Joe Caropepe

Day two, from Chehalis to Portland is now complete and here are the totals:

Day Two Totals

Time: 6:38:20
Max. Speed: 34.8 MPH
Avg. Speed: 14.8 MPH
Distance: 98.94 Miles

We started the day with a great breakfast of fruit, bagels & pancakes at our host’s house in Chehalis. In an odd twist of chance, Mountian Bike Hall of Famer, Gary Klein lives across the street from where we stayed. A little bit of bicycle history right in central Washington.

We hit the road right around 6:15 AM and, boy it was chilly, especially in the shadows of the early dawn hours. Things began warming up as we worked our way through the farming communities of Napavine, Winlock, and Vader, before stopping in Castle Rock, then again for “lunch” in Lexington Riverside park.

Then it was only a 12 or so miles to the Lewis & Clark Bridge in Longview. The route to the bridge was pretty ugly, taking us through an industrial area of Kelso, with lot’s of traffice and bad roads. Once at the bridge we queued up before being escorted across by a local motorcycle club.

If asked about the Oregon portion of the trip, I’d have to choose my words carefully. On the one had I wouldn’t want to knock the organizers, since they don’t have much to work with: the roads are chip sealed, there is a lot of traffic, and there aren’t many good places to stop. On the other hand, riding chip sealed roads, dealing with fast moving traffic, and enduring “rest” stops with no shade or water (Scappoose/The Bike Shop, St. Helens, OR) isn’t a lot of fun.

It was on these rolling roads that I pulled away from Brian a bit, then lost track of him. Of course this was also the only time we encountered any mechanical problems when his rear tire developed a slow leak, forcing him to stop and repair it. Although I ended stopping and waiting for 15 minutes or so so he could catch up, I still felt bad about not being able to help out on the repair.

The final few miles into Hollady Park were crowded with cars (none of the streets were closed), and bikes (we kept getting bunched up at the traffic lights — no police directing traffic). So we had to pay a great deal of attention to stay safe, not the easiest thing to do after two, eight-hour days on the bike.

At the park we grabbed our bags, changed, and bought some food. Karen was still on her way so we had a little time to kill before she showed up round 4:00 PM.

Final Statistics

Time: 13:33:19
Avg. Speed: 15.00 MPH
Distance: 204.25 MPH