August 6, 2011
Day 116: Colville, WA to Republic, WA
I'm out of the bike hostel early enough that in the four-mile ride to Colville I see dozens of deer standing in the road or walking through the front yard of someone's home. Every time one of them spots me they stare for a few seconds as their brain runs some calculations and returns the result Danger! Then they bolt across a field or into the trees, white tails pointed to the sky and flipping from left to right and back again at a steady pace, like a wagging finger or a giant fuzzy metronome.
A flat highway makes the ride to Kettle Falls easy, but my mind is distracted by thoughts of the long climb that waits on the other side of the Columbia River. Even though I've been riding a bike every day for four months, have traveled almost 6,000 miles, and am in the best shape of my life, I still roll up to any huge hill with a sign and a grumble, wishing for the flats. It never gets easier.
Soon I say goodbye to the broad sweep of the Columbia and hello to the gentle rushing and subtle rise of Sherman Creek. The climb throws me a few steep sections, but they're the exception and not the rule and sometimes I get a push from a small tailwind. That it's not as tough as I expected gives me a boost of strength and for the most part I cruise. I get another boost when I see two loaded bikes making their way up the hill about a half mile ahead. They move a little slower than me, so I bump up the pace to see if I can catch them.
Just as I'm about to draw even they turn off into a pullout. That gives me a chance to talk to Mark and Linda, who ride matching gray Koga Miyata World Traveler bikes, one with orange Ortlieb bags and the other with yellow ones like mine. They live on the east coast of Florida and tell me that I passed within eight miles of their house back on the first week of the trip. Mark and Linda are riding the length of the Northern Tier, from the Atlantic Ocean in Maine to Anacortes in Washington State, and then plan to continue on into the islands of Southwest British Columbia. In only a couple of minutes I can tell that they're having a great time, and their enthusiasm for touring starts to rub off and help me feel better about the last week and a half of my trip.
The two of them also rode the ACA's Southern Tier route last year, from St. Augustine, Florida to San Diego. Linda mentions how different their experiences with people have been on the opposite sides of America.
"Going through the south everyone was so friendly," she says. "We traveled through areas that a lot of people would call depressed, where a lot of the residents live in trailers. Yet the people who had the least were so often the most welcoming and the most generous, and everybody was interesting in talking to us and asking questions. So many people said that they'd never seen anyone traveling on bikes like we were.
"But on this trip it hasn't been like that. People are so much more closed and guarded. Some of the people out West won't even make eye contact with us. And I remember back in New York, we were riding past million-dollar homes on the lakefront and homeowners were watching us, very suspiciously, like we were going to steal their mailbox! It's so strange."
As Linda talks, in my head I say, "Yes! Thank you!" I was beginning to think that something about me was keeping the locals away whenever I roll into town, but it turns out that suspicion and silence are two of the gifts most Westerners give to weirdos who pass through on ridiculous-looking bikes. It makes me even more nostalgic for the quirky, friendly people I met so often in the South.
Farther on the grade picks up and I know it won't stop until the top of the past 12 miles later. In no time at all my shirt is soaked and sticks to both the front and back of me, while big and salty drops fall down from all sides of my head and run down my neck and into my face. I try to look at anything but the speedometer. Mark and Linda and I pass each other all morning as we pull and pull and pull our way to the top of the longest climb I've seen since North Carolina.
Unlike the mountain pass rides of Colorado and Wyoming and Montana, there aren't any snow-capped peaks or deep river valleys to distract from the work. I ride with evergreen trees on both sides, evergreens in the front, and evergreens behind, past the empty cans of Busch and Keystone Light that sit in the shoulder, and snake through National Forest land under and umbrella of pure and cloudless blue. Along the way I hum the Bon Iver song "Beth/Rest" and sing the words in my head, even though I only know five of them and have to make up the others. I spend hours lost in thought and have vivid fantasies about onion rings.
An almost-cold breeze washes over me and makes me think about the amazing descent that's coming my way soon. Or rather, the amazing descent that should be coming my way but isn't. Within the last week the Department of Transportation laid oil over the 15-mile stretch between the pass and Republic and covered every inch of the highway with a fresh layer of gravel—without sweeping away the excess. Mark and Linda heard about it from another bike rider and told me the news a few hours earlier. It's a monster disappointment that means a slow and dirty slog instead of a wonderful sprint to the bottom.
The mood at the top of the pass is half excitement and accomplishment, half dread over what's to come. We push over and hope for the best but find the absolute worst. The first car that passes by kicks up a rock as wide as a dime that flies toward my head and slams into my cheekbone, half an inch below my left eye. It's a preview of what's to come as I guide the bike down one of the two narrow channels carved out by car tires, trying to avoid the millions of small rocks that span the road and stand ready to slam the bike and me to the ground if my concentration slips for only two seconds.
Every vehicle kicks up dust—not stuff that's fine and light, but a dirty brown halo that's thick and meaty. I can feel bits of dirt hit my face, hear them crunch between my teeth, and squint through blips of pain as they crawl across the surface of my eyes. At one point a truck flies past at 60 miles per hour and throws up a massive cloud that the wind washes over me a split second before I can throw my head down and pull my eyelids nearly shut. In an instant the dust pours into both eyes and I'm nearly blind, squinting through the smallest slits and smudged contact lenses and a sea of tears, trying to pick out the subtle difference between the road that's safe and the gravelly patches that will send me to the deck. The 30 seconds that follow are some of the longest of my life as I weave left and right, hope that no cars are trying to pass, and come to grips with the fact that a crash is a matter of when, not if.
It's hell on two wheels.
Not long after maroon Ford SUV gives me a long horn honk as he passes with no other cars around. It's helpful, because I couldn't tell from the looking at the car that the driver is a gaping asshole.
The rear tire goes soft as I climb the last rise into downtown Republic. That's what finally cooks me, what busts my spirits, what pushes me to the closest motel. I unload the bike, turn on the air conditioner, close the door, and hole up for hours, leaving only in the early evening when the pull of a giant plate of Mexican food becomes too strong.
On a walk through town afterward I think about how bike touring has hundreds of ways that it can break me down and try to take away my will to keep pedaling. It's up to me to find the right combination of things it takes to build myself back up—to dig for the strength and desire it takes to repeat the cycle and keep myself going for another day and on toward the next town, the next county, and the next state.
Today I eat; I shower; I watch baseball on TV; I talk to Rock and Darlene, who run the motel; I fix the flat tire; I look at the maps to see what's coming; and then I zonk out in front of the cold air shooting from the vent on the far wall. Each thing slowly carries me toward a better state of mind, to the place where I'm ready to load up a bike with all kinds of heavy objects and pull it over a mountain pass, as if the things that dragged me down today never happened. By the time my beside light clicks off at 11:30, with my body sprawled across the twin-sized mattress and my feet hanging over the end, I'm almost there.
Today's ride: 60 miles (97 km)
Total: 5,997 miles (9,651 km)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 2 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |