I left our room shortly after 4am, and waved to Rolf as he sleepily trudged past.  Somehow it took us nearly an hour to get ready, at least partly due to our stuff being spread all around the dark hostel.  We tiptoed around cautiously, just in case anyone else was still sleeping. I checked trackleaders and was happy to see that Kym had slept in the hostel overnight, having only gotten on the road a few hours ago.

We both quickly scarfed a bowl of cereal and then stepped outside into the morning chill.  The only other food I had with me for the morning was a PB&J and a sandwich bag stuffed with dry cheerios.  In our excitement to be at Spoke’n, we hadn’t remembered to visit the local convenience store before it closed for the evening.

We climbed out of Mitchell as the sun was rising, pressing gingerly on our pedals.  We both complained of mildly sore knees that morning. Halfway up, I noticed what looked like leg warmers on the side of the road.  Chris found a nice looking bicycle headlight, which he picked up and carried with him. Fun fact: after posting in the TABR Facebook group about the light, we were amused to find that Rolf had ripped it off and thrown it to the ground in frustration as he climbed, hoping to lighten his load a bit.  The light was not, in fact, particularly heavy.

The descent afterwards was incredibly beautiful.  26.2 miles (a full marathon!!) of downhill through a desert canyon led us into Dayville with almost zero cars and barely a need to pedal.  It was pretty cold in the shade of the hills, but I refused to stop to put on gloves or a jacket even as my fingers grew stiff with the chill.  The previous day we had noticed a fellow rider off course in this area, and today we giggled as we realized they must have gotten stuck on the gravel trail below the highway.

We saw Kevin, Rolf, Daniel, and Brad stopped for a sit down breakfast, but we chose to hit the mercantile across the street.  We had been spending so much time sleeping, that we knew our best strategy was to keep a move on during the day. Notably, we would have to face three significant climbs in a row today, and we knew we wanted to make it to Baker City before dark.  I picked up cosmic brownies [Chris: Not THAT kind], a mint crunch hershey bar, turkey lunchmeat, fruit, and a zero calorie gatorade.  We talked to Kevin for a while when he stopped by the store to find a big floppy hat to keep out the sun.  He sounded like he was in better spirits than the day before – claiming he was giving up on the ‘racing’ part of the race in order to better enjoy the journey.  I overshared about my saddle sores, because what better way is there to make friends?!

Interlude by Chris: A short tragedy

While stocking up on food and treats inside the store, I spotted a few bottles of Cherry Dr. Pepper, which is my favorite soda and a great pick-me-up.  Awesome!

Then I noticed the sign taped to the cooler.

And they weren’t kidding about the “warm” drinks; the cooler was so broken that it was actually HEATING the drinks. 

Kevin headed out of town while I was still slathering on sunscreen, but we caught up with him on the road and played leapfrog for the next 20 miles or so, chatting every so often.  It turned out that he was from my home state of Michigan, just a few hours from where I grew up. Chris and I flew over the gently rolling terrain at a strong pace, our morning knee stiffness totally gone.  (Spoiler Alert: Kevin finished the race and we did not, so he gets the last laugh here!)

When we got to John Day, we saw a drug store and we knew we needed to get more butt bandages.  Yes that’s right, butt bandages. I’m a frequent sufferer of saddle sores. I’ve received a lot of advice about trying out different seats and bike shorts, and I’ve also been told that if I forego chamois cream and ride enough miles, my skin will just get used to it.  None of these things have ever helped me, so instead I have spent a lot of time searching through the TABR Facebook group for advice on how to deal with saddle sores once they have already formed. Many people favor a combination of orajel and liquid bandage, which I tried during 2018’s pacific coast bike tour with little success.  The key for me ended up being band-aid hydroseal blister pads. You simply apply them and then forget about them for a few days while your skin heals. Chris and I both started using them on day 4 of this trip, so I figured we should carry enough to last us for the next 1000 miles just to be safe.  

