Day 2 dawned bright and sunny once again, and a trifle chilly. This was the day of the first actual climb of CO 2008, the trip up Catherine Creek on the way towards Medical Springs, which is the gateway to Pondosa and the Eagle Creek drainage. Or at least that's the way my family thinks of it. Whenever we go to Eagle Creek, we go past Pondosa and through the microdot metropolis of Medical Springs. Pondosa is the site of a former saw mill...
The first miles of the route followed Catherine Creek. It was mildly uphill and extremely scenic. Unfortunately this was one of those days on which I forgot that there was a camera hanging from the hip belt of my Camelbak, otherwise I'm sure I could have gotten some very cool pictures...
Somewhere along the way I was passed by Matt and Susan from Corvallis. When I said "Hello" to Susan, she decided to slow her pace enough to ride alongside of me for a while so we could visit, which we did to the first rest stop, after which she vanished into the crowd. Thanks for making the miles go a little faster, Susan...
The actual climb up to what I believe is called Catherine Creek Summit is only about 2 1/2 miles, but for somebody whose mileage has not included a lot of hills this summer, it was the first true challenge of the day. And of course I was over-dressed for such activity. About a mile up, I decided that even if I encountered frost bite on the way down the hill to Medical Springs, I had to shed some clothes. It was either that or expire in a puddle and puff of smoke, similar to what happened to the wicked witch in the The Wizard of Oz, leaving a perfectly good bike to lay and decay alongside the road. "I'm melting..." Besides, as everyone is so fond of saying, "This is a ride, not a race"...
On the road once more, I had finally struck a comfortable cadence and was making my way steadily up the road, punctuated by numerous calls of "On your left" and even more numerous passers whose first indication that they were passing me was the swish and click of tires and derailleurs (sp?). But we won't go there...
Then about a half mile from the top of the hill disaster struck, in a manner of speaking. My lovely wife claims that I can't pass up a rest area when we're traveling. I had of course availed myself of the blue rooms at the last rest stop, but I had also consumed a rather large container of fruit juice at the rest stop in addition to the big cup of coffee I took back to camp with me after breakfast. And of course gaspingly slurping from my Camelbak as I pedaled. As I was chugging slowly up the road, it occurred to me that yonder pine tree looked exceedingly thirsty and that it was my duty to do what I could to assuage that condition. In other words, I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to pee, and that big tree looked like the perfect place. Unfortunately stopping totally ruined my cadence so I just kind of thrashed my way on up to the top of the hill after this impromptu rest stop...
The flight down into Medical Springs was much shorter time-wise than the climb to the summit, but it was a great deal more fun. I think my top speed for that stretch was somewhere in the vicinity of 40 miles per hour. I pedaled across the valley, up another short hill, across the north end of Keating Valley, then slogged my way to the top of the ridge that separates it from Baker Valley. From there it was a swooping flight to the valley floor and an easy pedal to the lunch stop...
At the lunch stop I ran into Kathy Orr, who works for the Baker City Herald newspaper. After the usual "How long have you been doing this? I didn't know you did this!" conversation she told me to "Come find me before you leave. I want to take some pictures of you." Which I did, and one of the pictures ended up on the back page of the Herald and proves once again that even homely folks can get their picture in the paper if you know the right people...
The rest of the trip into Baker was relatively uneventful, except for the "clunk clunk" of my tires crossing the expansion cracks in the frontage road for about five miles, which gets somewhat uncomfortable after while and are the reason I rarely ride that stretch of road if I can keep from it...
Highway 30 led to Hughes Lane which led to the Leo Adler Parkway which led to my only flat tire of the whole trip. I was bopping along on the Parkway, having a grand old time, when my front tire suddenly went "Pfft!" and the air that had been holding me up departed for parts unknown. The ensuing squirming of my front wheel quickly brought back Brett Fleming's crash avoidance lecture the night before in Union and I managed to stop safely. I could see the camp just across the mint field beside me so I decided that if I was going to fix a tire, I was going to do it comfortably, so I hoisted my bike up onto the back tire and strolled into camp, on the Parkway trying to look nonchalant...
That afternoon there were no shower lines! This was undoubtedly due to the majority of riders having taken the long option. I'd just ridden that route the previous Monday, so I didn't go that way...
At this point I have to mention one of the baggage handlers, aka high school kids, who went above and beyond the call of duty. When I first got to the BHS sports complex, this kid about five feet tall, with glasses, asked me if I wanted help finding my bag. I told him my rider number, and we gave things a cursory onceover. My bag didn't just reach out and grab either one of us, so I told him I would go find where my traveling companions were camped and come back. His reply was that he would keep looking...
When I got back to the baggage area he immediately came up to me and told me he'd found my bag and would I like him to deliver it for me. Thinking that was an excellent suggestion I pointed him toward our area and went and got my bike. Now remember, this bag is huge. Really huge. I think I probably could have stuffed him inside and zipped it up and he would have been perfectly comfortable. And he had about 1/4 of a mile to go with it, which he did, no complaints. When we got where we were going, I handed him some dollars and said, "Give this to your coach." Then I handed him a few more and said, "Pocket this. You went above and beyond." His smile was more than worth the few bucks it cost me...
