Day 1 - Sept 8th

We woke up around 6am and had breakfast while it started raining.  Unfortunately, by the time we started riding at 8am, it was still raining.  It wasn’t raining hard, but it kept raining.

We followed the route as it followed lightly traveled roads along the North Fork Middle Fork Willamette River.  About the only car traffic was the support vehicles (motorcycles, sag wagons, photographers, etc.).

At the first rest stop there were hard boiled eggs, bagels with cream cheese, peanut butter/jelly or Nutella and bread, bananas, drinks, etc.  All the rest stops usually served something along those lines (and a few other things).

We climbed some more.  The sun came out and I saw my shadow!  One minute later, it was gone again.  We stopped at the top, where there was a lunch stop in the forest.  There was almost nowhere to sit and it was wet everywhere, though some people were getting pieces of cardboard to sit on.  We were soaked and not looking forward to the chilly descent that awaited us.

After lunch, Todd and I stuffed cardboard under our jerseys to help protect us from the cold descent.  Even though the rain had stopped we were still wet and shivering from the cold.  We gritted our teeth and started the descent.  My arms were shaking - not from the descent, but from the cold.  Eventually the descent grew less steep and I could get my legs moving so I could get warmed up a bit.  It was a nice gentle slight downhill grade now, and we made good time into the next rest stop, where we ditched the cardboard and took some pictures from a bridge nearby.  Now it would be mostly sunny and dry the rest of the way.

Next was a beautiful ride alongside Cougar Reservoir.  We stopped (like many others) at the dam at the end of the reservoir.  It’s over 500 feet tall and is used for hydroelectricity.  From the reservoir, it was a short downhill to the finish at Rainbow (Tokatee Golf Club).  Unlike the crammed quarters of Oakridge (where tents were set up on the football field, a track, and wherever else they could fit them next to the sidewalk), the Rainbow camp was a massive expanse of grass.

We had paid for the tent and porter service, so when we found our tent, our bags were already there.  Unfortunately the rain wasn’t done with us.  It started to rain lightly around 4pm, and was still raining on people in the dinner line (dinner was served 5-8pm).  The band still played on the main stage, but there was no one there to watch them (everyone was either in their tents or in the food tent further away).