Stp

[Quillfred]

I want to wish all the participants in the STP ride all the best of luck. May you have a safe and enjoyable ride with the wind always at your back.

Hope to join you in a couple years.

Quillfred

[salsabike]

Thanks, Quill! Much appreciated.

I would like to second that, too---that is, good luck, y'all. See you at the Finish Line Festival!

[climbingbiker]

I've been out of town since Sunday, so I just took my first spin since the crash. Except for a little bit of tightness and some instability out of the saddle, I'm good to go. Woo-hoo!

This morning I went to the Dr. to get the stitches out. When I told her that I was riding in the STP, she said I had to keep them in until after the ride. I still have one big patch that hasn't filled in yet.

See y'all on the road! I'll be the one with a small bandage below my right knee cap.

[salsabike]

Yay!! Good for you!

I've been out of town since Sunday, so I just took my first spin since the crash. Except for a little bit of tightness and some instability out of the saddle, I'm good to go. Woo-hoo!

This morning I went to the Dr. to get the stitches out. When I told her that I was riding in the STP, she said I had to keep them in until after the ride. I still have one big patch that hasn't filled in yet.

See y'all on the road! I'll be the one with a small bandage below my right knee cap.

[mimitabby]

well it looks like the STP'ers will be getting perfect weather. I have to drive to
Portland to pick my son and his girlfriend up, they plan on doing it in one day.

good luck to you all, i want a full report. I should be at the finish line at about 630 saturday evening with my camera, and 3000 other people with cameras!

[mimitabby]

well, my son discovered that his girlfriend wasn't ready for a 1 day STP
so 20 miles before i crossed the state line to Oregon, he called me up from Tenino! We met in Centralia, where she was done in. They did a nice 100 mile ride, no mechanical problems, just too many stops and not enough training.
I seriously believe he could have made it (he did it last year and the year before) but there was no way he was leaving his sweetie behind.
So after their 100 mile trek, they took a little nap in the car while i drove on to portland, then they showered and went out to dinner and then a movie doubleheader... Ah, to be young again. They got back at 130am. This is after
a 100 mile bike ride (STC ) that started at 5am!!

[salsabike]

We crossed the start line somewhere around 4 am or a little after (forgot to actually look at our watches). We found a riding buddy from San Jose early on who liked our pace and stuck with us for 30 miles or so, a really nice guy named Andy. Had done lots of other rides, was a Team in Training guy. Eventually he joined a paceline and was gone.

The first 100 miles were great, actually. With the exception of one long hill, they are mostly flat. And the weather couldn’t have been better for our purposes: 60s with a cloud cover till about mile 100, and a slight tailwind as well—unusual for us, since the prevailing winds here are often southeasterly. Susan Otcenas, oddly enough we matched your one-day tandem time for the first 100 miles, getting to the Centralia stop at 11:00 am, with a 16.7 average.

We got a front flat at mile 106, stopped to fix that. Then...the rollers started. Funny, I loved that section last year, when we did it in two days, and started the rollers on the second day with fresh legs. This year, I still found the scenery beautiful—from about mile 110 to mile 150—but man, it’s a lot harder to do rolling hills when you have 110-mile legs! Then we got a front flat. Our average slowed to 16.4, and by mile 170 or so, about 16.1. Also, the sun came out from behind the clouds, so started having to put on the funny bandana-type thing soaked with water under our helmets. By the way, we also did start taking one Endurolyte capsule an hour at that point—we decided to risk doing a totally new thing by taking them against the surer risk of getting overheated. Neither of us had a bad reaction to the capsules, luckily, and took them for the next six hours or so.

Then we got a stiff chain link, so had to stop and fiddle with that. Also, in Longview, we saw a SCARY car-bike accident. Several riders not far in front of us got caught between one car and a car behind it that was being towed by a strap. The cars were turning left out of a lot on our side of the street. The cars didn’t see the riders and the riders didn’t see the strap. Two riders fell and one was half under the car, while the drivers took a few seconds to figure out what had happened and to stop. Neither was more than scraped, I think, but it was an awful sight. And the drivers were both pretty freaked out too. One of the riders was carrying his helmet on his handlebars rather than his head when this all happened. Stupid.

The last 50 miles or so were flatter but on the not-very-friendly Route 30 that goes to Portland. We did okay right up until 8 miles before the finish line when we got—yeah!—a rear flat. Got lots of rueful, sympathetic smiles from riders who went past us at this point while we fixed it. Ugh! What a time to get a flat, when you’re so close and so tired. So we didn’t actually get to the finish line until about 9:50 pm. Final total average speed about 15.7, with 13 hours 45 minutes on the bike. Would have been nice to get in earlier, but, you know---we DID IT! And even though the Finish Line Festival closed at 9 pm, Cascade Bicycle Club still had volunteers there to hand out One-Day Rider badges, AND kids and adults cheering people across the finish line. Don’t ask me why, but the kids were just cheering everyone wildly as they came in and it was just delightful. Call me a cornball, but I liked it. I almost cried, just like last year, but didn’t. Too tired and too hungry!!

This ride ends in a park across the street from a Doubletree Hotel in Portland. We made room reservations many months ago when we decided to try for the one-day. They have a big underground garage-type space where they have a bike corral and where the bags are delivered. We dropped our bike, got our bag, exchanged a few quips with the Cascade Bike Club guy guarding the area, marched into the hotel, checked in, ordered room service, took showers, and got into bed. What a brilliant thing, to be able to just go upstairs to a really nice room. We ate their buffet brunch this morning, spent a hour or so at the Finish Line Festival buying ride shirts and watching two-day riders come in. It really is COOL to watch other riders come in. They are so happy and it is such an achievement. Spouses, parents, kids, and dogs come to meet the riders, and it’s just a ton of fun to watch.

We are thrilled that we were actually able to do it in one day this year. We are also really appreciative of what a well organized and supported ride this is. Congrats to all other STPers! Let us hear about your rides.

And, mimitabby, I could NEVER have watched a double movie feature after 100 miles. Good for them!

PS I should also report that after about mile 50, I stopped at most of the pee stops, having a very small bladder that also seems to have the magical ability to actually multiple water molecules once they get inside. It was just stop-pee-go, an advantage to being a one-day rider, since you miss the 15-20 minute Porta-potty lines that the 6,000 or so second-day riders suffer with.