Pre-century index
Number of cocktail parties attended night previous: 2
Number of city quadrants said parties spanned: 3
Hours of sleep before ride: 6, debatable
Total wheels across two riders: 6
Total cups of coffee across two riders: insufficient
So, three lists: won't, haven't, can't.
Things you refuse to do for whatever reason, things you haven't gotten around to, and things you perceive you are unable to do.
I'm trying to shift things from can't to haven't - partially because when I try shit I think relatively impossible (run a sub-two-hour half-marathon, climb Mt Hood) or utterly impossible (find a full-time job in Portland in a recession) - it works, sometimes. See previous episode of Vista House/Crown Point.
With sufficient volunteering, I managed to secure two passes to the PDX Century. Famous rest stops, a beautiful route, a Thing To Do as a bikey-type in the fine city of Roses. (And they feed you well - and it's free?) So I signed Ben and I up for The Big Ride - 8/22 - plenty of time. Sure, I was still in physical therapy in June, but I was sure I'd be okay, with enough training...
...and then there was a wedding to go to, and family to see, and camping to do, and hikes to take, and I somehow worked every weekend for a month and a half, and physical therapy got in the way, and the garden needed attention, and short track racing!, and adventures, and small bits of travel...
...and a week before The Big Ride - we'd gone nowhere. Enter Vista House. And the night before The Big Ride, I was nervous. I thought I could do it - I thought I could probably convince my legs to not quit - but was worried about being a non-demonic human in the process, worried about being that sobbing/blood-sugar-crashy girl, being the unable and the clearly undertrained and unbelonging. Worried about having promised we'd do an idiotically hard thing. Since, you know, this was supposed to be fun...
The morning of truth. Up far too early, we found coffee and oatmeal (despite stomachs-still-sleeping), put on comfortable clothes, and pulled the trikes out of the garage. (One of the advantages of the recumbent trike? No need for silly diaper-pants.) Add water, food, sunscreen, a layer. Pin our numbers to our Fred-flags. Decide where to cut off the route (why ride downtown to start when you can start at Tabor, meet up with the folks, avoid the crowds?) and off we went.
Streets are rather quiet early on a Sunday - try 7am? - most of the folks on bikes out at that hour seemed to be Some Kind Of Serious - many had numbers like ours. Hit the Springwater, find a pack of other century-rats...
Riding down a MUP in a pack of anxious roadies was pretty interesting. Sitting on the Super-Relax bikes, we were prime targets for getting passed in a ninja-like fashion... whatever, speedypants. As the bright spandex thinned out, we headed off into farm country - the pavement changed from new-smooth to bumpity bumpity as we passed goats and sheep and horses, so many blackberries! and misty fields. Sections of the Springwater still under construction were opened for the event...
Rest stop one. Eat, hydrate, stretch. Go!
... I could detail the trip, mile-per-mile - but that seems unnecessarily tedious. The terrain was incredibly varied - I think by the end of the day, we'd done/seen it all. Pastures, serious suburbia (a kid shouted Look! A banana-bike! as we rode past), little downtowns in historic areas, farms and forest and far-off highways. Descents, serious climbing which causes one to enter into a zen-state of patience (there's no granny like the granny gear on a trike...), flats and headwinds (embrace the glory of the low-to-the ground!). Watermelon has maybe never tasted so good (Smith/Bybee lakes rest-stop, mile 80 and change).
I wish we had cyclometers for to clock our descending speed on some of those hills. I'm glad neither one of us does food-math, as I think we maybe ate more than we rode off - okay, that's a lie. (Work>>Food) And I'm glad I didn't have a camera for the exciting moment when I swooped around a hairpin on a serious descent and came upon (no joke) the Ukrainian Bible Camp tour bus that was not-moving and taking up the entire road. (I learned how to skid a trike, and took a chunk out of my arm in the process.)
We saw kids playing in the Columbia, folks rafting the Sandy, blue herons and osprey and any farm animal you can imagine, including three adorable alpacas at the top of the first big climb. We rode up what felt like impossible hills, bombed some great descents. Passed the same folks as we leapfrogged from route to rest stop. Just outpaced the sag wagon (it's true, Mom, I didn't start at 6am). We were given kudos for riding Those Things up hills, asked a dozen times how that was (was it slow? well... yes). We blasted over the top of the Steel Bridge and, unlike many of our compatriots, actually -stopped- at those red lights downtown...
I rode farther in one day than I ever had, and over hills I thought out-of-my-league - and ended the day feeling tired but good, happy for beer and salmon but not as stiff or sore as I expected. Slept well, possibly falling asleep on the couch during an episode of one or the other BBC comedies, and then going to bed at a truly Grandpa hour. Perfectly proud of myself, I might add. Yes, it took us all day. (11 hours, start to finish, with lots of stopping, stretching, eating, and slow-pacing.) But what a great ride.
Thanks to Josh for the loan of the spare trike, Good Sport Promotion for the event and passes, and particularly Ben for the moral support, patience, trike, and coffee.
Post-century index
Feet of climbing: 6000+
Miles traveled: 100+
Beers consumed at finish line, per rider: 3
Flats obtained, total: 0
Crying episodes and/or breakdowns: 0
Winning members of Team Trike-Pants: 2
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