Day 2, Teamwork: Condon → The Dalles

I woke up surprisingly perky on Day 2. At first I seemed rather on the stiff side but after getting up and moving around a little bit found that it was really only my adductors (upper inner thighs) that were sore.

Day 2, in comparison to Day 1, seemed like it was going to be a piece of cake. 70 miles and “mostly downhill” was what all the organizers and other riders kept saying. And yes, while there was a significant amount of downhill, there was still a good deal of uphill. More than 3,000 feet of uphill in fact. And then there was the bit toward the end where we were on the flat, but heading down the Columbia Gorge into winds of 20ish mph. And the bit at the very end where we climbed 700ish feet up to camp. The climb was worth it as we had a gorgeous view, but I have to say I wasn't really mentally prepared for the challenges that day presented.

The first night one of the organizers was talking about safety on the road and really urging people away from pace lines. What is a pace line you might ask? His definition of a pace line was, “A great way to get hurt.” A pace line is a string of people working together. The person at the front is breaking the wind for the others and also creating a draft that helps pull those behind along. When you have a nice little group of people you all take turns leading and all get turns drafting and it makes your life much much easier. The trick is that you have to be right on the back wheel of the person in front of you otherwise you don’t the benefit. And if that person makes a sudden move or doesn’t warn you of something in the road… You can very easily get hurt. It is often a particularly bad idea to form a pace line with people you don’t know as you aren’t familiar with their riding styles and don’t necessarily know how to communicate with each other.

Despite these sage warnings, Day 2 demanded some impromptu teamwork. During one of the rather massive climbs – over 1,000 feet in 6 or so miles – my dad and I found ourselves going at the same pace as a woman just in front of us. She would be out front of us for a little while, then we would find ourselves passing her, and then she would pass us and so on. We weren’t working together at first, but after a while made a little pace line without even really talking about it as there really wasn’t enough oxygen to spare for small talk. Once we reached the summit and were going a bit easier we chatted a bit and rode together the rest of the way into lunch another ten or so miles (and another hill) away.

Later, when struggling against the wind despite a lovely flat grade I noted someone drafting off me as my dad and I switched lead back and forth. Now, etiquette is such that you don’t just bum a ride off someone. You should let a group know you’ve tacked on behind them and, more importantly, you should take your turn leading. Eventually the two guys behind us came forward and took the lead. Unfortunately our line faltered a bit when the guy leading made a signal he couldn’t lead anymore and my dad didn’t understand that was what he was doing and as the guy tried to slow down to hook onto the back my dad kept slowing down so there became a big break between him and the new leader. And then on top of that the guy who took the lead was a bit over zealous and picked the pace up significantly so the three of us fell even farther behind and then soon after we got all straightened out again the new leader had to pull off to the side of the road for some reason and our brief relationship thus ended. But it was great while it lasted.