DAYS 6 AND 7

DAY 6
Friday, June 25
Omak to Republic, Washington
Total miles: 69
Amazing how fast the days blur together. We started early, with breakfast at 6:30, and riding starting at 7:00, because there would be a lot of climbing later in the day when it warmed up. The first 30 miles were pleasant and cool and not too hilly. The mountains had a rolling quality, with folds in the contours. Then it all flattened out a bit.

We biked mostly on Route 20. At mile 29 we started a steady climb up to Wauconda Pass, at 4310 feet (see above), so that was our fourth pass of the ride. It was a hot ride, too!We ended up in Republic, WA at a motel that was sort of Western/Victorian in style, particularly in the lobby. There was a huge motorcycle festival going on there, a bit noisy. Nice people though.

Linda roasted pork on a grill, served with cabbage and apples, along with potatoes and a salad. Cookies for dessert. As after-dinner entertainment, several of the "old timers" on this Womantour (some have gone on as many as 13 tours, but most have done 3 or 4 before) demonstrated to us newbies the various ways to deal with the lack of a porta-potty or trees. One woman played a tree as another squatted behind her. The tree was hilarious. Another woman played a guardrail, and another still was a culvert. Two women were boulders. This cannot be fully explained without sounding gross. You had to be there. We couldn't stop laughing. But I must admit, the guardrail technique is something that will probably come in handy.

Here are some pictures of the day (minus the after-dinner entertainment).
















DAY 7
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Republic to Colville, WA
57 miles
Highlights: Crossing the Columbia River and reaching Sherman Pass


We biked through the Colville National Forest, and much of the biking was on State Route 20. The highlight of the day was approaching and reaching Sherman Pass, which has an elevation of 5575 feet, by far the biggest climb so far.








The downhill was a 6% grade for 6 miles. I've learned that a 6% grade either up or down means a lot of effort and control needed. After Sherman Pass, we took routes 395 most of the way to Colville.

On the way, we had our usual sag stops to get more water and snacks and Gatorade. I stopped at the Log Flume Heritage Site for a break, took a little hike on paths through the woods there, and found wildflowers to photograph on the way.






One treat after this stop was biking across the Columbia River, which is dammed into various lakes throughout Washington.






Once we arrived at the Colville Inn, we noticed that the motel's sign said, "Welcome WomanTours," which was a nice greeting after a day on the bike. Here are some of the day's pictures. By the way, if you double-click on the pictures, you can expand them and see more detail.

DAY 5

Began: Winthrop, WA
Finished: Omak, WA
Total milage: 49
Climbed 3235 feet
Descended 4081 feet (Bummer – we’ve still got a lot of climbing to do!)
Burned (approximately) 2269 calories (this is according to the Garmin somebody on the trip uses)

Pretty tired today, and I just didn’t sleep well last night. Didn’t imagine sleep issues would make as big a difference in my stamina as they did, so I’ll just write briefly tonight. Tomorrow we’re biking 69 miles with a fair amount of climbing.

Today we saw the terrain change pretty dramatically. Though we’re out of a lot of the Cascades with snow-capped peaks, we’re still in the Cascades that are more rolling, and trees are getting more sparse in places, with grassy rounded knolls and an arid climate. I stopped to take a picture, and you’ll see that the road bends to the left in the distance. Well, just around that bend –poof!—we looked down on a very green river valley. Saw cherry orchards, farms, and even a rodeo fairground where Western style horse relay teams were competing.

We all detoured to a town called Twisp, because we'd heard there were great cinnamon rolls at a bakery called Cinnamon Twisp. The rumors were correct! Here are a bunch of people and bikes there.


At one point today, I was slogging up a long hill, singing to myself, “I’m an old cow hand on the Rio Grande..” and glancing down at my bike computer. I was to the right of the white line, on the shoulder of the road. All of a sudden I looked up to see this idiot in a pick-up truck barreling fast down the hill, passing a car on the two-lane road, so he was only about six inches to a foot on my left. He could have picked me right off!! I found myself thinking, “Wow! That could have been the end of me, and my last words would have been, ‘I’m an old cow hand on the Rio Grande.’” Right then and there I vowed to think more important thoughts and sing better songs.

Tonight was Mexican night for dinner. Here’s how the kitchen looked at breakfast, looking down from my last night’s room.


