I am no Boy Scout

June 6, 2021

We got up early today and started riding at 7:45 am. We had a warmup ride to the town of Twisp. We went to the Cinnamon Twisp Bakery and had bagel breakfast sandwiches. A couple miles past Twisp starts the Loup Loup pass climb. The weather was pretty good with the temp in the mid to upper 40’s with mostly cloudy skies. The climb was 10 miles long with the pass at 4020 feet in elevation. The climb was a pretty consistent 6% gradient. The climb went pretty good, not too much suffering. I would climb for about 3/4 of a mile and then wait for Janet to catch up. It is kind of funny when Janet catches up. When I stop I am sweating and out of breath. When Janet catches up she is sweating and out of breath, but, I am all calmed down. She thinks I am just rocking the climb, not working hard at all. Actually I have had enough time to calm down and get a drink of water before she gets there.

When climbing there are 2 aspects that are difficult to manage. First is how hot or cold you are. We try really hard to be comfortable on our climbs. When it is cold out, we get hot during the climb and want to shed some clothes. But as soon as we stop, we get cold, especially if it is windy. So we spend a lot of time trying to manage how hot or cold we are. Second is food. We need to eat because we are burning lots of calories on the climb. However, if you eat too much we will have stomach problems. For example, this morning I had juice to drink. On the climb I had acid reflex because of the acidity in the juice. So we have to be careful what we eat before we ride.

The other thing interesting about long climbs is your visual perspective. When you are climbing and looking up hill, it usually doesn’t look too steep. However, when you stop and look behind you the road looks like it drops off a table.

We eventually made it to the top of the pass and we were looking forward to the long downhill. Janet and I needed to use the restroom before we started the downhill. Fortunately there was a pit toilet near the top of the pass. We just finished and we were starting to get on our bikes when the temperature drop about 10 degrees to the low 30’s. Janet says “I think it is snowing “ and sure enough it starts snowing and sleeting. All of a sudden it is turning into a dangerous situation. When riding downhill from a pass on our bikes it is easy to exceed 35 mph. With slick roads and low visibility it is easy to wipe out and get seriously hurt. As the Boy Scouts say “Be prepared “, we were not prepared. We carry rain and cold weather gear, but, it is in our packs. We do not know exactly which bag has what gear, so to get the cold weather clothes, we need to dig around in our packs for 15 or more minutes. Fortunately I had a head band handy and Janet had gloves. Otherwise we were in shorts with biking jerseys and coats. We took off down the hill hoping to get in front of the weather. That didn’t work. We froze going down. After a few miles I could not feel my hands anymore, so I stopped and started looking for my gloves. I could not find them, but, I found my wool socks and put them on my hands. That helped. We rode 18 miles downhill until the first town of Okanogan. We stopped at a store and tried to warm up with hot chocolate and tea. We decided to spend another night in a hotel so we could get warm.

Tomorrow is a short day. We are only going 25 miles to the town of Tonasek.

Today's ride: 48 miles (77 km)
Total: 274 miles (441 km)

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