Miles and miles, 300 of them

Day 6- Pine Creek School.  How many students attend Pine Creek School?  Three.. yep, one third grader and two first graders.  This was our lunch stop on Day 6.  You can see how we take over the school grounds.

I had dropped off my jacket at the Gear Drop below. We get a blue bag with duck tape on it. Write our rider number on the tape and drop it in one of the boxes separated by rider numbers.  I found the 1700-1799 box, my number 1720. The Gear Drop team hauls it back to camp so I can get it when I get back. You may notice all the tape on the box. When I get my gear at the end of the ride, I take the duck tape tag and put it on the box and drop the blue bag inside. By the end of the week, it is quite a colorful collection, like telephone poles that have remnants of posters from years past.

I am home and have more posts coming.  I did ride 300 miles over the 6 days.  I took Wednesday, Day 4 off and am now not sure I should have. Woke up on Day 5 with many aches.  Of course, it could have been that I did not solve the problem of the puncture wound in my air mattress.  All during the night, every night, the bag gradually deflated and, there I was at 5 AM with my one inch Thermarest laying on top of a fully deflated air mattress.

Future posts; "Let her rip!"  "Thumbs up! Thumbs down!"  

Chet and the morning/evening routine at CO

Chet with his morning brew.  

When not brewing coffee for Cycle Oregon, Chet sails boats across the seas.  I am sure there is a special name for it, but, when someone buys a boat in, say, Seattle, and needs it in Barcelona, Chet is the one who sails it over to her. The last time this happened the owner asked him to stay on for a year to work with him on the boat. "No way, I have to leave in September to work for Cycle Oregon."

Too weak, too strong, too cold or not there...

All the ways coffee can be served to 2,200 people from 5:30 - 8:30 AM- too weak, too strong, too cold or, even, not there.  All the ways to turn off an anxious group ready to ride.  Yet, this is not the way it works at Cycle Oregon. Chet makes it work.  Chet, former commercial fisherman; Chet, red-faced from the steam of brewing coffee hour after hour.  Chet, smiling Chet.  It is not too weak, not too strong, not cold and definitely there on time and ready for all of us.  I saw him on the second morning with four 2 foot by 3 foot high kettles brewing hot water; each with a spigot extending about 2 feet in front of the kettle.  Clearly  here was a man who knew what he was doing. The coffee grounds were in a cloth bag clamped onto the spigot of hot water, descending directly into the blue plastic serving container. Chet gently using a long spoon to lift the grounds as the water flowed through making a full, hot container of coffee.

Photo will come tomorrow...

The Crane home team advantage

I am in Crane, Oregon.  The only store is half a mile outside of city central along Hwy. 310. A cluster of Cycle Oregon folks were there as I whizzed by wondering where we were camping.  Where was this Crane, Oregon?  Lunch was a six mile round trip, out of town and back to where we were camping... Well, I wanted a light day so I turned back to the only store on Hwy. 310, got three cheese sticks and peanut butter cookies.  Talk about a food desert, it was the only store I have seen for two days.

Turning north into a sweet, green small valley, I was handed free iced coffee mocha with whipped cream.  Then, for $5. I bought a recovery smoothie.  Turned into the Crane Oregon school grounds to find my tent where the porters had tossed my too large duffel upside down in front of Number 184, my mobile tent home this week.

The Crane, Oregon, volleyball team hosted one of our stops today, passing out strawberries, animal cookies, pretzels, soda pops, V-8s, Pellagrino lemonades and iced tea.  Crane High School is good in sports, even with only 60 students.  One reason seems to be that they have a captive audience.  The K-12 school is a public school boarding school, the only one west of the Mississippi River, I was told with 50 students K-12. If you live more than 15 miles from the school, you must board.  Jennifer from the Crane HS Volleyball team, at the food stop at mile 25 today, noted, "Everyone participates in sports because, well, so many kids board, what are they going to after school anyway?"

I arrived at Crane at 1:30, an early day today.  Only 38 miles for me. There was an alternate trip that added another 40 for the hardy folks. Tomorrow is 73 miles with a 3,900 foot vertical gain  on our way to Seneca.  I treated myself to an hour-long massage and an acupuncture treatment, hoping to "provide support" for the physical challenge ahead.  Dave, my masseuse from Portland, had given me a massage at the end of Day 1, 73 miles...When he pressed on my sore neck muscles, he exclaimed, "There is no way someone could convince me to ride 73 miles at 5000 foot elevation in one day!"  No wonder I ached in many new places.  

Cycle Oregon brings resources to these small Oregon towns, not to mention our strange behavior. The acupuncturist has 5 tables going at once and open and public to those who walk by.  I wonder what the folks from Crane think of these people lying on tables volunteering to have needles put in their knees, necks and hands.

