But it was probably only a few years ago that I first heard about the other STP: Seattle to Portland. You can do this 205-mile ride as a two-day event, but doing it in a single day sounded interesting in the same way that Cross-Florida sounded interesting when I lived down there. So, for some insane reason, even though I haven't even done a 200K this year, I decided to ride STP this year. Worse, I decided to do it fast enough that I could finish before sunset, so that I wouldn't need to bring lights.
My plan was to keep this low-impact. I didn't want to have to drive a car up to the start at 4:45 am, and I certainly didn't want to make RandoGirl get out of bed to drive me up there then. After the ride, I wanted a simple way to get back home.
So Friday evening I carried a backpack with a change of clothes and toiletries over to the University of Washington campus and put it on the truck for Portland. Then Saturday morning my alarm went off at 4:30 and I left the house on my bike just after 5 am.
The streets were mostly empty, of course, as I passed over the Duwamish and through Georgetown. Just east of I-5, my Wahoo GPS popped up with a warning that the battery on my electronic shifting was low. I had just plugged my beloved Bianchi in two days earlier to top off the battery, and decided that this must be an error ... some kind of mis-calibration.
(Cue ominous foreboding music.)
I hit the route just south of where the "real" route left the Lake Washington Loop, my shortcut from home shaving almost half a mile from the full course. Although my legs were thus much more fresh than those of my fellow riders, many of them continued to pass me as we headed into the sea of traffic lights known as Renton.
There was a broad array of skillsets and fitness on display here. Large groups would zoom past just to get caught at the next traffic light. Wide bunches would weave about the lane chatting about their grandkids or listening to bluetooth speakers bolted to their handlebars or just churning and chuffing and offering up their suffering like supplicants in hair shirts.
(If you look closely, you can see Mount Rainier in this picture.)
It would have been nice to sit in on a good group here. It would have been nice to sit in on a good group at any point during the day. However, such respite remained unavailable to me. Maybe I'm too picky, or maybe I missed the "good" groups, but any time a bunch of riders came by that appealed to me I would join them for a mile or two and then we would suck up some squirrelly miscreant that would start surging or couldn't hold a line or would run a stop sign to the obvious ire of the screeching tires and blaring horn of a loudly cursing nun.
So I rode alone awash in a cycling sea of humanity, feeling like an aborigine on a crowded New York subway train. Occasionally I would chat with another rider, but most of our interchanges were along the "On your left" and "Good morning" variety. More often, a string of riders would form behind me, like remoras trailing a grizzled Great White, happily bobbing in my wake as I lumbered stupidly on.
Although STP is a supported ride, I had skipped all of the stops through Puyallup. At the top of the climb past there, however, I made a brief stop for coffee.
Caffeine is the REAL racer's edge.
Just past Spanaway, the route turned onto the grounds of Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Signs there warned against taking photographs, with penalties of fines and imprisonment. I looked around and noticed bunches of GoPros on riders helmets, capturing every moment of the ride's epic-ness (epicocity?). But since I'm a rule-player, this picture is NOT from on the base. Honest.
Speaking of rules, the Cascade Bicycle Club was also very clear on riders' use of headphones on the ride. I'm sure that all of the earbuds that I saw jammed into peoples' heads were really hearing aids. Made by Apple.
I had just left the base and was almost a third of the way into the ride when my electronic shifting completely quit. Ordinarily, with Shimano Di2, when the battery is dying it first stops shifting in front; however, I had been big-ringing everything for the past 20 miles, so it had no recourse but to just leave me in the middle on the back and big ring up front. I pulled over to make sure that it wasn't a loose connection, but the little red lights do not lie: My battery was bereft.
Now, I had just been thinking earlier in my mindless musings that this would be a good route to ride on a single-speed bike. The wind was predominantly out of the north pushing me along, and the hills were mostly of the long lumps and/or gentle roller variety. In 2008, I rode my Salsa Casseroll on a fleche that went over the mountains between Tennessee and Alabama, so if I could ride 240 miles through that then surely I could do the next 135 now.
But I was young in 2008, and had all kinds of fitness left over from riding the Rocky Mountain 1200K earlier that month. Could I do the next 135 miles using only the gear to which my lack of juice had sentenced me? Yes. Could I finish by dark? Possibly.
But I want to.
Amazingly, one mile down the road was a rest step. Even better, it had a bike support tent that had been set up by the Montlake Bicycle Shop. I asked the mechanic there -- Gary TeGantvoort -- if he had a Di2 charger. He said no, but that he did have a Di2 battery that he had thrown in the box at the last minute.
So Gary proceeded to finagle the battery out of the seat post on my Bianchi.
And put his almost-fresh one in. Voila! I was back in business.
After profusely thanking Gary and promising to return his battery on Monday, I topped off my bottles and headed back out. In Yelm, we got on a multi-use trail for a few miles.
While it's nice to have these trails, I wish that they would pave them using at least some of the same standards that they use for roads. The lumps from trees pushing up the pavement are always in the shade, and they get tiresome.
