STP, anyone?

[ttaylor508]

Hi Everyone...just curious, how was your ride?

We started at 4:55 am. I only got about 2 hours of sleep on Friday night. I am just not used to going to bed at 8 pm and getting up at 3:00 am and I think anxiety got the best of me. First 100 miles was great, wonderful tail wind made for really good time despite 3 terrible crashes that happened right in front of us. Probably the worst year out of the 6 times I have done this ride for crashes.

The heat made the last 104 miles really tough. Longview bridge was a pressure cooker!!!! There was two nice ladies in St. Helen's who bought popcycles and were handing them out to riders as we came into the rest stop. That was the highlight of the ride for me. Lots of people suffering from heat exhaustion the last 30 miles. I have heard there were a few that did not finish and many that came in on Saturday after the finish line had closed.

We made it to Portland around 6:30 pm and the cold beer at the end was excellent!!!! Got on the second bus out and back to Seattle at midnight.

I hope everyone made it okay.

[mimitabby]

my DH Raleighdon did it in less than 10 hours this year. The weather was absolutely perfect, he rode the wind all the way.

He was jubilant, and the only casualty was he rubbed a seam on his backside and got a bit of a sore.

[ttaylor508]

my DH Raleighdon did it in less than 10 hours this year. The weather was absolutely perfect, he rode the wind all the way.

He was jubilant, and the only casualty was he rubbed a seam on his backside and got a bit of a sore.

That is awesome Mimi. Tell him congrats! Our final ride time was 10 hours 45 minutes which was pretty amazing considering my DH was suffering from heat exhaustion the last 30 miles and we had to slow the pace way down until he recovered. We took a lot longer breaks this year because of the heat, but I was still surprised our ride time was under 11 hours.

[mimitabby]

he rode with heat exhaustion?!??!

wow!

you guys did great too. Was that on a tandem?

[ttaylor508]

Nope, not on a tandem although I stick to his wheel so we might as well be on a tandem. He is a very strong rider and pulled a group of us at around 24 mph the first 100. He simply did not drink enough water and take enough electrolytes throughout the day and it finally caught up with him. It was really scary and I didn't know if he would be able to shake it off. We stopped about 20 miles before we got to Portland and got him something cold to drink and threw some electrolytes down him and then I pulled for a while and he slowly came back around. Poor guy was even too sick at the end to finish his beer in the beer garden. That is when I knew he was feeling bad!!! Being the good wife I am, I finished his beer for him

[lauraelmore1033]

Wow, my hat is off to you speedy one day riders! I don't know how you do it. Between the heat and a saddle sore that kicked in after 50 miles I was feeling pretty crappy most of the way. I'm pretty sure I took more than 17 hours to finish--and that's with a 20 mile gap in the middle because my group only made it into centralia and and one of us just couldn't make it the rest of the way to aour accomodations in Winlock (and the rest of us didn't want to miss the dinner we'd already paid for).

Made many notes about what NOT to do next year, or for rsvp. We were totally unprepaired for the heat. Most of my training was done in 40-50 degree weather, so the sudden jump to the 90s was really hard to adjust to. I felt so elated yesterday, in spite of falling short. It still feels like a huge accomplishment (for me anyway). Dh made the trip down and was cheering for me as I dragged into the finish, and that was one sweet feeling...

[mimitabby]

hey, Raleighdon did NOT finish in 10 hours. he finished in 11 hours and 28 minutes. Not sure where i got that idea.

wanted to set the record straight.
it was still lightning speed, his average was over 18 mph!

Laurel, our weather this year made it very hard to train for these rides. The Cascade1200 had a bunch of DNF's for the same reason. Folks around here trained their hearts out, but in 49 degrees, so when the temps rose over 100 they were just NOT prepared.