Do the Seattle to Portland (STP) ride

We don’t leave until Saturday morning, but we need to have the luggage loaded with the baggage service tomorrow afternoon, so we’re packing now.

Craziness abounds: Where’s the chamois butt’r? What’s the weather forecast? (Looks like tailwinds – wheeee!) How far is it from the luggage drop to the hotel? Why hasn’t my favorite jersey been washed?

Dang.

Since I just got back into cycling after a 10 year hiatus, and now have three bikes after only a month, and ride progressively more each week.

It’s less about the ride itself as setting some kind of goal towards which to direct my newfound cycle-mania. I might as well set myself the goal of building a bike for this from the frame up, as well. I need a touring bike anyway. What the hell.

We made it to the finish line, but only rode 80% of the route on our own power. I’m going to try again soon.

I posted more details here:

http://bostonsteamer.livejournal.com/945285.html

Near the beginning of the ride Joe gave us a math problem. Assuming 10,000 people (the event was limited to 9,500 and sold out), 5,000 ft per mile, 200 miles, there would be about 100 ft per person if everyone was spread out evenly between Seattle and Portland. Since almost everyone started between 5 and 7 on Saturday morning, it was obviously a lot less than that to start with (more like 6 inches). Kind of like if Critical Mass decided to go to Spanaway. Which was fun and social, but I was a little worried about the 8mph pace and making it to Vader at 127 the first day.

One of the items included in registration is a be-logoed and be-graphiced Tyvek jacket. It has the one advantage of weighing 103g vs. 195g for my regular wind jacket. Overnight lows are going to be in the 50s, and I don’t plan to be riding until after sunrise, so I doubt I will want it, but I’ll bring it along since the actual STP is the only time I wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen in public near it. The only more ridiculous item of clothing I have is a reflective orange safety vest that an old Italian guy gave me in Canada.

I have a ticket for my bike to come home, now I just need to figure out how to get myself back.

If I want to come back on Sunday: The 6:15 Amtrak is sold out. 4:20 is still available, but I’m not sure if I can make it there in time, and it’s the Coast Starlight, which is almost an hour slower than Cascades. I can take Greyhound (at 6:35 (aka you missed the train?) or 9:25), which also has the advantage of dropping me off in Seattle about a mile closer to my place. There’s also the official STP charter bus which may or may not be sold out and they’d charge me a late fee for anyway.

Or, I can spend the night in Portland and come back Monday morning/afternoon. Working from Portland and coming back in the evening sounds like it would be fun, but that would require either hauling my laptop or putting it on the bag truck, neither of which sound like a great idea.

I tried following the training plan, but geez that thing is intense! I don’t have time to put in 170+ miles per week.

I did a 65 miler on Sunday and afterwards I felt like ‘blah’ but not exactly ready to puke and/or die.

How much training did other people do? How should I know if I’m ready?

Thanks!

One of these years I’m gonna do it. Just a matter of making up my mind. Perhaps I’ll wait until I’m 60, its just 2 yrs away.

I’m going to do it this year. Despite all of the complaining I’ve heard about the flatness and unscenicness, I think it’ll be interesting to go through parts of the state that I’ve only experienced as freeway exits and strips of traffic lights that just happen to be in the way of more interesting sounding destinations.

So apparently one of the options for spending the night at the midpoint is Vader:
http://www.cascade.org/EandR/stp/stp_centralia.cfm

All I know about Vader is that it’s the best named I-5 exit in WA, so I might have to do the STP just so I can stay there…