Stp?

[salsabike]

Here's how our third STP on the tandem went:

The first 100 miles were great. We were happy with our speed and felt really good and had fun. When we got to Centralia around 11:30, we were feeling a little hot and tired but perked up pretty fast after some food and 5 minutes’ rest, and got going again pretty quickly.

We did have a lot of fun on the rollers because even though tandems are slow going uphill, the amount of momentum we can generate going downhill is amazing, and often carries us up the next hill. The rollers were just a blast.

We spent a lot of time passing and being passed by the same people, which creates a little community all its own. Rode with another tandem for a bit. Lots of tandems out there this year, we thought.

At some point, the wind shifted from a crosswind to a headwind. THAT was a drag. I no longer remember exactly where that happened but I'm sure someone else will.

So things were still going reasonably well when we got to the Lexington stop (mile 143). We left Lexington feeling fine, and about a half mile down the road, had a rear blowout. We never did figure out what caused it but whatever it was, it took a huge bite right out of the tire. I would say the diameter of the missing tire piece was about a half inch. We had a boot with us but neither of us felt too comfortable about counting on a boot for 60 more miles. So...we walked the bike back to Lexington, and got a new tire. Boy, if River City Bikes hadn't been at that stop, I'm not sure what would have happened to the rest of the ride. Thank you, Alex—nice guy, too.

We started out again from Lexington. Maybe that's about when the headwind hit, because from there we just got slower. When we went over the Longview-Kelso bridge, right at the top of the bridge we encountered a moron and his girlfriend stopped on their bikes in the middle of the path—with the bikes angled to take up the whole path--yakking on a cell phone ("Hi, we're on the bridge...") that forced all of us oncoming riders into fast moving traffic. I so wish I had had the time to smack him upside the head.

And then we got a second (front) flat at mile 170. So much for Mr. Tuffy tire liners saving us from flats, dammit. Oh, well. And I personally am convinced that the last 30 miles of STP actually occur in an alternate universe, where time....just..........slows..............down. We're going to look at all the different segments of the ride according to Chris' Garmin. I am absolutely sure that the last 30 miles took us way, way, WAY longer then the rest did.

So...instead of coming in around 7, which was my hope, we got in at---10:30 pm. Wow! Ack! All I can say is, it's a good thing Cascade kept the finish line and bike corral open. AND that room service was open till 11 pm. Arghh. When we did it in 06, we ALSO had two flats, with the second one occurring 8 miles from the finish. We seem to have some “luck issues” doing this thing on the tandem in one day, but we really like to do it anyway.

Oh yeah. AND somewhere around mile 175 or so on Route 30, one of our panniers came loose, flipped around backwards, and locked up the back wheel. We fell over (going up a hill, so slowly) right into traffic (not the full lane’s worth, but maybe a foot or two into the car lane). No scratches or scrapes, and luckily whatever car went by managed to dodge us. So....I guess our luck issues cut both ways, huh?

The volunteers on STP are really excellent.

A great innovation---bag dropoff on Friday night! That means we didn’t have to go to the start line at all. We had a friend (the friend who volunteered to drive our pickup to Portland Sunday morning to get us—he’s a seriously early riser) drop us off near the start in the U District around 4 am, and we just got rolling from there. I LOVE not going to the actual start line.

Seemed like there were lots of flats out there this year.

We really had fun most of the way. The hotel greets you with a hot cookie, by the way.

And here’s a thank you to our Ironman folks here. Round about mile 170 when I started feeling really tired, I remembered all of you. I saw Colby's recent photo, and RunningMommy’s video, and some other folks, in my mind’s eye and thought to myself, “Hey, babe---if they could do that, you can do 30 more miles. Be quiet.”

On some other thread, someone asked about riding mantras. I don’t have a riding mantra per se, but I have a general triathlon training one that I’ve been using for months. I can do anything for an hour. I can do anything for another hour. Etc.

We have concluded that the Selle Anatomica saddles that we love are 85-mile saddles for us. We are still in search of the perfect double century saddle. My butt got sore, but oddly enough my legs always felt good and they could have kept going for quite a while.

Any of you see us? The tandem with the puffer fish on the back rack!

PS Diameter of the tire hole (not circumference, silly girl. Someone hasn't had enough sleep yet).