Steve wrote:

I don't believe you'll maintain a 15 MPH average on a 150 mile ride, but you may be close. You don't want to push yourself on time while you're pushing yourself on distance.

152 miles, 16.5 mph, 9:15 riding time.

The wind is at my back; it is nearly 5:42. A slight rise into UnionTown drops me to 22 mph. I don’t want to stop at Cliff’s car parked under a shade tree at the little park where last time I took a Largent nap. But I do. This ride is over. Cliff, refusing to be held to any kind of schedule save the start time, hangs back a minute and still arrives before 5:45 pm. I offer to drive his Subaru home if he wants to go on. But he’s glad the car is where it’s at and as I cool down, so am I. Glorius day, glorious ride. We are exhilarated with what we have accomplished though nothing as compared with Tour de France riders or even Chris or Erik or Bruce, yet we have each completed the longest ride of our lives and we feel good.

We clean up a bit, complain about our legs slowly stiffening, and go to Eleanor’s where the beer costs four bucks but the girl tending bar is worth it. But that’s another story.

Making Schedule I published in my invitation a schedule of where I thought we’d be at particular times during the day. Steve wrote to scoff a bit. He didn’t believe we could hold 15 mph. I said I planned almost 12 hours for a ride that should take us 10. I was wrong. My riding time was only 9:15. Cliff’s might have been a bit more but still well under 10 hours. He averaged over 16 mph too. We were faster than I expected, yet we still arrived almost right at the time I predicted. What happened?

We were 10 or 12 minutes ahead of schedule in Pullman. Cliff and Nicky where ready to ride when Linda and I arrived at 5:50. Both Cliff and I admitted to having looked forward to this challenge all week. We weren’t going to take a chance on starting late. But riding easy, keeping the legs spinning and refusing to hammer up the hills got us into Dismores by 7:05. Dave Tibbals was waiting but no Chris in sight. We figured he’d catch us on the way to Palouse. Guess he couldn’t bear the thought of that 15 mph pace. He didn’t show today at all.

Again, in Palouse we were ahead of schedule leaving there at 8:30 just the time I had predicted we’d arrive. We decided to skip riding into Oaksdale preferring to turn west to Steptoe. I was a little afraid we might lose some of our distance but I was fine with the 35 miles we’d have before our lunch stop in Steptoe.

I planned to hit Steptoe at 11:30. We were there at 10:33. They were still serving breakfast. I opted for French toast and one egg and a slice of ham. Cliff and Dave had omelettes. We also stopped to buy gartorade at the convenience store. We spent an hour here but were still ahead of schedule.

Head winds slowed us from Oaksdale to St. John and even more from St. John to Endicott. We were only 15 minutes ahead of my projected arrival time when we left Enidcott.

Tail winds from Endicott to Colfax should have gained us time but my on-the-bike estimates now began to show first a 5 pm finish time and then a 5:30. Nearly all these miles flew by at over 15 mph. Lots of them were at 19 and 20 or even more. That wind was a bit out of the south but mostly westerly. Between Pullman and UnionTown we saw 22 to 24 mph and this was 140 miles into the ride. Makes a cyclist feel strong.

Cliff's prepared.

So why didn’t we finish earlier than planned? Stops. We brought Dave along as our long distance mentor. A veteran of STP in one day, Dave told us he had made four 15 minute stops in his 200 miler. We stopped six times for food and water and a couple of quick road stops for regrouping and adjusting. Those stops just kept getting longer and longer. I planned for 1:45 minutes of rest stops. Instead we took 2:30 minutes of breaks. But not a Largent nap in there anywhere. Cliff announced to Linda later that there would be no naps on any of his rides. I protested that sometimes a nap is just the thing. But Cliff’s got a few miles to go to accept that, I guess.

The Winds

It’s a head wind we agreed turning west from Oaksdale. There was no irony or complaint in our voices. This is exactly what we had wanted. The ride to Oaksdale had been easy. The temperature was not yet above 80 degrees.

Cliff had started with long-fingered gloves and arm warmers. Nicky looked quite fetching wearing Cliff’s leg-warmers on her arms. She and Linda had chosen sleeveless jerseys and though Linda was comfortable Nicky enjoyed her make shift arm-warmers though they did tend to fall down about her elbows.

