[ORRando] Ride Reports for 300

Wed May 6 10:21:55 PDT 2009

The weather was a challenge.  That's for sure.  Alex and I got hit by a strong downpour just as we were entering Walla Walla at about mile 79 in this 186 mile ride.  We dashed to the gazebo and huddled in that dry space and contemplated the wet ride ahead.  As we were the first riders there our thoughts went to the poor souls still on the road.   I hadn't expected the light drizzle we hit a few miles out of town to turn into such a downpour.  And the wind seemed to be picking up out of the South, the direction we were headed.  Too bad because it had been a very pleasant, fast, and relaxing ride up until the rain started.  

Alex suggested we go to the student union building at Whitman College, a few block away, sit in front of the massive fireplace there and wait for the rain to stop.  Whitman was one of the colleges Alex and I had toured earlier this year in the processes of choosing a college for next year.  It was a very very tempting plan.  We were well ahead of any cutoff time and could well afford an an hour or two if it meant staying dry and warm and having more fun on the remainder of the ride.  But the rain looked more like an all-day affair to me.

Cathy Smith, who was manning the control made a quick weather check for Pendleton on her PDA.  I think she reported it was cloudy there with light rain.  For rain wimps like us that's not good.

Soon other riders showed up and the rain died down a bit so we set out for Pendleton.  But the rain hadn't died down all that much and the wind was in our face so progress was slow and we stopped for a bit under a gas station awning someplace in Milton-Freewater.  A rider went by us there but we soon caught him as he struggled with the wind and rain.  Our recumbents have a great advantage in these conditions but we still get very wet.  I thought about slowing down so he could join us in our draft but recumbents don't offer much draft and we had no fenders on our bikes because we were optimistic about the weather when we left Salem on Friday.

The rain continued until about 10 miles outside of Pendleton.  The wind was still more or less in our face, but the sun came out between the clouds and it started to look like there'd be no rain for the rest of the day.  

In the two rides we've done so far in this part of Eastern Oregon we've come to learn that there is one thing you can count on.  It will be windy.  And it was.  But now that the sun was peeking out and the future looked better and better we picked up speed, I even managed to break the 45 mph speed limit on the descent into Pendleton.  We stopped for a nice slice of pizza and a long lunch in Pendleton.  Ritchie's New York Pizza.  A good place to note for the future.  

We stopped again and sat out in the sun at the Shell station at the top of the hill outside of town.  I was almost getting completely dry, except for my feet.  Alex changed his socks.  It was turning out to be a great ride as we headed down into the canyon.

The Canyon was beautiful.  Very sunny now and warm with beautiful cumulus clouds to the south.  We stopped a couple of times just to enjoy the views and the beautiful day.  We forgot to bring the sun screen.

It looked like things would be very nice for the rest of the ride until we turned into the control at the Tessoro station in Umatilla. We were riding north and didn't see the black clouds rapidly approaching from the south until we turned to enter the parking lot.  We scrambled to get through the control as quickly as possible but with the long climb yet to come it really looked like we'd get dumped on again.  These were very nasty looking clouds.  The rain started just before we got to the road cut and rapidly turned heavy as we slogged up the long climb.  

We'd only done this climb at night.  That was during last year's 600k.  I was rather looking forward to doing it in the daytime to see what it looked like up there.  At night it was very dark and we couldn't see much to either side of the road.  Actually in the day time it looked much the same.  Seed grass fields and a relentless slow steady climb.

The descent to the finish was cold and wet as the rain continued.  The fragrance from the wet sage brush was very strong and the view from up there is very pleasant but we honestly just wanted to finish at that point.

I'm not sure what time we finished.  It really didn't matter, we had made it.  Cathy took our cards after we signed them with shaky cold hands.  The five mile ride back to the hotel seemed much longer than the morning ride to the start.  A hot shower and a hot sub got us back to the world of the living.  

Paul puts on a good ride.  Both this ride and the 600k last year were great experiences and fun times.  They were both challenging largely because of the wind.  The route was nice, especially the canyon in the sun and the ride out to Waitsburg in the morning.  It's not his fault it rains every time we come to this part of the state to ride a brevet.  I heard the 200k was a beautiful ride in very nice weather.  We didn't ride that one.  Hmmm.  

Keith Kohan

--- On Wed, 5/6/09, Michael Rasmussen <michael at jamhome.us> wrote:

From: Michael Rasmussen <michael at jamhome.us>
Subject: [ORRando] Ride Reports for 300 and 400 Pre-ride
To: orrando at orrandonneurs.org
Date: Wednesday, May 6, 2009, 5:03 AM

#yiv1070461523 p, #yiv1070461523 li {white-space:pre-wrap;}It was blustery.

It was stormy.

They rode just the same.

http://www.orrandonneurs.org/  - now has links to a pair of Tri-Cities 300 Ride Reports

http://www.orrandonneurs.org/reports/2009_CoveredBridges_preride.html  - Pre-ride route review, mostly.

Today is the last day to pre-register for the Covered Bridges 400.  There are 30 signed up at the moment...

-- 

      Michael Rasmussen, Portland Oregon  

    Be appropriate && Follow your curiosity

           http://www.jamhome.us/

  The fortune cookie says:

Actually _everything_ about fixed-gears sounds nuts to those who have

not been inducted into the cult. ;-)

	--  Sheldon Brown

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