Back to the real John Day

Saturday, 7 AM, Portland Sheraton at the airport, boarding a bus with 30 other hardy Cycle O folks, heading to John Day, Oregon, our first tenting stop before Day 1 of our ride.  Along the mighty Columbia, right!  That was what was in my head because I had not really looked closely at a map before departure.  Nope.  Only the John Day State Campground is along Hwy 84, the road I traveled regularly from Walla Walla to Portland in the early 1990s..  The real John Day, Oregon, is 200 miles east and inland, gateway to Malheur National Forest and 487,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land.  When our CO guide said we would have to change bus drivers in Pendelton because the trip was too long for him to drive from Portland to John Day and back, I had a sneaky feeling, I had the wrong John Day. 

When things don't go as planned, that is when the adventure begins..Those who know me, know that is my travel mantra and the corollary, it is best not to plan too much, I might miss an adventure. I knew I was in safe hands even if I only had a vague clue about where I was going for seven days into the wilder parts of Oregon.  Oh, and Hwy 395 does not bisect the state.  It is in the eastern quarter of the state, travels north and south and is a major artery.  Riding Cycle Oregon is a close lesson in Oregon geography, pedal stroke by pedal stroke... slices of geographic and human time, some frozen in place and deteriorating and abandoned, others scarred by forest fires, others with rust, chartruse and orange washes of desert grasses.

From Pendelton to John Day, the clouds became whiter. I imagined them to be escapees from the cotton ball factory.  Whispy and puffy and misshapen, floating to a better place where they do not have to conform but can reform and float along over unpopulated vistas.

Cycle Oregon has given me so much to write about.  I took today off as did many others. There was an optional ride of 42 miles that was originally 50 miles but had to be shortened for a cattle drive.  It was a layover day which means we did not have to pack up our tents this morning.  Tomorrow Day 5, a light day, only 40 miles, and a new camp in Crane, Oregon... then day 6, another new camp, as we head back toward John Day, a hefty 73 miles back with a 1400 foot elevation gain into the magnificent Malheur National Forest, and, ending on Day 7 with a short 56 mile day down into the valley of John Day, when I take a bus at 4:00 back to Portland.

Cycle Oregon gave us topo maps and elevation guides for each day, so I now do know where John Day is.

Oh, the read John Day

This one will be about the real John Day, believe me.  But, not tonite...

It's the other John Day.

Three days of riding.  73 + 55 + 56= 187 miles in three days.  Okey dokey... I wish I could send you pictures but I only brought my phone to take pictures and guess what, getting it charged out here in the wild East side of Oregon is not easy.  Today we are in Diamond, Oregon. Day 3 of riding.. relatively flat-- well, two 5% grade hills of 2 miles each from the flat basin to a flat highland rise.

Cycle Oregon... a city on wheels descends on these small towns throughout Oregon. Onestunning feature is the suppor for riders. Five sag wagons pick up the stragglers and road weary.  On Tuesday after Monday when I rode the farthest I have ever ridden, 73 miles, we faced a mountain out of John Day with 5 miles of grade and the last 4 were 7%. After walking 3.5 miles up a 7% grade with my new found friend, Jeannie, and riding 5 more hours. We looked at another 5 % grade and flagged down the sag to take us to the top of the next hill.  I thought the sag took you all the way back to camp, end of the story for the day.  No, up to three times you can use the sag for just what we did for those seemingly impossible hills.  Day 2 done, 55 miles!

How do I feel? super! My lips are chapped.  My air mattress got a puncture wound in the alfalfa field we slept in last night. I think I may have it patched with a patch for an air mattress, glue from my bicycle tire repair kit and duct (or is it duck?) tape. I have a bicycle girl tan with white sleeves and no tan 4" above my knees.
More later.

There is a bicycle rodeo tonite I don't want to miss.. 

It's all about gear and goodies...

Here it is 3:42 in the morning, a mere three hours before Denis picks me up to take me to the bus with my duffle and bicycle.  The bus takes six hours to go to John Day, Oregon, that lies along the Columbia River and marks the northern end of the main highway down the middle of state, Hwy 395.   Our hardy group of 2200 cyclists will travel on and around this highway over the next seven days from John Day to Diamond to Crane and to Seneca, Oregon, small towns with one-room school houses and few people, one as small as 12 people.

Yes, I cannot sleep.  I stuffed all my gear into jumbo Ziploc bags and used my knees to push the air out. Each bag above contains a jersey (the cyclist's name for a bike shirt), bike shorts and socks.  I have collected glorious red poppies to lady bugs and Google maps (Thank you, Molly) jerseys and a few others over the last six months as I have readied for this trip.

Never having liked being a walking billboard, I collect jerseys that have few, if any, words. Of course, Portland Century is allowed! The middle one in the lower row above is the Google maps one and it has the words, "Google maps" on the side.

How do I feel? The fact that I could barely sleep tells me I am excited.  This is an adventure for a soon-to-be 70-year-old January 18.  I give myself permission to not push or race but just ride.  I usually ride alone because I don't want to burden others with my slow pace.  That is just fine...  But, with 2199 others, there may be one....