I passed through the store and picked up batteries and bandages.  Shortly after heading back to my bike I realized it would make sense to also pick up food and water while we were here, since it was getting really hot and we might not find any additional water sources until we reached the Austin House at the top of Dixie Pass.  Another inefficient multiple-checkout store visit! After filling my bags with corn nuts, crackers, and a snickers bar, we finally headed out of town. We saw Rolf stopped at a Dairy Queen, and we knew from Trackleaders that a few other racers were in town. Kym’s dot appeared to be stopped at a hotel, and we hoped she was feeling okay and hadn’t scratched.  Ed was also in town and it turns out he HAD just scratched, although we didn’t know it until later.

Despite the lack of sleep, I was still feeling energetic as we hit the first pass of the day around 1:30 PM.  There is something weird about ultracycling that allows your body to operate differently than in real life, at least in the short term.  I’m not sure if it’s the continuous sugar consumption, the endorphins coursing through your body, or the heightened alertness that comes with operating on survival mode for so long.  Whatever it was, it was still working on me despite the fact that I was definitely still ill.

With temperatures in the upper 80’s and the blistering midday sun beating down on us, we pulled over briefly to put on our sunsleeves.  After that, I allowed Chris to ride on ahead of me as I paced myself to avoid overheating up the climb. Dixie is pretty exposed, so the best bet was to do the whole thing in one burst to get it over with.  I saw Chris catch up with a touring cyclist up ahead, and then about halfway up the climb they found a scenic view with a bit of shade [Chris:  A comically oversized covered wagon!]  to pull off and rest while they waited for me.  It turns out the cyclist was going to be on the road for at least a few months, traveling from San Francisco and headed towards Boise. In the present day, I can’t for the life of me remember what his final destination was! After I caught up, we all continued on together. Just over the top of Dixie, we came upon Austin House. Chris ordered a burger, and he shared a cherry shake with me.  We filled all our bottles and water bladders, and stuffed some low cal Gatorade into our jersey pockets. I was drinking a lot today, and I didn’t think we’d be able to refill again for about 6 hours. Before we left, we talked with the touring cyclist one last time. He looked pretty knackered, and said he had wiped himself out trying to keep up with Chris on the climb. He looked like a really strong cyclist, but he had over 100 pounds of gear to haul up these mountains.  I reassured him that it was okay, I was also destroyed from trying to keep up with Chris.  

I suddenly felt VERY sleepy, but given the heat and the lack of sleep I’m surprised this was the first time that I was feeling iffy that day.  I didn’t pick up any caffeine, because I was still trying to save it for when I got desperate later on in the race. Luckily the second and third climbs of the day had a lot more tree cover, as the topography in Oregon had changed again and we were back amongst evergreens.  They were also mostly devoid of car traffic, and utilized small two to four lane roads as opposed to the grand six lane blacktop on Dixie. I turned up my music and played “Gloria” by Laura Branigan on repeat the whole way up just like Blues hockey fans in St. Louis had been doing, which made me giggle and kept my spirits up.

l did well on the 2nd climb and the first half of climb #3, and I was feeling a bit cocky about it.  Neither of us had experienced any knee issues since the very beginning of the day, and we chalked it up to climbing a pass first thing in the morning on cold legs.  Once again, I had visions of Yorktown in my head. We weren’t the strongest cyclists out there, but we had somehow managed to prepare our bodies well for this adventure.  Then all of a sudden about halfway up the last pass, I was just done. I was tired of climbing, I suddenly felt really achy all over, and I tried to find my tylenol but it must have fallen out of my pocket at some point.  We finally reached the top at 7 or 7:30pm, which means we had spent 5 or 6 hours on all these climbs. In a complete reversal for the day, I was now officially a whiny jerk. Chris was climbing fast and he told me he still felt totally fresh, which annoyed me.  Nonetheless, we only had about 30 miles to ride to get to Baker City, and the whole thing would be downhill. Chris called for a motel in Baker City, and I checked Trackleaders. Kevin and Rolf appeared to be riding together, and they were only 10 or so miles behind us.

