Week 1 Cycling Recap – This Land is Made for You and Me
We’ve had an eventful first week. You can train and train for 100 miles a day, but until you actually ride 100 miles per day, you won’t be totally ready for it. We’re getting the crash course, but without the crashing.
We were always a bit quizzical about what part of our body would be the most sore from our rides: our legs, our bums, our arms, our Achilles… well, answer is none of them! It’s our knees. Man alive they are sore! But thanks to our Medicinal Mother Gail, we’re treating them right with plenty of stretching, vitamins and gels.
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This blog starts from the second half of our second day on the road. Check the recent posts [Cycling Day 1 to 2 1/2] to find the first day and a half of riding through Washington.
We also will have some new developments with the organization that we will detail on our way to Los Angeles later this week. But first, the fun stuff! Cycling across the country!
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Still in the town of Raymond late in the afternoon and finishing up a pizza at Patrizio’s, we thought,
“A morning of being wet has got to lead to an afternoon of being dry, right?”
After turning our food coma into an energy powerhouse it was time to hit the second half of our ride. Washington, it’s been great, but we’ve moved on. Time for Oregon!
Heading out of Raymond, the sun started to shine and we found a little trail that surely was our answer to take us to the coast. Things were looking up! But as soon as we got excited about the paved trail, it ended up turning right back into gravel. Thinking optimistically and being hard-headed, we hoped that not all trails on this ride had to be covered in gravel. So we stuck with it.
Washington and Oregon photo album – http://on.fb.me/Ia7HhE
Turns out, the WHOLE trail all way to the coast was gravel. This would have been an excellent mountain biking trail, but alas, we were on road bikes. So we went mountain biking on road bikes for the first time in our lives. And we got only one flat through the 7 miles of trail! But the whole trail was fantastically green. It was incredible! Definitely worth the slower pace of the gravely trail. We rode, heads turning from side to side and stopping for picture after picture (need to work on our balance of being a tourist and arriving on time for the next city. It’s just so pretty!)
Washington and Oregon photo album – http://on.fb.me/Ia7HhE
Barreling down the last stretch of rock-hopping off-roadedness, the trail spilled right onto the 101.
Paved road in all of its glory. And a downhill! We clipped in and coasted down the hill, heading straight west. As we came around a slight bend, we had a gorgeous view of the sunset over the Washingtonian ocean. Hands off the handlebars and outstretched, it felt good to be back by the ocean.
We wound through the valleys on the 101, eventually arriving at the Astoria-Megler bridge that spans the Columbia River dividing Oregon and Washington. As we are preparing to cross the massive 5-mile bridge, we have a rider get a flat. Shucks. Quick turnaround though and we are back on the road. We’re going to be really good at fixing these at the end of the summer.
This bridge is pretty straightforward. Gets you from one side to the other. However, there is a CRAZY random uphill to get into the town of Astoria, on the bridge. It feels like the builders of the bridge put it there just to make it tougher for cyclists. But alas, when we finally cross the finish line, 105 miles since Chehalis, back to the RV, we learn that Tim has found us a comp’ed room at the lovely, new Riverwalk Inn and that he has procured 4 giant crabs and cooked them up for dinner!
Washington and Oregon photo album – http://on.fb.me/Ia7HhE
Showers, well fed, and off to bed in a comfy hotel bed. Thanks Tim and the Riverwalk Inn! What a day!
The next day started with the hotel breakfast and pictures with the owners of the Riverwalk Inn (wonderful people!). The small town of Astoria and the Riverwalk Inn actually has some history as well as we got to take our picture in front of the original map from The Goonies. Great movie.
Washington and Oregon photo album – http://on.fb.me/Ia7HhE
We headed out of Astoria into instant rain and cold. Basically the whole day was pretty rainy and cold. Lots of up and downs on the road. Took some good photos of the pretty coast again. Put this on repeat, minus the hotel breakfast, and you get our rides of Tuesday through Friday. Tuesday was a tough day, but we ended up finishing 104 miles and setting up camp in Lincoln City for the night. Warming up with a bowl of soup at the local pub was enough to send us to bed with good thoughts.
Washington and Oregon photo album – http://on.fb.me/Ia7HhE
*FYI: Lincoln City is to Oregon as Branson is to Missouri, for all you mid-westerners.
Wednesday, we rode from Lincoln City, OR to Lakeside, OR. It was our first partially sunny day on the road, which made the not-so-forgiving hills easier to enjoy.
