Week 1 Down - 8 to go.

I am currently sitting in the shade of a most enormous tree overlooking a beautiful river in Kennewick, Washington. It has been a deliciously lazy day full of eating, hanging around, meeting some people, eating some more, swimming in the river and all kinds of wonderful sunday afternoon things.

oh, and i'm getting a crash course in using my digital camera, and trying to stay connected to the internet. challenges both, let me tell you.

so, i have been on the road for a week and i am no closer to being able to believe that i'm actually doing what i've set out to do. It is one of the strangest things, but here I sit with 144 other cyclists, and we are taking on this massive trip, and it doesn't seem like such a big deal. we just get up together every morning and put about 80-100 kilometers under our belt. no big deal.

Well, Tuesday was a pretty big deal, and Wednesday for that matter, but I'm getting a head of myself.


We embarked on our great adventure already a week a go. There was a great and not very exciting ceremony of dipping our rear wheels in the Pacific ocean, or at least some tributary. The water was salty, but the expanse of the ocean was not behind us. I was only disappointed until I learned how much further we would have to ride if we were actually leaving from the coast, and i think it is a couple hundred kilometers. No big deal if you are driving, but taking on another couple of centuries, right at the beginning of the trip... I don't know about that. The ceremony was mostly for publicity, and I think the whole thing will mean a lot more on the other side of the continent. I was very good in getting sand all over our relatively clean bikes, but I had some excellent help in cleaning it out. (pic of dad running)

We left in groups that we were supposed to ride in for the whole day. My group left seventh, and immediately, not 200 m down the road we had a flat tire. The group split up and I ended up going with the "faster" bunch. By the time we were all organized group 11 had already passed us, and we were determined not to let final group pass as well. We ended up moving our group back up in the long line of cyclists, and returned to our spot as number 7. Seattle is a beautiful city, and it is set up well for cyclists. We rode bike paths all the way out for approximately 30/35 km. The whole trip was just lovely and exciting and all things considered very decent in terms of exertion. The people I was with were very good cyclists, and very kind to me. They stuck me at the front (except on the hills, but I will moan more about them later) and we road through to Sultan. That day was a about 80 km or so.

It was baking hot outside, and quite a number of people had time before super, so we decided to go swimming in the stream/river just outside the town. It is a fast flowing glacial river, and it was about the coldest thing i ever remember jumping into. You'd walk a little up river, and hop in; yelp quite loudly about how dastardly cold you were; float in a state of numbness for a couple of minute, and then start swimming like mad to get out of the current and return to shore. It took over 5 minutes to get warm again, but it completely cooled me down for the evening.

The food at camp is amazing, as are our cooks and support team. We just have loads and loads of food. You are welcome to come up for seconds, but one plate is usually enough to manage for quite a long time. After summer there is a peleton meeting where everyone in camp gathers and does a kind of mass check in. We count how many people have fallen, and have had flats. If there were any interesting people we met on the road wondering why there are 150 people biking around in bright yellow safety vests. It is quite fun to see their expressions when you tell them how far you are going.

After the peleton, there is a time for small groups. My group has 4 other women, and we are usually finished the quickest. We read our "shifting gears" booklet and just chat about things; how the day went, what the best way to stretch is, almost hitting police a police car (that was me, but that was also on day two); you know the things you chat about when you don't really know people, but are supposed to get to know really well.

And then bed. I have been hitting the hay earlier and earlier as the week goes on. There is just a lot to pack into a day what with biking, setting up camp, eating, going to the gear truck, cleaning up your dishes, packing lunch, going to the gear truck, cleaning water bottles, having shower, going to the gear truck. It just all takes a long time. Washing out your jersey and shorts every day, by hand. I've never appreciated a laundry machine so much.

All in all the work isn't so bad. We are each set up with two laundry baskets for our stuff (clothing and paraphenalia) and one duffel bag for our tent, chair, sleeping bag and mat etc. Each day there is a "sweep team" that loads and unloads the semi trailer that houses all these items. They also help serve dinner and breakfast, hand out lots and lots of Purell, and cycle at the end of everyone to ensure that no one gets left behind. I believe that my first sweep duty will be tomorrow.

But, back to the cycling. I survived this week, absolutely, and I've enjoyed the last three days because they have been easy days, and beautiful weather, but, let me tell you, day two and three were about the hardest things I think I ever physically done. Particularly that Tuesday. It was a 127 km day and we were crossing Steven's Pass. that is an elevation of 4000 and some odd feet. There was a 6% grade on the highway and that is bloody steep. We climbed for I think 70 odd kilometers. I had meant to leave way earlier than I did, but we only rolled out of camp at 8:00 in the morning. I was on the road for 11 1/2 hours that day, and quite a number of them were at the super slow speed of 6 km/hr. That's it. It was a very long long day. And it was hot to boot. But, I made it to the top and was thoroughly delighted to do so. The ride down was almost as intense, and almost as long. It is really quite difficult to ride downhill because, I’m terrified of heights, and we were really high up. We were biking along some snow drifts at the height of the pass. And man, you can really fly down the mountain highways if you want to. So, while I was very glad that I wasn’t climbing anymore, the ride down took a lot of energy.

We went into the town of Levensworth that evening, one of the cutest towns I’ve ever seen. It is built to look like buildings from the Swiss Alps. I desperately wanted to go for a beer that evening but it was all I could do to stay awake for the meetings. Bed was an early companion that night, and just about every night this week. 5 bells rings mighty early, and sleeping later just makes the day take longer.

Wednesday was another significant climb, but it was less steep than Tuesday. I think everything will be less steep than Tuesday. But it was another long day in the saddle, and the saddle is becoming an increasing pain in the ass. No gory details, but it was hard to stay sitting for very long. I wanted to get off every couple of kilometers to give myself a break. At one point I was going so slow the spiders were building cobwebs on me. We rode into Yakima that evening, a distance of around 93 km, which was about 34 km too many for me, but, feeling intrepid, I finished the day out. I also had a flat coming down the mountain, and various people stopped to help me because my brakes were too tight to get the wheel off. It took about an hour for everything to get sorted out.

Thursday was a wonderful day as we traveled through the Yakima River Canyon. The scenery rapidly changed from mountainous to scrub in a manner of 10/15 km. I have never seen such a beautiful and barren landscape. The hills were tawny yellow and enormous with these thistly bushes all over. They were a muted flax colour giving the whole landscape this look that it had faded in the sun. It was magnificent, and mostly down hill.

Friday was another decent day, a lot downhill and through the plains of this scrub country. They are doing significant agriculture here and there is irrigation everywhere. It is beautiful and lush and when you raise your eyes to the hills, there are the tawny sentinels reminding you about the actual nature of this landscape. A lot of people make their living doing this farm work, but my mind still flirts with the immense use of water to farm in a desert.

But, yesterday was by far one of my favourite cycling days. I finally felt rejuvenated from the exhaustion of the mountain climb, and being on relatively flat ground, closer yet than anything to my traditional prairies, I felt I was really cycling the way I had been training. The day was a delightful 80 km and we ended up in this fantastic park overlooking the river, as I mentioned at the start. It is beautiful and supper is stewing.

My hope is to try and write more than once/week, but I must confess is has to be my last priority. I’m doing really well, and enjoying myself immensely. I will do my best to keep updating, but if I don’t happen too, I promise, at the very least to catch up on Sundays.

Love always,

Theresa.