August 2nd:
Our final century day of the trip! I was in a group with Kyle, Sarah L., Sam, and Vadim. It was also an exciting day because we were going into our final state – OREGON!!! At the beginning of the day, we saw an interstate sign, showing that Portland was one direction and Seattle was the other. We had another laugh about going to Seattle the night before so we could say we beat 4K for Cancer’s Team Seattle there.
The morning was pretty but I remember feeling like it was hard to get my legs going. It likely had to do with the fact that I hadn’t ridden in two days. Rest is good, but when you skip biking days, it feels as though you lose momentum. We were on a road which was showing us every single mile marker, and it was driving us crazy. This is exactly the reason why I do not own a bike computer – I would look at it far too often and it would mentally defeat me, especially on long rides.
We started off as a fairly quiet group, until Sam said “AHHH we need to talk about something! I can’t do this!! I’m going crazy!” Talking definitely gets your mind off riding for hours on end, and the silence was causing all her focus to be placed on the spinning of her legs. We talked about Jehovah’s Witnesses… or something… who knows where that conversation went. All that mattered was that we were able to take our minds off biking for a bit, and before we knew it we’d arrived at the first water stop. The second water stop seemed to come about shortly thereafter, and we began to see signs of the Pacific Ocean – some swamplands, bays, and harbors.
The water van chalked some funny messages for us that day, including one at the second water stop that indicated a sleeping spot for Flora, our teammate who can sleep anywhere and everywhere, and does.
At this second water stop at mile 60, we recognized that we were running low on food in our snack bins – extremely low, actually. We rationed so that every person had one peanut and one raisin. Just kidding – but we definitely did not have enough food considering we had 100 miles of riding that day. My group stopped at a grocery store and grabbed a small bite to eat before heading onward. This meant that even though we were the second group initially, we were quickly passed by groups behind us that didn’t spend much time at the water stop.
The afternoon ride was what I always pictured Oregon riding to be like. There were beautiful evergreens along the winding road, with mountains still surrounding us. We’ve been surrounded by mountains for quite some time now, and it’s probably a site that I’ve begun to take for granted. I will be sorely disappointed when I return home to the piedmont region of NC to see a horizon void of these gorgeous mountains.
When our team got to lunch, we found that we were extremely far behind the other teams. Only one team remained at lunch, and they were on their way out. This was in part due to the fact that I’d gotten a flat during this stretch of ride. Unfortunately, host van hadn’t been too successful with acquiring food donations that day. They did get some food from a grocery store, but the teams ahead of us had not rationed the food well. There was nearly nothing left when we arrived. Kyle picked up some rocks in his hand and jokingly said “KIM! Here’s your lunch! Some delicious rocks!” We sent this to the GroupMe so that everyone could see the consequences of their savagery.
We were told by the water van drivers that the teams ahead had to be shuttled across the four mile bridge from Washington into Oregon. I’ve certainly mentioned this before, but a huge fault in this route is that we’ve encountered very few state signs. People often begin this journey thinking of the art work they can make afterward with the photos they’ve taken. Usually this includes the highlight moments of crossing into different states. So of course, everyone was upset that they would miss the opportunity to snap a photo while riding bikes past our FINAL state sign. Vadim, however, was determined to cross that bridge. It was unsafe, we were told, because it’s a fairly narrow bridge with no shoulder and a huge, steep hill in the middle. He suggested that we seek out a police escort. Our group was totally on board, but we let him sort out the logistics of finding a police officer willing to do this. He called the Oregon police department a couple of times, getting our hopes up and down as the officers he spoke to gave him different information. One officer was willing to help, as he was a cyclist himself, but his shift ended at 4 and we knew we wouldn’t make it in until closer to 4:30, if not later. He told us he’d pass the message along to the officer who would be beginning his shift at 4:00, and we should wait to hear from him.
We’ve decided that Kyle’s hair makes him look like George Washington from the profile view. It was photo-worthy.
We passed by tons of cyclists who were partaking in the Ride Around Washington annual event. They were going in the opposite direction, and I found it funny that they, too, were sporting the same safety triangles that I wear on my Camelbak and that I have mentioned are reminders of Bike & Build to me. We spoke to a rider and a SAG driver (a support vehicle much like the vans we have on our trip) about what we were doing, and inquired again about the bridge awaiting us up ahead. No one really seemed to know, as their route hadn’t taken them on the bridge. So we continued onward in the hope that something would work out and that the timing would be just right for an officer to escort us.
We could see the bridge in the distance, and the water beside us on the road was beautiful. You could see the town of Astoria on the other side.
Suddenly, Vadim got a phone call. It was a police officer calling him back!! This officer told him that he would be able to escort us and he would be on the Washington side of the bridge shortly. We got to a pull off at the entrance of the bridge, where our van drivers were ready to shuttle our team over. We told them we wouldn’t be needing a shuttle, as we had arranged an escort! Jen and Matt didn’t seem to believe us at first, until the officer arrived minutes later.
We talked about the plan and how long we estimated that it would take us to cross the bridge. We guessed about 20 minutes or so. So we hopped on our bikes with the police car following behind us with its lights flashing. As we got on our bikes, Kyle exclaimed “WEE WOO WEE WOO!” mimicking the sound of a cop car, which put us all into a state of hysterical laughter.
Jen took this photo from the van, which rode behind the cop car for a bit before passing.
The Oregon state sign was small, but we were glad we still got to bike by it!
Just as we got to the hill in the middle, the officer got on his speaker and said “okay, let’s try a flying V formation up this hill.” Honestly, I still don’t really know if he was kidding or not, but we did as told. Vadim was at the front of our flying V, but he kept screwing up and going too far to the right. We blamed this on his Russian nationality, which obviously has nothing to do with it, but we blame most things he does incorrectly on this heritage. Anyway, it was such a rush to be the only team to bike into this state. We kept it a secret from our team until our confessions night on Day 69, and many of our teammates were actually quite angry that we “selfishly” did not get an escort for them as well. OH WELL!! Maybe they won’t leave us behind all day AND eat all the lunch next time…
We later went to a brewery in Astoria and then spent some time out on the riverfront, where we watched a beautiful sunset and began to acknowledge that the sun was beginning to set on our journey as well.
Baltimore to Portland with 4K for Cancer 