July 14, 2019
Day 2: Scenic Washington Roads, a Big Bridge and a Long Slog Through Oregon
Now I now why they call Oregon's Rt. 30 "Dirty Thirty"
I woke up the next morning feeling surprisingly good. One of the sponsors of the STP ride was Blue Steel Sports, a Redmond WA company that makes anti-chafe cream. I've never been a fan of chamois butter, but on long rides I usually smear some Vaseline down there in the nether regions but never felt it really changed anything. Blue Steel was giving out samples at packet pickup so I tried some the first day - I am now a believer. Plus, the packages makes it harder to confuse with something you might put on your toast...
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It was only 51 degrees at 0615 when Carole dropped me back off at the World's Largest Egg in Winlock and there was a good deal of fog. But the rising sun and rolling hills south through Vader and Castle Rock soon warmed things up.
At the 25 mile mark of day 2 (147 miles overall) I stopped for a second breakfast (after another peanut butter bagel and banana in the hotel room) and also decided to check the rental bike tire pressure, something I had forgotten to do before. The pressure was only about 60 PSI, so I brought them up to 80 and immediately felt faster - for a few miles.
We went through Kelso on trafficked roads and then at mile 32 (155 overall) reached the Lewis & Clark Bridge over the Columbia River. This is a high bridge to let all the freighters fit under, so it was a steep climb up the wood chip-strewn 3 foot wide shoulder while tractor trailers whizzed by your left ear. Right as I reached the bridge I caught up with the guy doing the STP on a unicycle, but with a quick "On your left" I got by that lunatic - I can't imagine unicycling down the other side of that steep bridge.
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Once we reached the Oregon side, we got on Oregon Rt. 30, our home for the next 40 miles. That section is pure transportation, not pleasure - there were a few views of the Columbia River at the start but it was mostly just slogging it out on a rough shoulder that would only turn smooth when you reached small towns like Columbia City, St. Helens and Scappoose that had shopping malls and fast food joints. Then, all shade would disappear, traffic would pick up and you had to constantly watch out for right turning cars - but at least the surface smoothed out.
St. Helens was the site of the lunch stop at mile 55 for the day (178 overall) and they had those great sesame noodle boxes again. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and temperatures were going up into the 80s but we did have a slight tail wind. The route was pretty flat from there.
At mile 76 (198 overall) we had a short steep climb to take the St. John's Bridge over the Willamette River, which had a great view of Mt Hood off in the distance and the skyline of Portand to the right. We had about 8 miles remaining to the finish, which was mostly on Portland City surface streets with marked bike lanes, and many, many traffic lights -and even the first bicycle traffic lights I've ever seen. I didn't know it at the time but the route down Willamette Blvd. took me just a few blocks from the house where our daughter's friend Erin and her boyfriend Adam live - we had dinner with them later that night.
Finally, I came into sight of Holladay Park and the finish line at about 1230. Carole cheered me in, we took my seat and bags and water bottles off the rental bike, and we turned it over to the truck that would bring bikes back to Seattle. We partook of some of the festivities at the finish and then headed out to our hotel room near the airport for me to shower and fall backwards onto a nice soft bed.
Later that night we had a great dinner with Erin and Adam at Wilder, a bar/restaurant with tasty local hard cider. The next day we had an early flight back to Baltimore - security at PDX confiscated my CO2 cartridges (security at BWI airport had no problem with them!) and the plastic jar with the remainder of the peanut butter I had bought.
.Amazingly enough, that morning we saw the first rain drops of the entire trip - I had beautiful cycling weather, a beautiful route (OK, beautiful in Washington State and much of Portland) and a beautiful redhead to be my personal support crew. It doesn't get any better than that.
My first Seattle to Portland ride was in the books.
Today's ride: 82 miles (132 km)
Total: 220 miles (354 km)
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