That night was the movie Blazing Saddles on the big screen after announcements, and the next day was the trek to Halfway...
The first miles of the route followed Catherine Creek. It was mildly uphill and extremely scenic. Unfortunately this was one of those days on which I forgot that there was a camera hanging from the hip belt of my Camelbak, otherwise I'm sure I could have gotten some very cool pictures...
Somewhere along the way I was passed by Matt and Susan from Corvallis. When I said "Hello" to Susan, she decided to slow her pace enough to ride alongside of me for a while so we could visit, which we did to the first rest stop, after which she vanished into the crowd. Thanks for making the miles go a little faster, Susan...
The actual climb up to what I believe is called Catherine Creek Summit is only about 2 1/2 miles, but for somebody whose mileage has not included a lot of hills this summer, it was the first true challenge of the day. And of course I was over-dressed for such activity. About a mile up, I decided that even if I encountered frost bite on the way down the hill to Medical Springs, I had to shed some clothes. It was either that or expire in a puddle and puff of smoke, similar to what happened to the wicked witch in the The Wizard of Oz, leaving a perfectly good bike to lay and decay alongside the road. "I'm melting..." Besides, as everyone is so fond of saying, "This is a ride, not a race"...
On the road once more, I had finally struck a comfortable cadence and was making my way steadily up the road, punctuated by numerous calls of "On your left" and even more numerous passers whose first indication that they were passing me was the swish and click of tires and derailleurs (sp?). But we won't go there...
Then about a half mile from the top of the hill disaster struck, in a manner of speaking. My lovely wife claims that I can't pass up a rest area when we're traveling. I had of course availed myself of the blue rooms at the last rest stop, but I had also consumed a rather large container of fruit juice at the rest stop in addition to the big cup of coffee I took back to camp with me after breakfast. And of course gaspingly slurping from my Camelbak as I pedaled. As I was chugging slowly up the road, it occurred to me that yonder pine tree looked exceedingly thirsty and that it was my duty to do what I could to assuage that condition. In other words, I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to pee, and that big tree looked like the perfect place. Unfortunately stopping totally ruined my cadence so I just kind of thrashed my way on up to the top of the hill after this impromptu rest stop...
The flight down into Medical Springs was much shorter time-wise than the climb to the summit, but it was a great deal more fun. I think my top speed for that stretch was somewhere in the vicinity of 40 miles per hour. I pedaled across the valley, up another short hill, across the north end of Keating Valley, then slogged my way to the top of the ridge that separates it from Baker Valley. From there it was a swooping flight to the valley floor and an easy pedal to the lunch stop...
At the lunch stop I ran into Kathy Orr, who works for the Baker City Herald newspaper. After the usual "How long have you been doing this? I didn't know you did this!" conversation she told me to "Come find me before you leave. I want to take some pictures of you." Which I did, and one of the pictures ended up on the back page of the Herald and proves once again that even homely folks can get their picture in the paper if you know the right people...
The rest of the trip into Baker was relatively uneventful, except for the "clunk clunk" of my tires crossing the expansion cracks in the frontage road for about five miles, which gets somewhat uncomfortable after while and are the reason I rarely ride that stretch of road if I can keep from it...
Highway 30 led to Hughes Lane which led to the Leo Adler Parkway which led to my only flat tire of the whole trip. I was bopping along on the Parkway, having a grand old time, when my front tire suddenly went "Pfft!" and the air that had been holding me up departed for parts unknown. The ensuing squirming of my front wheel quickly brought back Brett Fleming's crash avoidance lecture the night before in Union and I managed to stop safely. I could see the camp just across the mint field beside me so I decided that if I was going to fix a tire, I was going to do it comfortably, so I hoisted my bike up onto the back tire and strolled into camp, on the Parkway trying to look nonchalant...
That afternoon there were no shower lines! This was undoubtedly due to the majority of riders having taken the long option. I'd just ridden that route the previous Monday, so I didn't go that way...
At this point I have to mention one of the baggage handlers, aka high school kids, who went above and beyond the call of duty. When I first got to the BHS sports complex, this kid about five feet tall, with glasses, asked me if I wanted help finding my bag. I told him my rider number, and we gave things a cursory onceover. My bag didn't just reach out and grab either one of us, so I told him I would go find where my traveling companions were camped and come back. His reply was that he would keep looking...
When I got back to the baggage area he immediately came up to me and told me he'd found my bag and would I like him to deliver it for me. Thinking that was an excellent suggestion I pointed him toward our area and went and got my bike. Now remember, this bag is huge. Really huge. I think I probably could have stuffed him inside and zipped it up and he would have been perfectly comfortable. And he had about 1/4 of a mile to go with it, which he did, no complaints. When we got where we were going, I handed him some dollars and said, "Give this to your coach." Then I handed him a few more and said, "Pocket this. You went above and beyond." His smile was more than worth the few bucks it cost me...
That night was the movie Blazing Saddles on the big screen after announcements, and the next day was the trek to Halfway...
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