Day 2 - Sept 12th

• Distance:  67.9 miles

• Climbing:  5,059 feet

• Moving Time:  4:46:50

• Elapsed Time:  6:38:44

• Average Speed:  14.2 mph

• Max Speed:  40.3 mph

We left Monument, again getting started around 8:15am.  The smoke didn’t seem quite as bad as yesterday.  We mostly followed the John Day River on mostly flat roads toward the community of Kimberly.  Along the way, a truck carrying hay bales had an accident.  Not sure of all the details, but it may have braked hard due to the cyclists on the road, sending hay bales over the top.  Whatever the case, there was a stoppage of a few minutes as the hay was cleared and the truck resumed.  Meanwhile, over a hundred cyclists stacked up behind, waiting.

At Kimberly we turned right to head to Spray, still on mostly flat roads.  We’d return to this road between Spray and Kimberly on Day 6, but in the opposite direction.  We stopped briefly at a parking lot which promised a “vista”, but there was just a view of the river; the views would actually be better a little further up the road.

The first food stop was near the Spray School.  We stopped here for a while.  From here, we had the option of turning right and starting a detour onto the back roads, whereas most people would just continue straight along Highway 19.  Todd and I would turn right and take the long route, while Alex took the shorter, straight route.

As Todd and I started up the climb, we wondered if we would be one of a very few to take the long route.  That being said, there was very little traffic (car or bike) on this route.  I counted about 10 cars passing us in either direction the entire time we were on this roughly 19 mile stretch.  It started with a steep climb, a short downhill, and then another steep climb.  At one point it reached 15%, but only very briefly.  Along the way we had nice views of open meadows and cows (moos clearly audible).

There was a water stop near the top.  For some unknown reason the water was set maybe 150 feet in from the road, far away from the porta-potties.  I didn’t feel the need to refill my Camelbak.  I did munch on a bar that Todd had carried, though.

From the water stop, we started a long downhill (about 9 miles).  Somewhere along the way we formed a paceline of 4 riders pedaling downhill.  We carried this paceline all the way to the bottom, where we turned right to rejoin Highway 19 (and the main route), and continued the paceline along flat roads until we reached a water stop.  Todd and I skipped it, so it was just us now.  Shortly after that we felt a few drops of rain.  Well, not really rain, just a little drizzle, and it dissipated quickly.

After the water stop, the climbing started.  It’s called 10 mile climb in Strava for obvious reasons, but the grade is pretty gentle, mostly 3-4 percent.  Now that we were on the main route, we passed a lot of the people who had stayed on the main route from Spray.  At some point we passed our neighbor Monica, but I honestly didn’t recognize her at first (hadn’t seen her riding).  We’d see her at the food stop, which came soon enough, just 1.4 miles from the top.

The food stop was set away from the road, down a gravel road, so most people left their bikes at the top and walked down (which we also did).  It was a pretty nice place for a rest stop, with benches set amongst a forest.  A small group played music up on a stage.  After a break here we walked back up and got back on our bikes to finish the climb.

Now we started a long descent (9+ miles) down to Fossil.  Unfortunately, this downhill wasn’t as fun as some of the others due to a strong headwind.  In any case, we eventually made it into the town of Fossil, which had a campsite that was very spread out.  We biked to the finish line and got our chocolate milk, then eventually ended up near the town store, where we happened to see Alex, who said the bags weren’t by our tent when he’d arrived earlier.  So he’d come here to get something to eat/drink while he waited.

I figured by now things were set up, so I biked up the short steep hill and made my way over to our tent, set in a baseball field.  The bags were there.  After showering and some rest, we made the long walk back to the main part of the camp for dinner.  It was maybe a 5-10 minute walk over.  After dinner we stayed for announcements, then headed back to the tents.

We noticed that there was rain forecast tonight, so I took down my drying line.  Sure enough, the rain started soon after.  Thankfully it was fairly brief.  But that wasn’t the end of the fun.  While walking around camp later that night, we saw some people who were holding a bucket over the ground.  Why?  Because the baseball field’s sprinklers had turned on!  Meanwhile, they were trying to reach someone to make sure to turn the sprinkler system off so that they wouldn’t start affecting all the tents.  I can imagine if one of the tents was directly over a sprinkler head, that would not be fun.  Thankfully they must have gotten someone to turn it off, as there didn’t seem to be any problem later.