The initial descent flew by, as I whooped and hollered and tried to take videos of the glorious mountains surrounding us.  After that, it was only very mildly downhill and unfortunately, very strong headwinds started kicking in. With about ten miles to go, it got REALLY bad and I started falling far enough back that Chris was almost out of sight.  The wind had set us back so far that we were going to miss our desired arrival time by an hour, which would mean less sleep if we wanted to hit our goal for the next day. In my state of fatigue, I decided I was angry at him for leaving me behind, even though that’s how we had been riding this whole year while I was hamstrung by my mystery illness.  Although we hadn’t taken advantage of it, paired racers are in fact allowed to draft off one another, and it seemed like the smart thing to do in the midst of these massive wind gusts. Since I’m very smart and perfectly rational at all times, I decided to chase after him while shouting “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING??!?!?! COME BACKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK…..”

I pushed harder and harder and harder and harder to try and catch him, and when I finally did I gave him quite the earful.  I just wanted to be at the motel SO badly so that we could get to sleep early and have a big day the next day. I drafted off him the rest of the way to Baker City, in part because I had completely killed my legs trying to reach him in the first place.  The last 4 miles into town felt like they lasted an eternity. We rode through farmland and got hit with a snowstorm of fuzzy cotton coming off the local plants. Finally, the road carved through a few rocky hills and we spotted the lights of the city ahead.  The last hint of daylight faded away as we pulled up to our motel at 9:15pm. We’d be staying on the 2nd floor, so we clumsily pulled our bikes up the stairs, laughing about our shaky legs. We had made it another 150 miles that day, and now that we were off our bikes the world felt okay again.  

Chris was starving, and he wanted nothing more than to pig out on some Pizza Hut.  It was just across the street from us, so he walked over while I got started on my shower.  To my horror, I realized two major things were amiss. First of all, I could barely walk at all.  The tendons just above my knees were killing me, with the worst spot being on the inside of my left knee.  It was close to the spot where my MCL had torn two years ago, and I was worried that I had somehow re-aggravated the injury.  Getting ready for bed suddenly took a lot longer, as I was forced to hop around the motel on one foot. I was so mad at myself.   I had been trying to take things really easy this year to keep my knees healthy, with the knowledge that they tend to be a problem area for me.  However, I had let my emotions get the best of me that evening, and fighting the headwinds to catch up had caused me to injure myself. I hadn’t noticed any knee pain at all on the top of the last pass.  This injury had definitely occurred in those last grumpy miles of the day.

The second issue is that I could NOT get the blister bandages off my damn butt in order to put zinc paste on for the night like I usually would do.  I’m so sorry dear readers, I don’t mean to be TMI all the time, but if you want to know what it’s really like to be an ultracyclist look no further. I tried soaking myself in hot water to loosen them up, to no avail.  When Chris came back home he found me inspecting the situation by using my phone camera as a mirror. This hadn’t happened to me at all riding in balmy Seattle, and I wondered if it had to do with the temperature outside.  These things were literally melted to me, and it turns out Chris was in the same boat. He decided to go with the flow and keep them on, but since mine were already half off there was no way I’d be able to ride like that. Instead, I yelped and groaned for 45 minutes while I wrestled them off, totally ignoring the pizza.  

By the way, Chris returned with not one but TWO whole pizzas, plus cinnamon sticks and breadsticks.  I only ate one slice of pizza [Chris:  I’m pretty sure I ate an entire one], and then went back to fretting about knees and bandages.  We put the rest of the pizza in the fridge so that we could get out of town quickly and eat it on the road tomorrow.  We didn’t get to bed until 11:15 PM, which is just completely insane given that we had arrived two hours earlier. We decided to wake up at 5:30am the next morning.  We couldn’t let the day get away from us again just because I had hopped around the room on one leg for two hours, complaining about glue on my butt.

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Mitchell, Oregon to Baker City, Oregon: 150 Miles