Day 1, Sunday, September 9, 2007

Portland, OR to Seaside, OR
83 miles

Up at 6:00 AM, 7:00 continental breakfast at hotel (another great selection at La Quinta Hotel), 7:30 load luggage, 8:00 on the road . chilly 52F that eventually warmed up to the mid 80.s.

Today was the first day of my West Coast ride. I was riding an ABB spare bike and was looking forward to the ride. It was a tough start. Five miles out we had to climb almost 1,000 feet over 5 miles at 6 - 10% grade. Then we had the first of 3 difficult climbs of 6% - 8% grade. After the first climb and descent I began to feel some discomfort in both knees. It continued to get more intense as time passed. I was stopping often to stretch and that helped for a while, but by the time I got to SAG 2 at 51 miles, half way up the 2nd mountain, the knee pain was too much for me to continue. I decided to get a SAG ride closer to the end of the ride. I joined 3 other cyclists at a restaurant for lunch. We then continued the ride from there. My knee pain returned and I also began get leg cramps. I called Mike on his cell phone and he picked me up in one of the ride support vans and brought me to the destination hotel in Seaside, OR.

Knee pain and leg cramping can result when you ride a bike that is not fitted to your body. The borrowed bike is an example of this. We all knew this, but sometimes it doesn't happen that way and riding a different bike works out fine. It didn't work for me. Ride staff tries very hard to plan, organize and run a ride that is safe and enjoyable for the cyclists. This definitely is the case for our staff but due to today's events, I will not be riding tomorrow so I can give my knees a chance to heal. I will call La Quinta hotel back in Portland tomorrow morning to confirm that my bike has been delivered there and a staff member and I will drive back tomorrow afternoon to pick it up. Then I will be able to ride my bike on Wednesday and hopefully my knee pain and leg cramps will go away. In the mean time, I am taking Ibuprofen and icing my knees.

Loading luggage

Scenic view

Christmas trees

Rear-corn irrigation, front-new irrigation construction

Rhubarb

Me at SAG 1

"... on a log truck??"

Very dangerous tunnel

Interesting...

Fire cut??

Oregon forest

Oregon forest

Oregon forest

Scenic view

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