Some “excitement” happened with the support vehicle on Wednesday. Adam (writer, will use me/I for this description, bear with me, we’ll move back to “we’s and us’s”) was driving the vehicle into the small town of Florence to set up the mobile office for the day at a local coffee shop. So, I should preface, the RV has a 10 foot trailer behind it. It carries all of our equipment. It carries bats, balls, food, clothes, PA system, and places for our bikes to lock up when we are parked for the night. So, the RV is already 27 feet long, add on the trailer hitch and the 10 foot long trailer, and you’re sitting at close to 40 feet. We are working on our driving skills with this, definitely a work in progress. And this is why:
So, as I entered town, there was basically one light that at each corner you could find everything you (mostly us) needed: Safeway (grocery), hardware store, gas station and coffee shop. Well, as I was passing through the light, I got all flustered that I passed the one intersection we needed and tried to turn into the one gas station, 7-11. However, there was a VERY steep incline to get into the parking lot for the turn-around. (If you’ve ever driven a truck with a trailer behind it, you are cringing right now). As I tried heading up the incline, the trailer jack dug straight into the asphalt. A good two inches. I couldn’t back up or move forward. Driving a bright green RV, in a town where you’re OBVIOUSLY not from around here, and now you’re wrecking their main street… yeah I had some serious nervous sweatage going on. Turns out, the town is overly and abundantly nice. Literally every single person that walked by offered help. And not in a way that was asking “Do you need help?” and then hoping you say no as they do in big cities. These people genuinely wanted to help. So, two students from Portland State helped us raise the trailer jack out of the ground, a local cop helped block off traffic, another local helped bring rocks over to use as leverage for the jack, the 7-11 store manager ran inside to bring out blocks of wood to stop the RV from moving… it was pretty ridiculous. Way over the top. Couldn’t believe it. And then after everyone so graciously helped to get the trailer out of the ground and back moving freely with the RV, they just said, “You’re welcome” and went right on back to what they were doing. I love small towns.
The next day, another favorable story about small towns. This time, Steve and Adam “got caught” in a 40 mph gust wind storm over the coast. This, not only is the least fun thing EVER to bike in, it’s also pretty unsafe. So we headed into a local coffee shop, RedFish, in the town of Port Orford. We immediately sit at the coffee bar and start talking with the employees. Eventually, we start talking with Robbie, who was actually drafted by the Texas Rangers as a pitcher back in 1999! He had a freak accident while pitching and unfortunately, lost his career. But he had a super positive spin on everything and was great to talk to. Turns out, he’s extremely well-connected in the Oregonian baseball community. He still coaches and loves baseball. So he sends out a little blurb about Biking for Baseball to all of his contacts as we are sitting there with him. Then, behind us, a local sports radio broadcaster in Oregon, picks up on the story and would love to interview us! Eventually, we get back to biking, that was just a cool coincidence all around. We stopped in Lakeside for the night after a solid 111 miles, which is a cowboy town. We assumed this because we parked at the local grocery store across from a bar and everyone that entered the bar, drove a truck, and was wearing the cowboy boots and hat combo.
As Friday began, we were able to bike into California. Actual days at this point have become moot. We think in terms of:
“We’ve been biking for 3 days and have 6 days left. I just know that we have to be in Oakland for a game on Tuesday, April 25th.”
Losing ourselves in the days led to losing ourselves in the Redwood National Forest!
California Love pictures here – http://on.fb.me/IbYu6k
This, quickly became, the most incredible bike ride ever. Bucket list for everyone for life:
1. Get a bike and start riding.
2. Train for hills, lots of them.
3. Become a Big Brother or Big Sister!
4. Ride up the hills and through the Redwood National Forest!
Zipping through this forest in a car does not give it the justice it deserves. These trees are MASSIVE and everything looks like a picture out of Fern Gully. Just go see it OK? Promise us that.
We finished in Gold Beach, CA after 100 miles and a whole day of riding through the redwoods.
The next day, Friday, was B4B’er Tim’s birthday! And the sun was out the whole day just for him! He was our driver for the day, so he got to “relax.” Picking out Patrick’s Point as our end destination, 111 miles away from our start, we set our sights on getting in before dark so we could get some good rest. 100 miles a day wears you out!
When we arrived at Patrick’s Point, we did get to have a celebratory birthday New Belgium beer late at night. And we still have a bunch left after the generous donations from New Belgium on our stop in Fort Collins. Then as a bonus, the Biking for Baseball team was able to shower at the local Inn! Happy Birthday Tim! Patrick’s Point was renamed Tim’s Point for the night in his honor.
