We did the RSVP 1 and left UW around 7 am. Weather was really humid in the morning so I was really having trouble keeping my glasses from fogging up, but the temp was very comfortable. Had a fantastic ride, it seems like we had tailwinds the whole way so pedaling felt effortless. I was really happy to see the lemon aid stand was still on top of Chuckanut drive. The kids who set up the stand have been doing it for 16 years and the oldest girl was getting married. It was fun to see how much they have grown up since we first did the RSVP 10 years ago. DH and I rolled into Bellingham around 2:00pm and our two riding buddies rolled in shortly after. We cleaned up and went for beers and nachos on the main drag and cheered the rest of the riders on as they came in.
Day two started early as DH wanted to get to border before the crowds came. Even leaving Bellingham at 6:45 and hooking up with some really fast pacelines, we still encountered over an hour wait at the border. We were in line with one of the Cascade ride leaders and he said the back up was due to the border patrol trying to match the riders on the manifesto that cascade provided with our bib numbers and passports. The last two times we have done this ride there was absolutely no wait at the border, so that was definitely a bummer and might be a deal breaker for doing the ride again.
The ride into Vancouver is my absolute favorite part of this ride. Seeing the city as you are rolling along nearly car free residential streets is awesome. We pulled into the finish around 1:20pm and enjoyed some burgers and beers at the after party (beers were $8 a piece, so we didn't stay too long). After the party we headed to our hotel to meet up with our riding buddies wives who had driven up to meet us and got cleaned up so we could go explore the town....and that's when we encountered our first ZOMBIE! Apparently they had a Zombie walk scheduled for that day, so the streets were overflowing with every kind of zombie you could think of....zombie babies, zombie dogs, zombie super woman, zombie doctors........It was awesome! I really wish my kids could have seen it. We took some video and I got my pix taken with one zombie who was very sticky (from all his fake blood). It was quite the event.
After the Zombie encounter, we were on a mission to find a bar that would turn on the Seahawks game for us (apparently all the sports bars were playing either soccer or canadian football.) Finally found one and were able to watch the game and get some dinner. All in all it was a fantastic ride. The tailwinds, company, beers and zombies were great....the border just sucked!
Hope everyone else had a great ride!!!