Start: 7:35

Finish: 5:30

Saddle time: 6:07

Ascent: 4,977 feet

Descent: 4,169 feet

Miles: 65

Total miles: 169

Highlight: The ride down the east side of Washington pass had spectacular scenery, although a little scary on a fully loaded touring bike

Lowlight: About 5 of my 6 hours saddle time was all up hill with plenty of 6% grade.

I slept reasonably well last night, getting a better hang of setting up camp and getting comfortable in the tent.  I had hoped or 7:00 start but didn’t get out until about 7:30 and that’s with getting up at 5:00.  I have to get better at this.

Today was a big day, all about climbing. I had concerns about today since I started planning this trip. This climb isn’t crazy by any means but it is very challenging,  way more than anything I’ve done living on the east coast. I was able to employ lessons learned yesterday. I spent most of the day with my head down only looking at the two feet of road between my handlebar bag and my helmet.  Occasionally when I glanced aside I would loose my balance and start to wobble, almost uncontrollably, so I stopped that.  Most of what I saw on the way up was during water and rest breaks.

I have three chain rings in the front.  For the bike geeks out there I don’t recall the sizes.  Although my bike is only a few feet away I’m too tired to get up and check. I spent all day today in my smallest front ring (easier peddling). On steep climbs I tried to stay on the second or sometimes third ring on the back (out of 10) so I had some gears to spare if I got seriously tired or conditions turned really bad.  I had my chain ring that I could peddle at a slow but rhythmic cadence, keeping my legs under the red zone.  You find the place where although it’s hard you can keep going. Working your gears is really important.  It’s easy to just settle in the lowest gear and peddle but often if you go up one gear once you get to speed it doesn’t take noticeably more effort and you can gain a mile or two per hour.  This really matters when you are going 5mph. One mile per hour means you will be peddling about 20% less time, huge when you are climbing for hours.

I quickly got over the fact that I’m riding with traffic, often with little shoulder. This completely freaked me out yesterday. As I may have mentioned it’s been a couple decades since I’ve done much road riding.  It took all my mental energy to just keep the bike upright and moving forward. If I thought about the traffic I would start to panic, my heart rate would skyrocket and I’d get really tired.  I had the realization that I’m doing all I can with wearing a high vis vest and running a flashing light on the back so if someone is going to hit me there’s nothing more I can do.  Just keep going and don’t think about it. I need to keep my heart rate in the 140bpm area.  If I get over 150 on a bike I’m in trouble, not going to last long.  Focusing on breathing helped to keep me calm and slow my heart.  Very zen and meditative, with the possibility of getting run over by an RV.

I should talk about traffic.  The first hour or so was mostly fishermen pulling boats.  I understand there’s a popular fishing area the other side of the pass.  It was pretty quite between 8:00 and 10:00, then the RV’s started to roll through. I’m sure full time RV’rs are mostly good drivers but I have concerns about the crew that takes there rig out for a week or two a year.  I know because my first day driving an RV in Australia I hit a low hanging branch. I’m going to coin the term AIP, asshole in a pickup.  Most of the aggressive drivers I encountered, which were few, we in pickups and typically the big ass variant, with a Trump flag hanging off the back.  Actually I didn’t see that but it’s fitting for this crowd.

Climbing started immediately after leaving the campground.  I was hitting 7%+ grade for the first several miles but I took the lessons learned from yesterday and pushed through about 45 minutes without stopping.  I saw a couple stopped on the side of the road, we chatted as I passed but I added I’d like to stop and talk but want to keep the momentum.  We leapfrogged each other, when I stopped they did the same.

Late yesterday my neck really started to hurt, so much I wanted to stop on the downhill.  I was starting to feel the same pain and I have a lot of riding ahead of me.  At the base of Rainy Pass I stopped to pop an Advil, hopefully this will help. As the day went on it didn’t get too bad until again at the end of the day.

The ride up Rainy went on for miles and miles.  I thought I would get to the top around 11:00 or 12:00 but at 12:00 I still had miles to go.  I pulled over for a lunch of tortillas and Nutella. Last night I made the decision to lighten my food load.  I need to carry less.  I bought small jars of both Nutella and almond butter, because they taste good not because it was a good idea.  I tossed the almond butter. Nutella has lots of fat and sugar, terrible stuff but it will keep me fueled, and my daughter Sierra will be happy (big Nutella fan).  I also tossed 2/3 of my tortillas since it was a 2lb pack. I ate one of my two dinners of packaged cooked rice and packaged cooked Dahl for breakfast.  Figured I needed the fuel and no need to carry two dinners.

Reached the top of Rainy around 1:15.  Met more trail angels. While taking a pictures I saw some people in a pull off up ahead.  A couple were standing out kind of strangely, made me think they were handing out water during a road race.  As I approached they waved me down, asked if I needed any water or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I took the water since my bottles were empty.  I did load up an extra 2L in a dromedary bag which because of them I didn’t need but better safe than sorry. There were shagging a few other people doing the ride.

I had heard Washington Pass was shorter but steeper than rainy.  That wasn’t my experience, although I could have been too hypoxic to notice.  I ground away and actually reached the summit about a mile before I expected, still with gas in the legs so I was happy. I summited Washington about an hour after Rainy. Beautiful scenery up here.  I stopped for a while to charge my phone (from a battery) and take it in.

Now I had a thirty mile ride all downhill to my destination in Winthrop. The decent was step and scary. I’m really not comfortable going much over 35-40mph on this bike, especially with the wind. Consequently I kept tapping the brakes which required frequent stops to rest my hands and calm my nerves.

This side is substantially different than the west side, very dry and arid, more like a high desert with sage brush.

I stopped in Mazma on the way down because I heard there’s a cool general store there with lots of interesting stuff.  I could use a snack anyway.  Pulling in I heard someone yell “is that John?”. It was Mike from yesterday.  He was riding his e-bike in the area today and was also staying in the same town as me.  We agreed to meet for diner.

Winthrop is an interesting town, very western feel. Touristy of course but small, walkable and interesting.  Worth a stop if you are in the area.

I’m staying tonight at the Pine Near RV park.  Lots of kids and a big group of bikers so I don’t know about sleep tonight.