I didn't sleep very well after the first day of riding. It was quite cold as well as uncomfortable, and there were at least 20 people snoring within dead-cat-swinging distance of my tent. I was instantly transported to the memory of camping with my dad as a kid. We would hike all day, fish, haul gear, setup camp and run ourselves ragged until we collapsed exhausted in our tent. Dad would fall asleep immediately and commence snoring almost before his head hit the pillow, which meant I would be relagated to lying awake until he woke up to pee, and hoping he took long enough to for me to fall asleep before he got back and fell asleep again. While no one at Cycle Oregon snored quite like the chainsaw wildebeast that was my father, the chorus of log-sawing was quite enough to penetrate the protective barrier of my earplugs and keep me awake until I finally fell asleep out of shear good fortune, or due to the Universe's pity on me.
The zippers woke me again. After lying awake for a half hour or so reading my book, exiting my sleeping bag at 6:30AM was bitter argument between my tired bones, the cold air and the hustle and bustle of the mass of Cycle Oregon, not to mention all the beer I drank the night before. The walk to the blue room in shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops was enough to get me at least mostly alert, if not yet fully awake; alas my testicles did protest their exposure to the cold by boring their way into my stomach. Back in the tent, stifling yawns and stretching out my stiff legs, I dawned my gear and prepared myself for the ~95 miles of Day 2 from La Pine to Diamond Lake.
I made my way over to the RVs and said a good morning to Roland who looked almost exactly like I felt: eyes barely open and clearly not happy to be awake. It was very cold, but wonderfully blue and clear -- a tough day to decide what to wear on the bike. Too little and you'll be freezing your ass off until the day warms up, too much and you'll regret it woefully as the day wears on. I had opted for the same as the day before: arm and leg warmers, jersey, shorts and half-fingered gloves. This seemed to be reasonably close to what the other folks who were now trickling over to the RV were wearing. Lon and Sally we gracious enough to let me to their RV for some coffee and a muffin, and the warmth of the heater was a welcome friend, as was the coffee. Derek and Tucker were still soundly sleeping, and the sight of Derek crashed out made me miss my boys.
The crew assembled and pumped tires, filled water bottles, lubed chains and stretched out muscles as we discussed the route and argued over whether it was a day to hammer, or a day to take it easy. There was, of course no consensus, as we all knew it was going to be hammer day since it was Lon and Sally's first day on the bikes. I did not feel great and was resoundingly regretting the beer and wine consumption of the night before, but I internally vowed to ride as strong as I could. We gathered up for a group shot, said our goodbyes to the drivers (Scottie was driving for the Aussies today) and the creaky, cold peleton headed out.
Man, it was cold. Colder than the morning before's ride, and I think it took everyone a couple of minutes to transition into riding mode. Just as we got warm enough to tolerate being in the saddle, we came to an intersection where we had to stop and wait for traffic, which ended up being a 2-3 minute wait... exactly long enough to cool back down; several volleys of profanity were let fly before we were waived through the intersection. Crossing the road and grouping together, we were finally on our way. Lon jumped out in front and the pace was on. I was actually happy to be pushing semi-hard, since it was keeping me warm. Steve, Lon and I took turns at the front, but I was clearly not feeling as strong as I was the previous day. Still, I was able to hang with the group, and I knew I would start to feel better the more we just kept moving along.
The route was very nice -- winding through thickets of trees, along streams and rivers with periodic bursts of rolling climbs and descents. Everyone took their turns pulling, and it was quite obvious that we were in a strong group and everyone knew how to ride in a paceline. The group would break up a bit on the climbs, then regroup again. We stopped at the first ODS stop, just as the day was starting to warm up, and filled our bottles and grabbed some food for the road. I had a hunk of cheese and a bite of fruit and topped up my bottles with some Gleukos sports drink and we hit the road again, with less than 10 miles to go until lunch.