The next day, Saturday, we took off from Patrick’s Point and headed towards the split of the 101 with Highway 1. We finally reached the “end” of the 101! It wasn’t actually the end of the 101, it was just the end for us. We jumped from riding on the 101 to riding on the 1. Pretty simple.
Ride was very tough climbs, three of them, for anywhere between 1 and 5 miles of solid climbing. But what goes up, must come down. First, in the form of equipment.
On the first climb, Adam had the first tire mishap of the trip. To explain this a bit more, a tire is not the tube. The tire is what touches the road and should be very sturdy for an 11,000 mile ride. The tube, which pops often and we call our “flats,” is the rubbery doughnut shaped balloon used for inflation that fits between the wheel and the tire. You usually don’t carry a spare tire on the road with you like you do with a spare tube, so if a tire rips, it’s a problem.
Riding up the hillside of the 101 for what seemed like an eternity, his tube busted right through the tire, basically exploding through one section of the tire. The miles were catching up to these poor little tires. So in order to go any farther, he needed a new tire. Welllll, there was NO cell phone service and it was a 22-mile walk over to the other side of the hill. So Adam sent a couple SOS signals to Rex, the driver, from the side of the road through generous people that happened to stop by and offer to help but had no space for him and his bike. It took quite a while. But Rex eventually go to Adam to find him and deliver his new tire! Back on the road! Crisis averted.
And just in time for one of the most fun downhill rides EVER. Getting to the top of this giant hill, led to steep downhills with many winding roads weaving to the shape of the hill. Letting the force of gravity be our guide, we didn’t have to pedal for the next 10 miles. The turns were tight, but the road was smooth enough to keep our tires hugging the road through each curve. It felt like we slinging down the hills on our Kawasaki Ninjas as we banked through each turn. To add to the surrealism, we were in what we could only describe as a rain forest. The air was damp and cool because we were actually riding through a cloud. This might not actually be a rain forest, but being Coloradoans, every forest is a rain forest compared to what we’re used to.
California Love pictures here – http://on.fb.me/IbYu6k
The rest of the ride was steep climbs and steep downhills and VERY pretty. Each time you got to the top of a hill and looked out over the ocean, it looked like the scene of a sappy rom-com. We were totally into it and snapped a couple dozen pictures as we wiped away the tears from each other’s cheeks.
Beautiful ride again. We already forget what’s its like to be freezing. But we sure as heck don’t want to remember it again. That was terrible! We finished the evening in the Mendocino Valley in the town of Mendocino after a tough 70 miles. The Mendocino Valley, for all you wine lovers, is well, a great valley for wine! We skipped the wine and bought a case of Oreos. *We’ve already gone through 6 boxes of Oreos. Riding 100 miles a day, we now think, “I need to eat that whole box of Oreos for all the calories.” Instead of, “Get these cookies away from me.” Who doesn’t want to think like that when you have a box of Double Stuf Oreos sitting in front of you? Answer – people who have a gluten allergy.
Sunday, the final frontier of our trek from Seattle to Oakland. A grueling 140 miles to crush before we could rest our weary bodies at Steve’s Uncle’s place in San Geronimo, just outside of Oakland. Another wet and cool day on the coast. The team was determined and finished strong! Boom! We’re here! We were already able to see the Oakland A’s in action. It’s going to feel SO nice to “relax” for a couple days in the Bay Area. But actually, the work just begins. Fundraising, event planning, press releases and marketing will fill our days while meeting people all over the Bay Area and putting on events with BBBS will fill our nights.
Tuesday, April 24th – Oakland A’s vs. Chicago White Sox
Wednesday, April 25th – Event with BBBS of the Bay Area at the Barry Bonds Junior Giants Field
Thursday, April 26th – Event with BBBS of the Bay Area at the Barry Bonds Junior Giants Field
Friday, April 27th – San Francisco Giants vs. San Diego Padres
If you’re in the Bay Area and still reading this post, send us an email at info@bikingforbaseball.org for more information about how to get involved with an event, catch us at a ballgame or find us around town!
Also, the pictures included within this blog, or any blog, will always be a small taste of what you can find on our Facebook page or within the maps on our webpage [Live Scoreboard].
Thanks for reading!
After finishing our ride, we may have had a slight mishap with the RV as well… will update soon!