6/24 Welches to KahNeeTa, Or.

 

Since the cafe can’t handle all of us for breakfast, we eat in two shifts, slow riders first and fast riders last. Believe it or not, I’m in the fast group. That’s a first. Anyone who arrived in time to unload the luggage the first two days is a “fast rider”. I’m probably one of the slower, fast riders. Today will be a test; we start with a 12.5 mile climb of almost 3,000 feet. Overall climbing is supposed to be 5,000 feet. And we’ll quickly move from one ecosystem (essentially a rain forest with large fir trees) to a high desert with red rocks.

                 

In addition to varied terrain, we had varied temperatures today, from 45 to near 100 degrees. How do you handle this? Part of the answer is to layer. But what do you do with the layers you take off? I decided to use a small handlebar bag. In addition I have a small fanny-pack with passport, wallet and cell-phone. (Originally planned for the camera here but it needs to be more readily available so is in the front pocket of the handlebar bag.) At the start of the ride, with jacket on, the fanny-pack is in the handlebar bag. As it warms, I remove the sleeves from the jacket so it becomes a vest. The sleeves fit in the bag. When I later remove the vest and knee warmers, the fanny-pack comes out and the other stuff goes in. This has worked well so far. -- Other plans are for days with actual or expected rain. For this I have a Gore-Tex jacket, hood and pants plus shoe covers. This is all too big for the handlebar bag so on days with threatening rain, I’ll carry rain gear in a small backpack.

At mile 10 today I saw one of our riders walking up the (13 mile) hill. He may have a long 47 days ahead of him. ‘Also heard last night that one of the women didn’t come to dinner because she was treating her knee with ice.

           

I've been in the wittiness protection program. Because there are 4 John's, my name-tag says (or said) "Mac". But I had a hard time with that so changed it to "John Mc". So now I'm called, John, Mac and, occasionally, John Mc.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. - Lao-tzu

Day 3, 66 miles, 4,700 feet, 5.9 hrs

243 miles so far, 3,421 miles to go, 47 days to go