was not an option.

Mike and his new wheels.

The ride started at Phil's in Federal Way, traversed a few surface streets, then quickly left the city (it's not like Federal Way is a big place). The long series of downhills was rather worrying -- while enjoying the effortless coast down, I knew we would pay for this later. "Later" came rather "sooner" as we hit a couple of attention-getting hills. Nothing terribly nasty, mind you, but enough to get your heart pumping (especially on still-cold legs).

We eventually reached the lovely town of Orting. Kasia & I love Orting, we really do. We could live there -- I would even endure the occasional 90-minute commute from Orting to my office. It's in a beautiful valley between the Carbon and Puyallup rivers, near the mountains, surrounded by forests.

The only negative to this idyllic location is the threat of sudden and horrific death by lahar from nearby Mount Rainier (the second-most active volcano in the Cascades). Think of the Carbon/Puyallup valley as a flame thrower, with Orting at the receiving end.

Mount Rainier may erupt next year, or 50 years from now, or 500 years from now, but it will almost certainly erupt some day. The residents of Orting will have a front-row seat to their own local apocalypse.

Where you gonna go when da volcano blow?

We may still move there some day. It's that cool.

Each stop on the May Day Metric has its own associated junk food item. The Orting stop was designated "Ding Dong Station". In addition to the usual bike food -- bananas, oranges, bagels with PB&J, etc -- they served the little foil-covered chocolate and cream hockey pucks straight out of the box.

The Orting Ding Dong Station.

Representative Ding Dongs -- the fourth Ding Dong was behind the camera.

Orting was the turn-around point for those riding the 50 mile route. We chose to continue and attempt the 70+ mile route. After another 13 miles of rolling hills and a few easy climbs, we reached Wilkeson, a.k.a. "Twinkie-Land".

About 5 miles from Twinkie-Land, I had my first ever flat on road tires. I was slowly climbing a hill when I hit a patch of broken glass I failed to notice. Bam! Hisss!! It wasn't a big deal -- we always carry spare tubes, a patch kits, tire levers, etc -- but rather surprising. In the 3000-or-so miles I've logged in the past 2 years, this is my first flat. Oh well, I guess it's always good to practice one's flat-fixing skills.

Kasia nearing Twinkie-Land.

Wilkeson is another cute town hiding in the forest. Another stop, more bike food, and the ultimate junk food -- Twinkies, a little piece of processed joy in a cellophane wrapper.

Kasia had never tried a Ding Dong before, but in Orting I foolishly failed to capture her first taste on camera. I vowed to not make that mistake in Twinkie-Land, so I recorded her deflowering for posterity:

Kasia loses virginity, has first Twinkie.

Queued for the one-and-only restroom, we saw a house cat. By "house cat", I mean "as-big-as-a-house cat":

Somebody has been eating too many Twinkies.

Wilkeson was the turn-around point for those of us riding the 70+ mile route. We chose to turn around here, although the siren call of "Ho Ho-Ville" was almost irresistible.

The ride back was almost completely uneventful. Almost. We mostly coasted downhill back to Orting, stocked-up on Ding Dongs and other essentials, then continued home.

About 9 miles from the finish (with about 67 miles showing on the odometer) we encountered "Phil Hill". Here's the description from the May Day Metric website:

Ahh yes; a May Day Classic & a “Character Builder” all in one! Phil Hill is a lovely little {yet feels big} secret one way road with super sweet new pavement{58^th Pl S.} that comes UP from the Algona Pacific area to the heights of Military Road and 5 Mile Lake {approx elev at the top a whopping 465 ft}. It is a .7 mile climb with a vertical gain of 385 feet and an average grade of 7.7 degrees. Some people also call it “Little Italy” because the narrow winding road may remind one of the Pyrenees and its spectacular scenery. The reason this little hill gets your attention is you have been pedaling the flats of the valley for the past 20 miles and you are only 9 miles from the end; then you round the corner and Uppy Uppy…Go! Go! Go! All routes go this way, enjoy your stay.

Road on left -- flat. Road ahead -- not flat.

Phil Hill was not so bad, and was actually kinda fun in a perverse way. We were all so happy to make it to the top.

The ride from Phil Hill back to the bike shop was relatively flat and uneventful.

Happy to be finished.

We all had a great time, and I certainly want to do it again next year. Thank you Phil, wherever you are...