Friday was my travel day, riding up to Seattle with my wife. I kept hydrated most of the day drinking water and Vault. We met up with our group around 4:00pm and went out to dinner at an Italian resturant, I had an Italian beef sandwitch – very good! Bedtime came quickly at 7:00pm. My wife and I went to our room and settled down for the night. Before I went to bed I downed a can of V8 juice.
Saturday started off earlier than most, getting up at 3:00am after a restless nights sleep. As with most days I have a routine: getting up, shaving, brushing my teeth, taking a shower, getting dressed, eating brakfast. The main exception to this was the shower – little did I know that the cold and hot water ports on the shower controls were switched, needless to say, I had a VERY cold shower (no excuses for being “asleep” now).
Breakfast consisted of a powerbar, V8 juice, orange juice, Special K bar, and milk – enough to get started for the day.
My wife drove me to the hotel where our friends were staying, I unpacked the trike and met up with our group.
4:45 was the start of the ride and we had plenty of time to get there as the hotel was really close.
At the start, the STP is a mass of people and cycles, its not a race, just organized chaos.
Groups of about 20-30 riders start every 5 minutes starting at 4:45 am, I was in the third group that started.
The first half of the ride, going to Centralia, was pretty unevenful for me, in fact, it was my best effort yet – arriving in Centralia under 6 hours from the start! I’m thinking to myself that this year’s STP will be one of my best so far…
The flavor of the ride changed quickly shortly leaving Centralia.
A little town called Napavine was in the middle of having a parade by the time I arrived there! You would think that they might invite us to take part, but noooo, we had to walk our bikes (in my case trike) about a half a mile to continue on with the STP course.
You know you are keeping hydrated when you have to “go” often, I had trouble holding it for 50 miles, and the last half of the ride I was thankful for the rest stops spaced about every 25 miles.
I rode with wheel covers (like I did last year), I had neglected to tape the joining edges and around the 125 mile mark I realized why that was important – flop, flop, flop, flop, no, not a flat, but rather the right inside wheel cover had torn (I was going pretty fast on some of the rollers). At the next rest stop, Castle Rock, I met up with my wife, removed the inside wheel covers on the right and left. No big deal. Avout 70 miles or so left to Portland, almost done!
On this trip we also had a friend taking video of our group, and 10 miles to St. Helens, he cought up with me and shot some video, later in the year we’ll see the results of his awsome efforts!
After he drove off, I noticed that my front left tire was going flat, lukily, another rider had stopped before me and had a pump I could use – cudos go to this rider! The bad news was that my tire wouldn’t hold the air. Inspecting the tire, I saw the tell tail sign of inbeded glass!
I called my wife (cell phones are such great inventions), she was in St. Helens getting dinner and would be there as fast as she could. In my effort to “save weight” I had chosen to not ride with tubes, tire levers, tire boot, patches, or a pump. I felt that a cell phone was the better choice to carry with me, and in reality, it was. If I had all of those things with me, I still would have had the glass in my tire with no means to get it out, causing more flats along the way.
My wife arrived, and I now had all that I need to fix the flat, and she had tweezers – bonus! I was able to remove the glass, fix the flat and be on my merry way! An hour and a half later!
So much for being in Portand by 5:00 (it was already 4:30!) This year’s goal was to complete the STP in twelve hours, time to modify the goal – modified goal: To be in Portland by the close of the finish line at 9:00.
The rest of the ride went pretty well, I had a good hour and a half rest, and felt pretty strong (by this time reality kicks in and I’m hoping Portland is close by).
The traffic in Portland never look so good! Following the riders to the finish line, Holladay Park, our last obstacle was crossing the railroad tracks on Vaughn Street. A great equalizer the train! This time a very LONG train. It seemed we were at the crossing FOREVER waiting for it to pass. About 20 minutes, the train passed, and we were on our way again!
I came into Holladay Park at about 8:00pm, an hour before the official “close” of the finish line.
All in all, I’d say this was a great ride, the training through out the year paid off, and I’ll be doing it again next year!
2006 STP Photos:
