The lodge we stayed at last night had no cell & tonight we're supposed to be at Gonzaga Univ. in Spokane where there is allegedly web access. I'll try to write answers to everyone who's written AND get the blogupdated. I00 miles today & 96 tomorrow. Sore, but still pedaling.
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Skykomish is a little town with one street, two bars, a train track running though it, and a little school that was probably built around 1920 2O yds from the track. That was our home last night. They weren't quite ready for us, either. The showers were as cold as the nearby stream. Still, the school grounds were well kept and we had a good dinner of lasgna and waffles & sausages for breakfast, courtesy of the local lion's club. Dave McConnell & I had two very tasty beers at The Whistling Post, a bar built in 1903, before dinner.
It was a cool evening and the tent was soaking when I packed it up. The early climb wasn't so bad, but after we crossed Steven's pass, and descended it was like we were transported to Arizona. The tall trees & cool, thick forests were replaced with scrub grass and heat in the
90's.
The cool shower at the much more modern Wenatchee school was on purpose. I also opted to sleep in the gym which means a faster (and dryer) start in the morning.
Tomorrow, we're doing 100 miles and its supposed to be in the 90's again so we're starting earlier tomorrow & I gotta get some sleep before the 5:30 alarm goes off.
Much more to come.
Today I dipped my wheels in the salty water of the Puget Sound and rode the first tour leg east to Skykomish, WA. 56 miles, another 1800 ft of climbing, my first glimpse of snow covered Mt. Ranier, and the Cascades(themselves with spots of snow high up).
The tour people had a fantastic picnic lunch set up for us & a Lasgna dinner tonight. I've got to be careful or I'll be putting weight on!
Tomorrow's ride has us climbing over Steven's pass at 4600ft. After that feat we get a 15 mi descent – which are sometimes harder on your bodythan the hills.
Friday morn was rather bleak & a good time to spend reassembling my bike and trailer. Only problem was a slight wobble in the rear wheel. By noon, the sun poked thru & Sue got me to a bike shop to have the wheel treated & then treated me to a grand little tour of the Seattle area. We got in a visit to the Pike Market & a great view of the mountains I'll be climbing over this week from the water tower at Voluteer park. Very pretty here – lush greens against deep sky blue dotted with titaniumwhite clouds.
Sat morn I had breakfast with Sue & Alicia, finished packing the BOB & headed off to join the tour in Everett. That little 50 mile journey turned out to be quite challenging. While the Seattle area is one of the bike-friendliest cities I've seen in the US with paths & bike lanesalmost everywhere, I still had 2300 ft of climbing getting to Everett.
The tour people are great – very organized & friendly. After my ride here, dinner at a local pizza shop hit the spot & so did the showers. We're camped out in a school athletic field. And small world, Dave McConnell of my home town Altoona is on the trip for the first week. He was a year ahead of me at BG (which all Toonies know to be Bishop Guilfoyle) and until a week ago, worked at the same hospital as mybrother Ed.
No pics yet. Sorry. But stay tuned. All for now. Gotta get some sleep!
7 weeks to get back home. That thought struck me as I was about to land in Seattle. But what an adventure awaits.
Made it here safely and Sue and Alicia (another friend from my Lock Haven days who also now lives out here) met me at the airport. We had anice dinner and I had a very restful sleep.
Jake & BOB (my bike & trailer) arrived Wednesday. Early tomorrow's task will be to make sure they too arrived safely & reassemble them.
Hi Everyone,
Leaving tomorrow for Seattle! I'm pretty excited and just want to get going.
THANKS! To all of you who have made contributions or pledges to The Second Mile. So far, those pledges total over $1000. That's a great piece of motivating info to take along as I start my trip.
I'm close to having all my planning done and am very anxious; a bit fearful, too, but ready to go. The bike and my Beast Of Burden (BOB) trailer are packed for shipping and will be on their way today (June 8).
Thanks to my ex-wife, Mary, I've reconnected with an old friend of ours, Sue, who's living in the Seattle area. She's been so gracious as to offer to pick me up at the airport, give me a place to crash for the two days I'll be there before the tour starts, and I can ship my vehicles to her place. That was a real nice turn of events and it will be nice to visit with Sue after many years. 😉
Mail and E-mail during the trip:
I'll be using a special e-mail address during the trip — I don't want to be wasting my cell phone battery loading 50 spam messages a day. From June 16 to somewhere around August 5, if you'd like to e-mail me during the trip, send it to
. (Sorry, but you'll have to type it in by hand — just a little ploy to keep the spammers at bay.)
