Day 1 - Sept 11th

• Distance:  58.9 miles

• Climbing:  3,829 feet

• Moving Time:  3:54:02

• Elapsed Time:  5:34:44

• Average Speed:  15.1 mph

• Max Speed:  41.1 mph

We woke up around 6:15am in the cold.  At breakfast my one complaint was the lack of orange juice - something I’m pretty sure was available in 2019.  I settled for chocolate milk instead.

Every day we had to pack up our bags by 8am; most of the time we would use all of that time, and today was no different.  After packing our bags we started off on our ride around 8:15am.  Today the air was still a little smoky, and the haze was evident for most of today’s ride.

After riding west on Highway 26 for about 9 miles we turned right to start the climb up Highway 395.  We started a mostly gentle climb with about a 3-4% grade, which is in my wheelhouse.  I probably do best when the grade is something in the range of -3% to +3%.  I’m a bit plodding if the grade goes up to 7-8% or more.  So, with fresh legs I was feeling a little frisky and left Alex and Todd behind for a bit.

A few minutes later, some guy comes up and says he brought some guys I might know.  He’d towed the other two up to me (they basically sat on his wheel (i.e., drafted off him)).

At 22.7 miles we reached the first food stop.  I kept saying lunch stop, but there would be no lunch stops this year.  In previous years they would have a lunch stop with sandwiches or wraps or something else somewhat substantial.  For whatever reason, they decided against that this year.  Possibly because there weren’t any huge days (in 2019 there were two 90+ mile days, whereas this year 77 miles was the longest).  In any case, the food stops usually consisted of things like hard-boiled eggs, peanut butter and {jelly, banana, or apple} sandwiches, bagels, fruit, chips, etc.  I’ve probably never eaten so much peanut butter in a one-week span before.  Peanut butter and apple sandwiches are actually better than you would think.

The one downside of this first food stop was that they only managed to put 4 porta-potties here, leading to long lines.  After a break, we had a couple more climbs before a downhill to a second food stop near the town of Long Creek at 38 miles.  Honestly the haze didn’t make for the greatest views, so I didn’t take any road pictures all day (only a couple rest stop pictures).

After lunch we went west on Highway 402, on mostly rolling hills before starting a long descent.  The descent was fun; in general the descents in Cycle Oregon aren’t very technical, at least compared to the descents we do in the Bay Area.  (i.e., there aren’t a lot of sharp turns)  As I descended I passed a guy pedaling like crazy, while I wasn’t pedaling at all.  It wasn’t until later that Todd explained to me that the guy was on a fixed-gear bike and he had to pedal like that (he can’t coast).  I couldn’t understand why someone would want to torture themselves like that.  In any case, after the long descent we reached camp in Monument, population about 150.

Our camp was on an old football field, so everything was nice and level.  We’d arrived in camp around 2pm, and it was still hot.  After showering, I rinsed off my gloves and arm warmers and set up a drying line.  I also brought a solar panel and set that up to start recharging my devices and battery packs.  I’d brought 3 battery packs of varying sizes to help power up my watch, phone, Garmin GPS, and radar.  They also provide a charging service for a fee, which Alex had purchased.  I ended up having him charge one of my battery packs once, and that was enough.  Not sure if it was strictly necessary, but it gave me some buffer.

Dinner was supposed to be at 5pm, but for some reason it was delayed until almost 5:30pm.  Tonight was fajita night.  It was good enough that I went back for seconds later, though by that time they had run out of rice, ice cream, and churros.  In between we sauntered over to a basketball court where there were two old basketballs and we shot around a little.

Announcements were 7:30pm as usual.  To be honest, I wasn’t feeling the bands this year (I liked the bands in 2019 better), so we didn’t stick around after the announcements.