In Bucoda the multi-use trail ended, and a few miles later we were at the mid-point of the ride at Centralia College. There were banners and a few folks cheering, and many riders gladly hit the beer garden set up there. It was not yet 11:30, however, and I still had over 100 miles to go. So I headed straight for the food trucks in the back.
I got a pretty good sandwich and an order of fried pickles, seeking to stave off the kind of cramps common for a ride of this effort and length -- not to mention the heat quickly ascending upon us. Chatting with some fellow riders and their families at one of the picnic tables, I learned that some folks had started a little earlier than the posted 5 am time.
This did not surprise me, since I had been passing people all day that did not seem like the types who had gone out too hard too fast earlier and were now spent. Sure, there were lots of those, but there were also a lot of people whom I would not have picked as cyclists if I met them on a bus or on the street ... or at a hot-dog eating contest. I certainly wouldn't have pegged them as cyclists capable of riding a century, much less riding 205 miles.
But I continued to see these people, even after leaving Centralia. They were obviously suffering , particularly on the hills or in long sun-filled stretches. Many of them had loved ones in cars and vans that would pull over on the side of the road and wait for them to come by for support. And maybe some crawled into those cars and vans and decided that today was not their day. But to the ones that I saw who were still out there trying, and to the ones who made it all the way: Congratulations. Your achievements dwarf those of the other cyclists who ride STP.
As, frankly, does your belly.
(Classic RandoBoy Snark. Patent pending.)
Leaving Centralia, we wandered briefly into farmland before passing through Chehalis.
I had picked up a few remoras who thought that I knew the route. We got passed at an intersection by a couple of fellows that I could only assume were Mormon missionaries -- white shirts, ties, black pants, and no helmets. They took a left, and for some reason I followed them for about 50 yards until my GPS started flashing red.
"Beware false prophets," I said to myself, making a quick U-turn.
The next few miles had us weaving through lovely fields along the interstate before heading off to Napavine and Evaline. A young lady got on my wheel here, and was one of the few who said something to make her presence known. When I stopped in Winslow to refill my bottles, I realized that she was wearing a long-sleeve cotton shirt and cut-off blue jeans, and that she was riding what looked like a heavy steel commuter bike -- complete with fenders.
Again, however, she had been good on my wheel and was riding strong, and I have little doubt that she was able to make it all the way to Portland that day. "You can't judge a book by its cover," I thought, considering that maybe I shouldn't be so picky about who I'm willing to sit in on. But then, there's a big difference between paying too much for a crappy paperback at the airport and being the third guy in the pileup caused by a conflagration of Freds.
And so I rode on, alone in an ocean of Orbeas. I confronted Vader, and began to sense an eruption in the saddle area as I came even with Mount St. Helens at Castle Rock. When I got low on fluid, I typically bypassed the official rest areas and opted instead for the nearby convenience store. They had ice and a better array of drink choices, and I could grab a Payday candy bar to eat on the road.
Near mile 150, we entered Kelso and Longview. Climbing the Lewis and Clark Bridge, you get your first view of the Columbia River ... and the millions of logs awaiting transformation into trusses.
As you would expect -- it being the only bridge over the river between Astoria and Portland -- the road was busy, and I was ecstatic to reach the other side.
My bottles were nearly empty as I hit the outskirts of Portland. With over three hours of daylight left, I should have stopped at one of the McDonald's or other fast-food options for a break and to fill my gut, but I kept thinking that if I did that then I might get a flat or some other delay that might imperil my no-night-riding goal. And thus I soldiered on.
I was ecstatic to cross this bridge into the city proper with a group of riders, although at this point I was also beginning to feel queasy. "Should've stopped at McDonald's," I told myself again.
The day had taken its toll by now, and the last seven miles to the finish line were a brobdingnagian effort. After rolling under the banner and waving back at the cheering crowds, I collapsed onto a park bench, half in the sun. A lady selling bicycle jewelry (not jewelry for your bike, since that would be crazy, but jewelry that was cycling-themed -- you know?) gave me three much-needed mini-Tootsie rolls. After a couple of minutes, I was able to stumble over to a food vendor and get a strawberry lemonade and a Diet Coke. Then, I just sat.
Batteries now less drained, I retrieved my backpack from the drop and checked into my hotel a mile away. Pouring myself a bath, I couldn't unzip by jersey because of all of the salt.
Suddenly, the way people had been looking at me for the past few hours made sense.
I walked to a pizza place for dinner, and then picked up a few bottles of water to drink during the night and an ice pack for my left knee. I spent a fitful night fraught with twitching legs and sore joints before checking out of my hotel and going for a doughnut.
It was early enough on a Sunday morning that the beleaguered night people were still about, slowly dissipating as the next shift clocked in driving SUVs on their way to a non-denominational service. I bought one old fellow a doughnut because he asked me to, and a cup of coffee because he needed it. Then I headed for the train station and caught the 8:20 back to Seattle.
I won't do this ride again, at least not in one day. I'm glad that I did it once, if for no other reason than because it is supposedly a core Seattle cyclist experience. But it was the kind of experience for which I am frankly getting to be too old. I obviously still have the ability, but the interest is gone.
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