Text messages: 8144045087 or e-mail
. Note that text messages are notoriously unreliable, especially if the phone is off or out of a service area for a period of time, so don't be worried or offended if I don't respond — it's more likely that Verizon dumped it. But try anyway — it's always nice to see something in the In-Box.
Snail Mail drops (send at least 6 days in advance by United States Postal Service only):
6/24: c/o Cycle America, PAUL RITO, GENERAL DELIVERY, Thompson Falls, MT 59873 (send by 6/19)
7/1: c/o Cycle America, PAUL RITO, GENERAL DELIVERY, Ashton, ID 83420 (send by 6/26)
7/7: c/o Cycle America, PAUL RITO, GENERAL DELIVERY, Buffalo, WY 82834 (send by 7/2)
7/17: Paul Rito, c/o The Hanlons, 10832 Fischer Hill Drive, Plainview, MN 55964 (send by 7/12)
7/26: Paul Rito, c/o Jean Wagner, 3340 Charter Oak Drive, Maumee, OH 43537 (send by 7/21)
8/1: Paul Rito, c/o The Petrykowskis, 784 West Kimberly Court, Gaithersburg, MD 20878 (send by 7/27)
This one is lost to posterity, but I think it was just a test of the audio blogger. — Paul
I've been doing longer and longer rides with the loaded trailer.
On April 30, I did 70 miles averaging 14 mph to Rebersberg and Coburn (in the rain — thanks Eric N. for the company). Mother's Day, I rode to Altoona to see my mom and family and got in 95 miles @ 13 mph in 15-25 mph winds. *That* was a good training ride as I had a load pretty close to what I'll actually be carrying: about 75 lbs with the bike, rack trunk and trailer.
I got up today and took the trailer into town, and 'cept for a *little* soreness, all was fine. Another 95 miles today? Well, no, but again this ride was just a notch up in confidence that I'll be fine on the real ride. Only 5 weeks to go.
Still taking pledges/contributions for The Second Mile at www.rito.us/Bike2ndMile.html.
April 23 — less than two months to the start of my trip.
Photo: Peggy Johnson
The Second Mile will be my "official" charity. As I said in my introduction, I'd like to make this trip more than just a mid-life dream and I hope to raise some money for this worthwhile cause. The Second Mile was founded by former PSU Football Defensive Coordinator Jerry Sandusky, and is a nonprofit organization serving the youth of Pennsylvania. They are committed to helping young people achieve their potential as individuals and as community members, and providing support for parents and youth service professionals.
I'm taking "per mile" contributions, or any amount one can offer. All donations will go directly to The Second Mile and are not being used to fund this trip. You can pledge online here. You can also donate directly to The Second Mile on their website here.
Last weekend, I loaded up the trailer with 35 lbs and took off on my first intercity trip. I went to Altoona, stayed overnight, and returned the next morning, a total of 92 miles and one good climb over Kettle Rd. to Sinking Valley on the way home. I had tired legs for sure, but this inaguaral long distance ride went pretty well as far as I'm concerned. Still some training to do, but it made me more comfortable that I'll be able to do this trip.
Training: In addition to trainer nights at B&E Cycles (thanks, Eric!) and Mt. Nittany Wheelworks, I worked the weights at Body Works in State College for the past three months, following a plan from Bicycling Magazine’s Personal Trainer, That, along with their diet program has helped me lose 15 lbs on the way to my goal of 20 by the time I leave in June. I figure that any weight I can lose off of me is just less weight I need to haul up the mountains, and 20 lbs will be a considerable lightening of the load. Now that the weather has turned better, I'm out of the gym and on the bike as much as I can be.
Mt. Nittany Wheel Works did a great job on my bike (a.k.a. "Jake"), swapping out the stock cyclocross double for a hill-climbing triple crankset. The low end 22T gear made climbs on my early trips, well, I can't say they were "easy," but they were certainly tolerable. I also swapped the cyclocross tires for some Bontrager HardCase 700x28c tires. Those tires are much more "road" oriented and are reputed to wear well — a good thing with 4000 miles in front of them. I'm wondering how many tires I'll go through. I'm also going to try a suspension seat post, and will be adding a lightweight rear rack with a "trunk" for small items, and things that I'll need quickly, like rain gear. I did find on my early excursions with the BOB that getting into and refastening the dry sak is a bit of a process. I want to have things like my camera, weather radio & lights more easily accessible. We'll see how that all works out.
Stay tuned. Much more to come.