Day 0, Saturday, September 8, 2007

Flight Day - Connecticut to Portland, OR

Orientation Day I didn't sleep very well last night and finally decided to get up at 5:45. I guess yesterday caught up with me. I went to the continental breakfast here at the hotel. It was really nice - 2 kinds of juice, milk, 4 kinds of dry cereal, make your own waffles, hard boiled eggs, toast, biscuits and gravy, English muffins, sticky rolls and several other items.

I met up with Bill Manning. We were roommates on a previous ABB ride. He had just come back from an early run. Soon, several other cyclists showed up and I had a chance to chat with staffers Mike Monk (our ride leader), his wife Barbara, Karen Bauer and Gerard Boisse (mechanic). I brought them up to date with my 'no bike' situation. My next step was to call the possible car rentals to see if any of them had an office facility in Tillamook. I went back to my room and did just that. The closest was 35 miles away and they didn't service Tillamook anyway. I also was trying to change my single room to the double room that I would be sharing with my new roommate. The hotel is just about at capacity. Actually I was so busy that I forgot to have lunch.

We had a ride orientation where the staff talked about rules, procedures, ride safety and other miscellaneous matters. I reconnected with Mike to share my rental results and he then told me not to worry and that he would drive me back to La Quinta on Monday to pick up my bike. He also gave me the 'spare bike' so I could ride it a bit so he could make any additional mechanical adjustments. I then went to tell the hotel staff that my bike would be arriving Monday noon and to keep it till I got there to get it in the afternoon. Mike had also made a phone connection with a live UPS supervisor. He was told that even though the on line UPS tracker service showed that my bike had arrived in Portland at 11:58 PM September 7 and therefore in the Portland warehouse - - - - that it wasn't really there but still in transit! If you are reading this, go to the on line tracking, to see if you agree with me.

We had route rap at 3:15 PM and went to dinner at 6 PM at MacTarnahan's Brewing Co. and Restaurant. The below picture left to right is John Hicks, Dave Maher, Bob Ahrens, Karen Bauer, and me. I got back to my room at 8 PM, called Donna, reorganized, laid out clothes and items for our Day 1 ride to Seaside tomorrow.

Here's some other information. We have about 4,000 feet of climbing tomorrow and about 75,000 feet of climbing to do between Portland and Los Angeles!

Mike Monk, Karen Bauer, Barbara Monk	Gerard Boisse, our mechanic
Bill Manning at route rap	Mike talks about road safety
John Hicks, Dave Maher, Bob Ahrens, Karen Bauer, and me