STP Finisher!

For the second year in a row I decided to return to the STP course and ride with the two day riders on their way to Portland. Today I started from Holladay Park, the STP finish, and biked out Hwy 30 to Longview then turned around and joined the sea of two day riders.

I started off from Portland at 6AM. It was very quiet that time of morning in the city. Roads were empty, and the finish line festival was only inhabited by those servicing the blue rooms. I pedaled briskly towards Longview. I met my first Portland bound rider at 8:15AM, near Scappoose. Before I reached Longview the opposing bike traffic had become a torrent of riders. Some with smiles, some with looks of determination. Those with looks of despair probably made a few phonecalls and never got on their bikes this morning!

There was a heavy mist to very light rain falling for most of the middle 40 miles or so of my 100 today. Not enough to make the roads splashy or feet wet but enough to make bike tires throw gravel and debris back up at those who dared follow too close.
With some of the two day riders having less than optimal riding skills it probably wasn't such a good idea to follow too closely anyway! ;-)

I could out ride most of the riders today, especially on the hills. Big deal though, right? If I'm riding Furnace Creek I'd better be more suited to riding hills than the average recreational rider!

With the rain, and the 300 miles in the last two days I was ready to get back to the festival and putz around with other bikey people. When I got back into Portland I pushed hard away from every signal and stop sign. I was up and out of the saddle.......why I don't know. I ended up with 5.25 hours for the century, again pretty respectable. And for the second year picked up a "Finisher" cloth medallion to compliment my "One Day Rider" medallion. :-)

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...............Road Bike.....LifeCycle.....Total Miles
Today...........101...............0................101
Jan total.......501.....+.........30.......=.......531
Feb total.......614.....+.........0........=.......614
March total.....860.....+.........0........=.......860
April total.....790.....+.........0........=.......790
May total.......901.....+.........0........=.......901
June total......543.....+.........0........=.......543
July total......726.....+.........0........=.......726
Year to date...4996.....+.........30.......=......5026
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