And here’s how the chairs are arranged for dinner each night, wherever we happen to be.


That's it for now. Drive and bike and walk safely out there!
Lynn

DAYS 2, 3, AND 4

DAY 2
Miles: 51.8 from Sedro Woolley to Marblemount

Nice ride, and after Day 3, I can tell you that Day 2 was a piece of cake. I made a little detour to the town of Concrete, because I'd heard there was a place called Concrete Auto Parts, which is fun to imagine. Hmmm... Didn't see it, but too much time on the bike gave me time to think, what about Concrete Manicures, Concrete Psychotherapy, Concrete Groceries.

Just as we have lots of lupines in New England by the side of the road, here they have foxglove like crazy. It's so beautiful as you ride along.


One fun thing about day 2 was where we stayed that night. Clark Cabins is a throwback to the 1940's or earlier, and it's on 140 wooded acres, just across the road from the Skagit River. There are bunnies everywhere! And they actually FEED them. What are they thinking?? But I guess bunnies are their trademark, and it was a delightful place to stay. Had a snack of morel mushroom soup and homemade pecan pie (don't tell my orthodontist I'm eating nuts!) at the little restaurant there. The red cabin shown is where I stayed. It has two bedrooms, so my roommate for the night, Cheryl, and I each had our own room. They give us a different roommate assignment every night, which is great so that we can get to know each other.

DAY 3
From Marblemount to Winthrop
Miles: 91
Began: 7:00 am
Finished: 6:45 pm
Elevation climb: 7400 feet, minus 18 miles of downhill after Washington Pass, followed by 15 miles of biking into the wind to Winthrop. I think we descended 5900 miles, so still had a net gain in elevation.

This day was the hardest I've ever biked in my life!! And apparently, the more experienced Womantours cyclists thought so, too. But I didn't walk, and I didn't sag. There is no shame in sagging here, though, and a few people did get a ride to Winthrop. One quit at the lunch stop, got a ride up to Washington Pass, and biked downhill to the motel in Winthrop. One woman I was biking with, Penny, caught her front wheel in a pavement groove, bent it out of shape, and ended up borrowing the trip leader's wheel. Michelle, the trip leader, was driving the big van that day, so Penny still ended up being able to bike most of the day. She's getting a new wheel today. I sympathize.

Anyhow, we had sag stops at about mile 20,40, and 60, to get more snacks and water. Since it was such a long day, Linda (our chef -- a former chiropractor/innkeeper/life coach ---really nice and interesting person) prepared lunch for us. We eat very well, and had mahi mahi the other night!

The two really tough parts were Rainy Pass, which was just a pimple, compared to Washington Pass, the highest point of the day. I'll see if I can show you the elevation climb for the day, below.

After Washington Pass, we got to coast downhill for 18 miles! It was great, and the only hazards were being sure not to crash on occasional gravel patches or going too fast and out of control. You have to feather your breaks, which means just pulsing them. It's tempting to just let loose, but I think I maxed out at 32mph downhill. (Uphill, there were long periods when I could only pedal 3.7 mph).

Finally, we were out of the Cascades at mile 76, with 14 to go. But then it turned out we were biking into the wind for the rest of the day, running low on water and energy. Michelle, the trip leader showed up with more water. She showed up later, too, to be sure each of us remaining was okay. Though it was getting late,I asked if it was still okay for me to finish the day on my bike. It was, though it was already after 6pm. To be fair, my new friend Vicki and I had taken a detour after Washington Pass and the downhill, so she could get a latte, and I could get a Klondike bar. So we were running late partly because of that. Arrived at the motel in Winthrop at 6:45pm.

Linda had dinner ready at the kitchen in the back of the big trailer (the front holds our luggage), and each night we have plastic stacking lawn chairs arranged in a big circle by the kitchen and the two buffet tables set up in the parking lot. So that's where we eat dinner each evening. It's starting to feel like a moving community.

DAY 4
A day off!! People have been doing laundry, walking into town, and helping each other with these blogs. There seem to be two groups: those who say they wouldn't want to waste time at a computer doing a blog (or don't know how), and those of us who, however inept, spend way too much time doing it anyway. The hard part for me is getting the pictures out of my damn camera and into the computer on the blog.