We blasted our way to a lunch, which consisted of a tasty chicken salad with fruit, chips and a very yummy Oreo brownie that weighed about 3 pounds. My smarter companions elected to forego eating all or most of the brownie
, but being the dopey rookie I am, I scarfed it thinking that the carbs would only do me right. Wrong. From the moment the last crumb entered my stomach, I knew I had made critical error in judgement, and seeing as though there were still 50 miles to go, I was now foobar. My stomach turned before I even got on the bike, and I tried to hide the pain from the rest of the crew. My antics the day before had garnered me a reputation as a strong rider, and I knew I would be trying to live up to it all week. This latest intestinal faux paux would prove to be my undoing on this long day in the saddle.
I rode hard despite the brewing cyclone in my stomach. I thought perhaps I could get in front of the problem by sweating it out, but my exersion only made the lump in my stomach feel that much more pronounced. I could feel my body protesting the digestion of the brownie, and working overtime to break it down into some kind of nutritional gain, but it was not to be. As if to fly me the bird for being such a dillhole, my legs began cramping just as it was my turn to pull into the wind. We had several hangers-on in ou paceline now, and there was no way I was going to whimp out, so I just powered through it. Several miles later, fighting cramps and just trying to hang on (without looking like I was just trying to hang on), in the midst of a brutal, busy stretch on Hwy 97, Sally graciously convinced Lon to stop at a water stop to fill up bottles. I took the wonderful restful moments to regroup and pull myself together. I had been sweating profusely and cramping horribly for about 10 miles now, and it was my conclusion that I was woefully dehydrated. I drank what was left in my bottles, and refilled them, then drank another entire bottle and refilled it. An earth-shattering belch worked its way to the surface and brought with it glad tidings, I actually felt a little bit better.
Lon and Keith rocketed out of the water stop with a relentless veracity that would become commonplace in the ensuing days. Sally, fortunately, held back a bit and we kept a really nice pace for the remainder of the stretch on 97 -- passing group after group on the week's last bout with the dreaded rumble strips. We turned off to a wonderfully smooth stretch of Hwy 38 that was so straight and pointing slightly uphill that you could see for 15 miles down the road -- it was a very nice mental boost. We caught up with Lon and Keith and all turned off at the last ODS stop, where I again drank as much as I could and sucked down a couple V8 juice cans to re-load my body's salt balance.
The long steady climb up Hwy 38 towards Diamond Lake was the type of annoying climb that was too easy to complain about, but too hard to stand up on. It was also the last 10 miles of a near-century ride, and everyone was pooped. We all kind of splintered off and took it at our own pace. As I was counting my pedal strokes, fighting off cramps and just trying to get to the end, I ran into my buddy Matthew, whom I had ridden the eirrily similar last 25 miles or so of the Portland Century with. He was by himself and grateful for the company, and to have made contact at CO. Just as we were catching up, Sally came flying by with a bunch of our group in tow, and Matthew and I jumped on the train for the remainder of the hill, and the wonderful descent down into Diamond Lake campground. We all quaffed our blessed chocolate milk and headed to the RV for a wonderous pint of beer, and I made my way to unfortunately distant tent city, where I parked my bike and hit the showers.
Diamond Lake has a beautiful campground, and by the time I had made my way over to the stage and food area, I ran into Zed, Robbie and Scottie, who were just getting pints of beer and slices of pizza, an excursion to which I was happy to join. We sat in the sun and ate pizza and drank beer and stared at the lake, and it was a righteous affair. After pizza and beer, we hopped into the dinner line and filled up our plates with the not-terrible turkey and mash potato dinner. The Aussies marvelled at the pumpkin pie. As it turns out, pumpkins are quite popular in Australia, but never as a sweet dish, so pumpkin pie is akin to us eating eggplant ice cream or something like that. Funny. After dinner, I made my way over to the RV and was careful to only have one more beer before the tryptophan would get the best of me, and I would make my way back to my tent and fall asleep soundly before my snoring peers could even think about keeping me awake.
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