Ok we finished. I’m not sure if we got credit yet because:
We had to change the route
Garmin crapped out 4 times
Well it was a tough ride and we saw some beautiful things, I’ll update with photos when I can get to a big computer.
Our team name was “tasty randos” and there were 4 of us at the start - me, david, alex, and Chris - we all had little flags with the team name, it was great. We started in Hillsboro at 7am at the “on your way” market - for some reason I bought tums, just to get the receipt. We head out baseline toward forest grove and wiggle through some side streets to get to banks. There has been a change recently with drivers - more people are waiting, crossing the line, and passing with ample space between us and them - have any of you noticed that?
The weather was amazing - sunshine, mid 60s, clear skies - perfect. We make it to banks and hop on the banks-vernonia trail, a local MUP that attracts everyone. We rode it at 730am so there weren’t many people. It was beautiful, sun shining through the trees, everything green and fluffy, it was just one of those perfect weather days. We get to vernonia and buy a jug of water (for the receipt) and head out toward clatskanie on highway 47. It’s now like 830-9 and there are still minimal cars on the road. We make the turn at the most/clatskanie junction and start the first significant climb. This is logging land. Clear cuts (or “clear harvest” as one of my teammates joked) all over the horizon. We are about to descend and a herd of elk trample down the hill, over a berm and into the field of former trees. Kind of majestic.
The descent brings us to clatskanie and this coffee shop/beauty salon. I had a double espresso and a marionberry coffee cake that was pretty good. We head out on highway 30 to the Lewis and Clark bridge to enter Longview. Highway 30 sucks and so does the bridge (lots of logging trucks and logging truck debris) but at least there’s a shoulder for bikes. We ride through a nice neighborhood in Longview with fancy old houses and a nice big park before we head out on (hwy 4?). After a while we take a right onto Stella road - with a max 26.5% grade. We follow the road - which turns into Germany creek - and hit our dead end. No trespassing and no vehicles signs and a big roadblock. We decide that we should readjust our route and turn around headed towards ocean beach/hwy 4. This was probably a good idea because David was wearing delta cleats and hiking in those would have been fun to watch.
We ride highway 4 and David is lacking. So I decided to pull out the air horn I carefully packed in my saddle bag. A few toots and a short burst of energy but David is toast. He decides it’s a good idea to hitch back to Longview and then to I5. Oh well, we only need 3 machines to complete.
We stop for a bite at the “Duck Inn” and get the record scratch entrance you would expect when 3 Dudes in spandex walk through the door of a bumpkin diner-raunt. We look over the menu and the only vegan dish is French fries. Well I’m not vegan (1/2 of my compatriots is) so I ordered a BLT wrap. A few whiles pass and we’re getting ready to go, I wrap up half my wrap and pay the bill. Unbeknownst to me the waitress grabbed my leftover when she was cleaning the table. Dammit.
outside the temperature is dropping. It had been a perfect low 60 mid 50s day but I. The shade, and now, it was cold. I asked the waitress to fill my bottles with hot water - tuck those in my jerz pockets and they’re little heaters for a minute - careful though, they can cause a greenhouse in your jacket. Raymond is farther than I expected. We had a ~50km leg to the junction and then another 50km to Raymond. We’re already 200k in so we plan to make it by 1am.
It was 7pm and the sun was setting and it was beautiful. No traffic, quiet, no headwind. There’s a great descent near grays river/rosberg. It’s now dark and a suv rolls by and somebody yells something unintelligible “blah blah blah bikers blah!” None of us hear exactly what he said but we end up catching them at the gas/beer station up the road in naselle. Again, guy is 20 feet away but he’s so drunk none of us can understand.
“Ah! The bike tourers! Where are you headed?”
Says a guy who just paid to pump some gas
“Olympia”
We say
“Ah, that’s about an hour 45 from here”
“Well, how far is Raymond?”
“A little longer than a standard marathon”
“Oh cool”
“You guys be safe out there”
And we make the turn to Dayton into the cold forest.
Continued tomorrow