Party Poodles Pedal as a Pack

Lets just say, sleeping on a blow up mattress in an open gymnasium isn’t as nice as sleeping in a private cabana overlooking the mountains, but ear plugs and eye masks combined with 100 mile-induced fatigue really made it work. Around 3:30am cyclists started to wake up. Everyone was being polite but even with the eye masks and ear plugs it was hard to sleep at that point, so we all started getting up too. Besides, breakfast was being served at 4:30am and we had to be out by 6:00am.

Around when Helen got up the gymnasium was dark; so you couldn’t see much. Helen, always the stubborn one, thought it would be safe to change out in the open. To her surprise the moment her bottom was exposed to the people around her the lights turned on, but what can you do in that moment? So she just kept dressing and lived through the embarrassment. 

For breakfast the church served pancakes, hash browns, and eggs. Honestly all-in-all the church fold was better than we expected and we all agreed the eggs were surprisingly good.

While everyone was getting ready. Adam went to check on the bikes. Phyllis had previously stated that her tires hadn't been pumped up since she last took it to the shop, which was a little concerning. So Adam thought it would be good to double check that she was at the recommended 65 psi. They were not. Both tires were at a cushy bump-absorbing 35 psi. Well I’m glad I checked Adam thought as he pumped up the tires to 65. The party poodles were going to need every advantage they could get if we were going to survive day 2, and this foreshadowed dirty-30 whatever that is.

We snapped a quick pic before leaving the church and then we were off.

The first 40 miles were some of the best of the trip. It was all trails, and quiet streets with rolling hills. Adam even made a point to stop and check out the World’s Largest Egg (which was a bit of a let down).

About 40 miles in we hit US highway 30 and things took a turn. It started ok, but progressively got worse. Before we knew it we were on a 4-lane highway with cars whizzing by at 55 mph. Usually the shoulder was wide, but occasionally it’d narrow, fill up with debris, or be full of pot holes. Having 8000 other riders on the same route definitely helped, as there was a safety in numbers aspect, but it was still a very unsettling portion of the ride. Adam tried to contain his anger when a left turning pick up truck cut it way too close to Helen. Needless to say, if the whole ride were like this the STP would be a lot less fun.

On day 1 the party poodles had split into a 2 clear slow and fast groups. Maybe it was the adversity of the dirty 30 or the exhaustion of having done a century the day prior, but on day 2 the party poodle pack pedaled as a unit.

Around mile marker 170 we hit the Lewis & Clark bridge. A local motorcycle club volunteered to lead brigades over the bridge. They repeatedly urged extreme caution over the expansion joints, and one person even walked around with a full bike pump offering pump-ups to prevent pinch flats. Every 10 minutes or so the motorists would guide us, protecting us from car harassment on the bridge. As we pedaled over the 2 mile long bridge we began to understand why the motorcycle club was so concerned about the expansion joints. Out of the ~50 cyclists in our wave there were at least five flat tires who then had to do the walk of shame next to their bikes to a safe spot on the other side of the bridge. Fortunately, every poodle made it.

There was a short gas station rest stop at the bottom and we were off. Then out of nowhere Adam noticed an odd sensation on his left foot. Something felt loose. So he pulled over and Lainie being kind pulled over as well. Adam looked at the bottom of his foot and noticed that the his cleat had one missing one of it's 2 screws. Unable to fix this without a screw Adam just clipped back in decided to not to pull up too hard on the pedal.

Lainie and Adam waited for a clearing to rejoin the cycling brigade. Follow me Adam gestured as he entered sprint mode and tried to provide an easy draft for Lainie. As all poodles do, we eventually made it back to our pack.

Lainie looked at Adam in surprise “Wait, you're fast?” she said, just now realizing that Adam had been running caboose for the last 170 miles as a choice.

Not sure how to respond, Adam shrugged and went back to eating cookies while pedaling with no hands.

Around the 200 mile mark we crossed the Saint John's bridge into Portland. After crossing the bridge we were filled with a huge sense of accomplishment. We had made it!

Making it to Portland is a little bit of a false alarm. We still had close to an hour of biking left to get to the finish line. Probably due to how spread out the groups were, there weren't any police officers to block traffic so we were at the mercy of traffic lights.

Despite the long tease we eventually crossed the finish line. We had done it! 207 miles over 2 days. Back to back centuries!

After basking in our glory for a bit, taking photos, picking up our bags, and putting our rental bikes on a truck to be shipped back to Portland, we made our way to the Airbnb.  

The next day we explored Portland, which is a phenomenal city that’s full of whimsy and good food. Annabel even found us a fancy spa to recovered at. After 3 hours of relaxation, Matt had the unfortunate job of telling us that we were out of time. We begrudgingly left, but could have spent another 3 hours there.

All in all, it was another great blog-worthy adventure :)