It's Sunday and the first day of the ride. I am writing this before we head out - and either I am still on EST time, the adrenaline is starting to flow, or the Mexican food we had last night contributing to an early morning (note to myself - never have Mexican food before a big bike ride).
Yesterday was spent re-building our bikes, testing them out and getting to meet the rest of the riders.
Quite amazingly there are only 8 riders that are starting off in Astoria; though we are picking up 6 more riders in Crescent City. This is a really small riding group as they normally average 20 plus riders. The bad news is that it looks like a lot of the guys are fast riders - the good news is that I will finally be able to learn everybody's names.
As always, most of the riders are retired - not sure who the youngest is but the oldest is John from Seattle who is 74 and this is his 8th or 9th long distance ride. I'm hoping I can keep up with him. We have a retired baby doctor from England (Mark) a retired railroader (Ken) from Florida. I suspect they will be leading the pack as I can't see an ounce of fat on them. They asked me if I was interesting in going out for a quick ride yesterday and I was quick to beg off - it's clear my pace and theirs are noticeably different. Plus my priority was going to all five of the local breweries - which was probably not on their list of "todos".
We have one woman on the ride, Sara and she is from Colorado. She mentioned during the introductions that she teaches skiing at Copper Mountain - so perhaps I can score some free tickets. Love Copper's back bowls. Funny, her husband is also here - but he does not ride and will be following us in the support van. Sara said she does a long distance ride every year - so I am wondering if her bud rides in the van on every ride - or this is a one time occurrence.
There is Bill from NYC who just retired a year ago (former banker) and is good friends with the ride's mechanic (Jim from Vermont). Looks like he is in good shape as well - so probably won't be getting much ride time with him.
Last, there is Jim from Newport Beach and Rodger from from Pittsburgh. I did not get to meet either of the two as they just got here and they were at the far end of the dinner table and the arrangement did not foster conversation.
Note: As you can see this is the new me as I was chastised for not getting the low down details of each of the riders on my last two rides. Hopefully this first post gets me out of the "social dog house".
The ride leader is Mike Munk and he has been leading rides for America by Bike for 20 years. This is his 53 tour (the majority of his rides have been cross country). His wife is also here as part of the support team. Jim is the mechanic and Karen is the other ride leader (she led my cross country trip).
Mike is former military and I am told he will be weighing our luggage today - nothing over 35 lbs. Spent a week trying to get down to 35 pounds as I did not want to fail the weight test. As a result I have 1 pair of underwear for 24 days (but lots of washing machine soap). Hell it was either a rain coat or more underwear. Obviously the raincoat won out.
Good decision on the raincoat versus underwear decision!!!!
All of the staff are strong riders so the chances of me riding with them on pretty low as well. So that leaves hoping that Jim, Bill, Sara or John ride at my pace. Bill looks pretty fast - so my partners choices are dwindling.
The weather in a couple of days does not look good. The forecast is calling for rain and high winds starting Weds. We are taking an inch of rain and 30 mph winds. This has got me a little worried and my fears were doubled when Mike last night said in all his rides (all 53) he has only cancelled two days (one for a hurricane and the second was for high winds) and that this might be his third cancellation.
Worst he mentioned this might be a 2+ day storm. His opening speech did not inspire!
In any case the weather today looks great. So I am going to head to breakfast and our team photo shoot.
More later......
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