This morning, a bunch of us walked a mile into downtown Winthrop, a tourist town, to some touristy "saloon" which was recommended for breakfast. We're on our own for meals on days off. Everything we do seems to be a photo opportunity. One of us will take a picture of whatever group we've formed, then somebody will say, "Ooh, will you take one with my camera too?" and so it goes.
So now it's time to try uploading pictures and the elevation map.






Til next time,
Lynn, the Biker Chick

Day 1

I'm still figuring out this blog stuff. Forgive my sequencing or lack of it. It always surprises me the order in which the pictures show up!

After breakfast, we packed snacks for the day, with fruit, nuts, power bars, M&Ms, cranberries and other dried fruit, and even biscotti and Oreos to choose from. We also could make PB&Js, and I guess this is the plan for every day. We began the day with a short ride to Washington Park, where we eventually all dipped our tires in Puget Sound, and lined up to have our pictures taken altogether, with all of us wearing our new Womantours shirts. It was a great moment.

Today was a relatively easy day, with the first of daily cue sheets directing us to roads less traveled, through farmland, and along a bike path that led around part of Fidalgo Bay at low tide. We also biked around Bay View State Park.

After the first twenty miles, the sag vehicle showed up, with snacks and a roster to check off our names and make sure we showed up. In all, it was a 37-mile day. And I didn't come in last!







Yesterday (Saturday), Jeff and Maria met me at the plane and took me to Anacortes, where we all had a banquet with the Womantours team, then posed by the truck that doubles as a luggage storage and a kitchen for most meals along the way.

THE TRIP BEGINS

Here's a picture of my bike, before UPS got at it.
Dave dropped me off at Logan this morning, and now I'm in the air blogging with you, thanks to AlaskaAir's free wifi and the guy next to me who helped me get the picture out of the camera and into the netbook. Steep learning curve! In less than three hours, I'll be in Seattle, and soon after that, I hope I'll be over these butterflies in the tummy!

Thursday, June 17, 2010



Without having set foot to pedal yet, I learned that my bike did make it to Anacortes, but that the rear wheel was damaged. So I'm buying a new wheel, which is being installed when the bike shop there re-assembles the bike. The guy's scientific diagnosis: "Looks like somebody dropped something on your bike box." UPS will be hearing from me.

Even so, I can't wait to get my stuff and myself out there to start biking. Before leaving, tomorrow night will be Commencement for Salem Academy Charter School. For those of you who have contributed to my scholarship efforts, I just want you to know that you should feel proud of your investment in three students, all of whom "show promise of success in college, and have demonstrated perseverance in life's challenges." I couldn't be more pleased with the students who were selected by teachers and staff to receive these awards. I'm also glad to let you know that I will be cycling at a rate of $2.13 per mile for these scholarships, once all of the expected gifts are received and logged in. Of course, it's never to late to consider a gift, and we're already adding to the Navigator Fund for next year.

Enough about that for now!

Time to finish packing.
Lynn (alias The Biker Chick)

June 9, 2010
Welcome to my blog! To get started, here are some facts about this crazy bike trip I'll be starting in 11 days:

Where: From Anacortes, Washington to Fargo, North Dakota
When: June 20 to July 23, 2010
Total miles: 1600
Average Miles per day: 59
Bike trip Company: Womantours

Who else is going? I don't know a soul! But there will be about 28 women from all over the U.S., and it's meant to be a trip for women over 50 years old. Most of them have been on other Womantour trips.

How will this work? They cart our stuff (a max of 50 pounds, which they will weigh, and then re-weigh half-way through the trip. Any excess weight will be shipped home. Somehow they seem to think our packs will magically weigh more. Could they be imagining that we might go shopping?). We will stay in motels, cabins, and inns along the way, so we'll have real beds after long days of biking. And there's a traveling chef with us, who cooks out of the back of a truck. We're on our own for lunches.

What kind of bike? Mine's a Specialized Ruby, which is a carbon fiber, dropped handlebar road bike. It weighs 18 pounds, which is a good thing, since I'm a pretty slow cyclist. The lower the bike weight, the faster I'll be able to go. Right now the bike is somewhere between here and Anacortes, on its way to a bike shop out there. They'll reassemble it, I'll ride it, and then ship it from Fargo back to Seaside Cycle in Manchester, MA.

I've attached my itinerary below, including destinations and miles we'll bike each day.

Signing off for now!
Lynn (alias The Biker Chick)