By Jeremy Dunn
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Day Seven:
With Patrick and Tim
103 miles
Day Six:
Moving day for Eric, post-moving ride with Tim
35 Miles
Somehow, I volunteered to help Eric move during the Festive 500. I was thinking of camaraderie and brotherhood
when I decided on this course of action. But my legs are
tired. They remind me constantly, and I console myself by
thinking “these are not even long days on the bike.” After we blast through the move – roughly 15 people make
short work of it – Tim and I somehow rally ourselves and
ride out to Sauvie Island. Out at Sauvie we spot our friend
Michael, and he takes a picture of us. I have to continue to
remind myself to take pictures and to look around, as my
views are becoming increasingly inward and vision-narrowing. Tim and I have a hard conversation on the way
home. We realize that tomorrow will have to be a big day
to make this happen, to finish in time.
The prospect of a 100-mile day in the heart of December is not
one that looks good. In the middle of the summer, when chamois
time is tanning time, when the mere thought of being on the
bike all day long brings slight patters to one’s heart, that’s when
riding 100 miles is fun. When your bike is weighted down with
fenders and covered in grit, it is not that fun. Tim and I eschew
extra jackets for extra food (thank you – dear wife, for Nutella
filled crepes) and head out along The Gorge. Patrick takes us
to Crowne Point, where we bid him adieu and start down the
winding road to the falls.
We make it all the way out to Charburger, the diner cum tourist trap that sits on the Oregon side of the Bridge of the Gods.
We spend a few minutes stuffing too sweet cookies into our
mouths before we try to head back out into the cold. I overhear
the electric hand dryer in the men’s bathroom and get an idea;
I remove my wool baselayer and stand there drying it. It takes
nearly five cycles, but there is nothing like putting on a toasty
warm baselayer for a 50-mile return trip in the cold.
This action proves to be my best idea of the week as the rain
starts sputtering down on us the moment we leave the safety of
the Charburger awning. I look down at Tim’s bike and then back
at mine. He is not using fenders and that means that either I
remain in the front of our little group of two — taking in all the rain
and wind for both of us — or I get a mouthful of gritty dark water
off the spray of his wheel for the next 50 miles. I choose the
former and start thinking about Crowne Point and that beautiful
20-mile downhill on the other side of it.
As we start out, I curse Tim and his ineffective choice of bicycle, but this feeling quickly subsides as I console myself with the
thought that I would rather have him there, even if back there, than
not at all. As we navigate the tight turns below each of the falls, I’m
considering everyone along the week that helped me get there.
Like Ira standing atop a pile of rocks shooting photos while Leah
pumps air into her tire. And Julie making food in the mornings to
eat and to pack along. There’s an image of Steven jamming a bag
of chips into his face, grinning the whole time. And Simon laughing as I tried to rid us of an unknown cyclist that had latched onto
our wheel. Was he real? No matter what I did, I could not shake
him. Even the chance meeting with Michael on his own vision
quest of sorts had given another little nudge toward the finish line.
But where is that finish line?
As we rolled back into town that last day – altering our route
slightly to make sure that we hit the 100-mile mark for the day –
the light faded to nothing, and Tim’s rear light was the only thing
preventing me from lying down for a nap on the side of the road. I
had lost ten pounds, gained a nagging cough, traversed roads I’d
never seen before and some that I will probably never see again.
What again is my motivation? Just to finish, I guess.