John’s Ramblings

As we rejoin our intrepid cyclist, he’s just finished writing an early morning blog entry and is ready to step out the door to begin the 2007 version of the Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic (STP). I kissed the wife goodbye, and waddled out the door at 4:45. Light strapped to my helmet, flasher blinking away in the back, I am just about to swing my leg over the bike to start when you will notice that my bottles are not on the bike, but still sitting in the refrigerator. Thankful that I noticed now rather than after climbing out of my street, I clomped back inside to fetch said bottles and say goodbye to the dogs again.

Halfway up the hill from my house, I see that the friends of the kids up the street have yet again toilet papered the trees in front of their house. I don’t understand why this house gets hit 2-3 times a year, but they do. The kids that live there never clean this stuff up either, the father always does. Considering that the parents are always friendly and generous to all their boys’ friends, I fail to see the humor in the act.

After descending Meredith Hill, I turn left on West Valley to ride the reverse STP route. My riding partner Kevin has started from his house in Seattle, and by synchronizing our departure time we will meet in the middle, and thereby have roughly equal mileage.

I see my first southbound rider 2 miles later, just where the route crosses the Green River in Kent. As I cross the 196th street bridge I am treated to a beautiful sunrise, followed shortly by my first sighting of a bona-fide paceline heading to Portland. It is a beautiful morning, no wind as of yet and temperatures must have been in the mid-60′s, eliminating the need for me to bring jacket or even arm warmers. As I ride against the flow, no less than six riders feel it necessary to tell me that I am traveling in the wrong direction. Thanks much.

At 7th and Rainier in Renton, I notice that about 50% of the riders seem to be missing the right hand turn off Rainier. It seems that the paint chosen for marking the Dan Henry’s this year was fading quickly, and could not be easily seen. I stop and direct traffic for a time, but I need to get moving and the missed turn can be easily made up by folks turning right at the next intersection, on Grady Way. Missing the turn at Grady isn’t really a possibility since that would put you on the Valley Freeway.

After meeting Kevin in Renton, we head in the proper direction. Kevin tells me of an accident on the Montlake Bridge. Sad that anyone’s day has to end in a crash, it has to be especially bad when it is in the first mile from the start line. We will see a few more accidents, including two at mile 56, just after we bear right onto State Route 507 toward Roy. Sometime in the past week, Pierce County or Washington State DOT or somebody cut rumble strips along the fog line of this two-lane road. The severe vibration caused by hitting these sections with skinny bike tires sent a couple of riders to the pavement. We were stopped as they loaded the first person into an ambulance, and just a half-mile past this point we saw another rider face-down in the road, being tended to.

Mile 57 through 100 were pretty uneventful. We maintained a healthy pace of about 20 mph for this stretch, and arrived in Centralia at 11:30 a.m. We had a sandwich, cold water, and the obligatory creamsicle in the span of about 45 minutes, then got back on the road. The heat of the day started in earnest, and the rest of the day seemed like it was crawling by. I also started to develop a creaking sound on every left pedal down stroke. While annoying, it did not seem to be impeding my progress too much, so we marshaled on until we found a likely looking mechanic.

The climb into Napavine felt like it took forever in the heat, but the rollers afterward passed fairly quickly. By the time we hit Winlock, we started to avail ourselves of every opportunity to hose down our heads with water in order to stay somewhat comfortable.

A mechanic at the Castle Rock mini-stop diagnosed my creaking as bad bearings in my bottom bracket. The bike was o.k. to ride, but it would just continue to get noisier as the day wore on. He also tightened my headset, the looseness of which was causing me a little vibration upon braking. I need to talk with my LBS today to find out what constitutes a “pre-STP tuneup”.

We hit the Lexington Riverside food stop shortly after 4 p.m., approximately 60 miles from the finish line. Terri and Nina met us here, giving us encouragement as we forced down the world’s stalest peanut butter sandwich. This thing was stiffer than the deer roadkill I had seen 5 miles back. There was no danger that I was going to exceed the 1 sandwich per rider limit. Upon seeing me eat this crusty wonder, Kevin decided to stick with a Clif Bar and some steamed potatoes that he had brought with him.

The next 60 miles do indeed seem to last forever. The Longview Bridge is nasty and long, and I counted 11 water bottles alongside the road on the descent side that had been bounced out of cages by the expansion joints in the roadway. Once in Oregon, we headed east on Hwy 30 toward Portland. There is not much redeeming quality to this portion of the ride. You hug the right shoulder of the road while cars and semi’s whiz past your left ear. It would be on this stretch that a rider would be a hit-and-run victim on Sunday on the approach to the town of St. Helens. They caught the driver up the road a ways, and he waits charges of hit-and-run, and DUI.

We made our last major stop at St. Helens High School, where I mixed my last two bottles of EFS sports drink, and soaked my head under running water one more time. I was getting a little concerned with my loss of salt, as evidenced by this view of my black riding shorts. I was determined to maintain my intake of sports drink containing electrolytes, even though plain water was tasting pretty good and the flavor of the sweet drink gets pretty old after an entire day.

The last 40 miles were gained by sheer force of will, and I had very little will left. I was pleased to run into Sue Peterson, of Century Ride of the Centuries fame, a few miles from the finish line. We stopped and chatted for a minute, then headed back on course. We also ran into a fellow we had chatted with back in St. Helens. He had just experienced a catastrophic rear wheel failure. A local stopped his car and loaned the STP rider his own rear wheel. Even though the wheel and cassette were of a different brand and/or configuration, he was able to finish the last mile or so with three functional gears!

We crossed the finish line at around 9 p.m., very tired and happy to be done. I bought a t-shirt and a beer, and we headed to our hotel, the Avalon Hotel and Spa. This was a great place, quiet and what I’d call comfortably posh. After a long shower we headed to the restaurant to eat our weight in tapas, then off to bed.

The bottom line is that I feel a great sense of accomplishment at having completed this ride, but I am really of a mind that I do not care to do it again. The route is not all that pretty, and the huge number of riders make it less supported and less safe than I care to be. The food is mediocre, but I’m not sure how it could be improved given the numbers of people to be fed. The support is o.k., but there is no way to have that many inexperienced or inconsiderate riders crowded together and not have incidents. I was startled more than once by people passing un-announced, or passing on the right. In my mind, I find it much more enjoyable when I do not have to constantly be on guard.

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