The ladies left us at Albion Road. I tried to talk them into Hamilton Hill and Wilbur Gulch but Nicky thought that would add too many miles. I don’t think the mileage is much but you do have to make a long climb out of Wilbur Gulch and those last couple of nasty rollers back to 195. They opted for the highway and finished about 9:30 or 10 just as we were turning into our first head winds of the day headed toward Steptoe.

The distaff staff did Albion loop and headed back to Union Town.

We were going west. We didn’t want a tail wind ‘cause we were counting on that west wind to help us get back to Colfax and perhaps to Union Town. The winds seemed a bit out of the south so I had concerns about that last wish. I needn’t have.

Though we are dead center in July the fields are mostly still green. Some have golden tops and green stalks. The early morning sun created dramatic dark lines around the edges of the fields creating sharp lines on the normally sensuously rounded Palouse hills.

A bit of wind through Pullman didn’t surprise us and we were pleased to find ourselves once again riding at 17 to 19 mph without much effort. The roadside foliage didn’t confirm a tail wind. It was just still. But the 30 miles from Oaksdale to ST. John were a different story. What did surprise me was how much the wind was a factor from ST. John to Endicott.

“Just two steep but short climbs, guys.” I said, “And it’s all down hill to Endicott.” The first came. The second was a bit further off and so I was glad to see it ‘cause I didn’t want Dave and Cliff to think I’d lied to them. The third surprised me too but we did get long downhills. The low-riding recumbents passed me down one long decline and I apologized for all the down hill they were having to endure. It really is all down hill but those last short inclines increased in pitch as we hit strong west winds. Even the last stretch that looked down turned into a climb. Dave and Cliff were joking about riding up the down hill when they got to Endicott. Dave had dropped a chain (recumbent chains are like three real chains).

Provisioning

In Endicott we realized the wisdom of doing this ride on a Saturday. The grocery was open. The air was finally warming up. We sat in the shade drinking more fluids. I started with a bottle of Gatorade and a water bottle. Dave and Cliff had camel backs.

One-day Dave at Endicott.

Cliff also had his entire collection of tuperware. When we stopped at a store he’d pop another top, eat a quarter banana and a piece of peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

CLiff's Tupperware Collection.

I drank an 8 ounce can of tomato juice in Pullman, refilled the Gatorade and drank a Snapple in Palouse. Refilled the Gatorade in Steptoe and again in Endicott while drinking a bottle of diet Pepsi. Gatorade was beginning to gag me. In Colfax I refilled the Gatorade and drank a can of V8. At DQ in Pullman I stopped drinking the Gatorade. I filled my waterbottle with ice water, drained it and refilled it again then ordered a medium diet Pepsi. In UnionTown I topped off the ride with $4.00 pint of beer. I had a bit of Gatorade left and just a drop in the water bottle. Good thing this wasn’t a hot day.

The tail wind out of Endicott pushed us at 20 mph for a couple of miles before I complained about the flat road. “We might as well be fishing.” Cliff didn’t take my reference to being bored sitting in a boat with nothing to do. “We’d be cooler,” was all he said. The air had lost its cool edge and here the fields looked mostly harvested if not already harrowed under.

But the route turned a bit south and we were back to 15 and 16 mph. Dave suggested we bypass Colfax on the airport road. I didn’t remember that hill back into Colfax. “We’ll just have to drop back into the valley. We don’t want to reverse the Church Colfax loop today. That’s too far,” I said.

Cliff wanted another drink in Colfax anyway.

At the junction of Endicott Road with 26 I saw what Dave was trying to avoid. Stretches on the Endicott road brought us air that had been warm. Even the breeze didn’t seem to have a cooling edge to it. And now we faced a long, steep climb. But it was going East. The wind pushed us right up. I did begin to feel burning air around me in the gap at the top but breaking over gave us a couple of miles of downhill and the wind was cool, even chill in the shade.

The air kept its coolness the rest of the day. Standing still in Union Town, we could feel the sun heating up our backs, but the air around us had a comparative cool about it. The reader board had said 87. Cliff’s car thermometer read 83.

Now about that bar maid . . .