The STP

My Seattle to Portland Bike Ride, as related by a first time rider suffering from a moderate case of mid life crisis and a fairly serious case of hemorrhoids.

Saturday morning, my riding partner picks me up at 3:45, we get to the start line at 4:45 and are on the road at 4:50. I pushed about five organic granola bars in my pockets, of which I only needed two, but I forgot a spare inner tube and lip balm, so I suppose that was a fair tradeoff. The sun still wasn't up, but the city lights lit the road enough so that I could see if I didn't have my sunglasses on. Since the sunglasses are new and help complete the ensemble, I rode blind for the first hour until the sun was up.

The start line was incredible. Thousands of riders, just in the short time I was there, and they continue to roll out for hours after I left. Ten thousand riders total. They sold out all the spots in May and I think there were several thousand that wanted to sign up and couldn't get access. I suppose a few spots weren't used, but mostly the resale market for those spots was pretty hot, so I don't think more than just a very few weren't used. Ten thousand guys and their bikes. It was amazing. They had crowds of people cheering everywhere you went. The start line had I would guess 200 or more people standing on the start, cheering and clapping. They had really good loudspeakers going with good upbeat music that got you charged up. Pretty amazing.

In the first mile, there was maybe ten items that had fallen off of peoples bikes. Lights, water bottles, fenders, you name it. I could have started a used bike parts store and made a fortune.
It was so busy with riders, you had to be careful not to hit somebody. Cops had all the crossroads blocked open so we could go through for the first ten miles or so without stopping. After that, it was hit and miss.

There were four official stops on the route, about every 50 miles, but the first stop was at about mile 25. There were plenty of unofficial stops. The official stops are well stocked with good music, food (healthy candy bars, fruit, water, NUUN drink mix, ) maybe 75 to 100 portapotties, that were jamb packed. For some reason, I had to pee all day. Not sure why, I usually don't. I must have peed eight times on Saturday.

In the first half of the ride, we rode up several climbs, but mostly it was fairly flat. The problem was the second half of the ride: The first half had some climbs, but I was fresh. My buddy and I were doing 20-24 mph for the first 100 miles. We were almost always behind somebody who was out front breaking the wind and we just tucked in behind him, so our workload is fairly low.

At the half way point, the road changes and it gets hilly. There are a lot of rollers in the second half. The rollers just take it out of you. You climb a small slope, then descend. Then climb, then descend. One climb isn't that bad, fifty in a row get to you. Also, the second half had fewer roads that were blocked open by a cop. So you have a lot of stops. Stop, wait ten seconds, then dash across the road before you get hit by a truck carrying dogfood. Stop, wait, then dash in front of the sports car doing eighty. For a 40 mile ride, you wouldn't worry about it, but for a 204 mile ride, every stop is tough.

It seems odd, but I was climbing better than almost everybody except for the 120 pound 22 year old Asian kids. Those guys don't get tired. I was blowing past everybody. Maybe they were smarter and were saving their strength. Whatever, I climbed great on the few climbs that we went up.

At mile 110, I was in the wrong lane. All ten thousand riders turned right, but I was in the left lane so I couldn't turn right where I was suppose to. I went straight. Then, to make it worse, in trying to fix my mistake, I turned into a really run down convenience store with a bad smell coming from the bathrooms. So now I was on the wrong side of the road and to make it worse, it smelled. That was in a town that not only had 10 thousand riders going through, but they also had their "heritage days" weekend. So the streets were packed with motorcycles going 15mph and really slow baby carriages being pushed by unwed moms smoking Marlboros. Between the smoking unwed baby carriage Moms and the streams of fat motorcyclists, I couldn't get across the road to join the bikes.

My buddy didn't see me turn into the smelly convenience store, so he is trying to go fast to catch me since he thinks I am ahead of him. So I finally get back across the road, and I beat cheeks to catch him. I do that for about five miles. I am toasted. It just took all my strength out of me to go that fast and catch him. I died.

At mile 120 or so, we stopped at a highschool and I just plopped down in the grass, pretty tired. I rested for the first time. At the earlier stops, I went to the portapotty, grabbed a handful of grapes and hit the road. At mile 120, I rested for 15 or 20 minutes. It really helped, I was a lot stronger after that for about an hour. Then I died again.

At mile 165 or so, we went past a rest stop, just trying to pound it out to the end. At mile 175, my speed dropped way off. My riding partner waited for me, and I slowly recovered, got my speed back up to about 20. We limped in to portland at 18- 20, which is slow for us. We were in a group of 20 guys, everybody was limping in at 18-20.

The last 2 miles is really frustrating, the route goes through Portland, stopping every stoplight, going really slow.

The finish line is great, lots of music, maybe 100 kids age 8-15 behind the barriers reaching their hands out for you to touch hands as you ride under the finish banner. Pretty cool, it makes you feel like a rock star.

My left achilles is sore. I needed to ice and elevate all day yesterday, I had family duty, so I didnt get to rest it. It really hurts.

The weather was cold. We shivered for the first four hours, every time you got a sweat, you had to stop at a stop sign, then you froze. In the cold, you get hurt.

All in all, a great experience. This is suppose to be one of the four or five best 'big' rides in the country. I really think everyone who reads this should ride in an organized ride. Think about it.