"Our Fifth Day of Riding ... Simply Mahvelous"

Today is our fifth day riding after a day of rest in the beautiful metropolis of Chehalis, Washington; population 7057.  Yesterday, in addition to being a day of rest, and doing our wash, and doing some bike maintenance and cleanup; yesterday was also a day of high wind and rain, so we were glad we were not riding.  Today’s ride was about 55 miles and I was not expecting much of a ride.  It looked like we would be going through some populated areas and we were no longer on the coast, so I confess, I was kind of thinking today was going to be a slog.  The last 15 miles looked like they might be interesting as we climbed along a creek and then descended into Longview, but I thought the rest of the ride could not come close to what we had experienced in our first four days of riding.  How wrong I was, but more on that later.

My morning of getting prepared ride also hit a bit of a hiccup.  Well, it was kind of a major hiccup.  The top strap on my road bike shoe totally broke at the connection to the shoe.  The strap is connected to the shoe by a screw and the strap broke on either side of the hole in the strap where the screw attaches.  Dang!  The metropolis of Chehalis does not have a store that would carry straps for the Specialized Pro road bike shoe.  In fact, I was fairly confident that none of the metropolises in front of us would be carrying replacement straps for my shoe.  So, what to do? Maybe I just duct tape my shoe to the end of my leg.  After some thought, we grabbed a pocket knife, cut another hole in the piece of strap that remained, shaved of some of the strap to thin it so the screw would go through it and attached it to my shoe again.  The ankle pad can no longer be centered over the top of my ankle, but I am able to get down the road, 55 miles down the road today.  Also, after dealing with solving my shoe problem, I forgot to take my sandwich out of the fridge, and left without my lunch.

So, like I said earlier, I thought the day was just going to be kind of a slog, no big deal.  I was wrong.  I need to put in another good word for the Adventure Cycling routes.  They do their best to keep the route away from high traffic thoroughfares.  They do their best to skirt cities and populated areas, and they seem to find the routes with the best riding experience to include local scenery, views, et al. Today’s ride was evidence again of their excellent results.  Weather was damp, but not too damp.  Temperatures were cool but great for riding.  Wind was not too bad.  Our route went through deep forests, open country roads, along the side of a river, climbed up a valley along the side of creek that could sometimes be glimpsed through deep forest and then descended down to the Columbia river.  Today was a GREAT ride, I loved it.  It was simply mahvelous.

Tomorrow we ride along the north side of the Columbia River and then cross over into Oregon and ride to the coast and overnight in Astoria, Oregon.  Washington has been absolutely beautiful, and now the coast of Oregon.  We hope we are ready for the climbs.