We took our traditional team photo with our ABB bike jerseys. Again with only 8 riders the photo session did not take long.
Just to the right of where we were standing, there was a ominous sign that hopefully did not foresee the future of our ride....
Now as I mentioned John is 74. Much to my surprise he was the first person on his bike and bolted out of the hotel parking lot. I expected to pass him in the first couple of miles but did not catch up to him until mile 58!! The guy can haul! Here is a shot of him after climbing up about a 3 mile 8 degree pass.
Stepping back, the first town we passed through on the coast was Seaside. A really cool, quaint little town.
The statue behind the sign is of Lewis and Clark. Seems that everything in this area is named after Lewis and Clark. There is the Lewis and Clark school, road, highway, and even a Lewis and Clark cemetery (they are actually buried in Tenn). Not really sure why everything has their name on it - as I don't think they ever found the Northwest Passage (statues for losers?).
There was a cool antique car show running in town that we had to ride through (they made us walk our bikes - guess they were afraid we would bump into one of the cars).
There was a sweet 57 T-bird. That was always the car I wanted when I was a kid - ended up with a shitty yellow VW!
As soon as we headed out of town and a couple of miles up on the Pacific Coast Highway we started to get some get views of the Pacific Ocean. There were some huge rock structures dotting the coast. They were massive.
For a sense of their size check out the people walking on the beach on the next picture.
The ride hugged the coast for the entire 70 miles. There was a lot of uphills and some really fast downhills (couple of times hit 40 mph). Lots of RV's on the road and with some of the road shoulders being pretty lean - contributing to some scary times. Good thing is there were lots of turn-offs where you could stop and take in the views. They were amazing. I am sure that my photo taking skills do not do justice to the Oregon Coast.
Did not get to ride with anybody. Mark and Jim were really fast and the only time I saw them was on the side of the road were they were casually drinking espressos. Will have to check with the rest of the group when we have dinner to get a feel for their times.
Just before we got into town we passed the Tillamook Cheese factory. Place is huge and seems to be the number one tourist stop on the Pacific Coast highway.
I pulled in with the intent of doing the tour - but the line was huge (I found out later they were all in line for ice cream) so I passed on the opportunity to get a free cheese sample and headed to the hotel.
Just before the cheese factory, I passed a billboard on the side of the road that boasted of a 2-3 foot long smoked sausage at the Tillamook smokehouse. God I could have eaten about 30 feet of these things. Thankfully I never found the place.
So for a first day - it was a great ride.
I probably went a little too fast and I am hoping I don't feel the effects of the ride tomorrow. I took about a 15 minute shower - which is about 12-13 minutes longer than my "At home" showers. I must admit I also grab a 24 oz Hamm's beer and a corn dog at the convenience store in front of the hotel as I think this combo will also speed up recovery (shower + beer + corndog). It's a winning combination!
Heading to dinner.....
No comments:
Post a Comment