Day 53: Tattoga Lake to Dease Lake

Having spent the night in a cabin with a roaring fire, many of us felt quite toasty, maybe even too toasty. But stepping outiside into the cold air reminded me why we had let the fire get so hot in the first place. I could tell everybody pretty much felt the same lack of motivation to get moving in such cold air since, even though breakfast was ready, people were not getting out of bed.

I had initially rolled over for a few minutes, but felt pretty hungry so I got up and wandered out to the table and filled up on the regular breakfast foods. But even after taking my time to eat, people still had not gotten up. I went back in my cabin to find people slowly moving around so I figured it would be a while before we got on the road. So I packed up my stuff and found the first available bed so I could take an early morning siesta, which was quite enjoyable since I had a full stomach and it was nice and warm.

An hour and a half later, people were finally finishing up their packing and heading up to the cafe, so I rolled out of bed, threw my stuff in the trailer and headed up as well with Nick Weaver and Mercedes, taking a quick stop at the latrines.

In the cafe, everybody was enjoying their coffee and were starting to perk up with warm banter and friendly laughing filling up the small room. A short time later, a few of us were ready to head out, but not before a local man warned us that there was a section of road up ahead that was all dirt with very steep declines and inclines.

With this in mind, we trickled out onto our bikes and started out with a great stretch of paved road. It was, however, quite a good series of uphills and I once again found myself in my low gears churning quickly. I was passed by several of my teammates as they powered up the hills in their higher gears. Weaver and I kept passing each other for a good ten miles, and the same happened with BJ and Mallory/Leah, who usually ride together. But after ten miles of hills, the low gear started to pay off and I was able to maintain a steady speed that carried me past the current group of people, ending the yo-yo of what can be somewhat distracting passing.

We turned more northerly and a great tailwind kicked in, making the next ten miles absolutely zip by. It was so fast that when I saw Brenna’s rest stop I could have sworn that it had only been 15 miles, instead of the 20 they claimed. After scarfing down some fruit and sandwiches (and some great chips provided by Natalie), I headed over to the rest stop sign which let us know that the promised dirt road was directly ahead.

With a lot of the riders ahead of me, I got back on the bike and very shortly found the dirt road. It wound back and forth and over some fairly gentle slopes until I came up on a sign that warned about an 8% decline ahead. If it had been a paved road it would have made my day, but instead it was a rutted out road which, as mentioned in previous journal entries, isn’t a whole lot of fun. In fact, it was actually downright scary in some parts since the ruts were so bad they seemed able to crack the bike in two. So I actually had to brake on a downhill, which is almost offensive, and at least is certainly frustrating.

A long downhill found me at the bottom of a river canyon and there was the prospect of a long uphill up the dirt road as well. But it was quite breathtaking at the river level and I think I could have spent quite a bit of time enjoying the view if I didn’t have a strong urge to hurry up and get up the canyon wall so I could get off the dirt road.

As expected, the uphill was quite long, but surprisingly it was wet as well. I hadn’t expected this since the downhill was dry and it hadn’t been raining. It turned out that they were working on the road so, to prevent dust, had soaked the ground. Doing so did eliminate the dust, but now it was mud, which is much worse for us. I spent most of the time scanning the road ahead looking for the driest, least rutted out part of the road, which usually came down to choosing between the lesser of several evils.

It was probably a good hour on this portion before I reached the next rest stop and both my bike and I were covered in mud. But Brian had cookies on top of the regualar foods so everything was all right. Unfortunately, there was no Accelerade around so I had to ask Brian to dig through the trailer to get it, no small endeavor. But Channing also requested some so I wasn’t the only bad guy.

Everyone was at the rest stop with nobody ahead so when people started getting back on their bikes I decided to take off as well since I was feeling good and felt better about staying in the front group versus resting longer and getting cold. We all streamed out and people casually pedaled, talking and taking it easy at a moderate to slow pace. I had been in my low gears all day and was feeling very good and felt like kicking it up a notch. But not wanting to blow past people and be cocky I decided to stay in the lower gears and just go at whatever I could do in that configuration. But even still I was able to meander out front and casually take up the lead.

I was just going along on the rolling hills singing out loud and whistling when Channing, Stephen and Mario zipped by in a pace line. Mario shouted out “Go, Go, Go!” as they passed by and they were going so fast that I couldn’t accelerate fast enough to stay on the pace line, which seemed more like a race line. Indeed, Mario later said they were practicing their racing skills.

I thought briefly about just letting them go, but I was still feeling quite energetic and I felt like I wanted to race along as well, and I also had a little tinge of frustration since I wasn’t given the opportunity to get on the back of the line. So I finally kicked the bike into my middle gears and dropped the pedals quickly to catch up to the group. After essentially warming up for the whole day my body responded quite well and it wasn’t too long before I not only caught the group, but passed them up.

Mario was in front and as I passed him I shouted out something to the effect of “So you think it’s fun to pass people?” And I kicked it into another higher gear and accelerated past them. It felt awfully good to push myself and I was enjoying the rush for a good little while before I slowed down and decided to take it a little bit easier. I looked back and saw that Mario and Channing were starting to make some progress back towards me, although everybody else had been left behind. I didn’t care too much at this point and just kept going at my faster, but slightly slower speed, waiting for them to catch up to me so we could pace line into the next rest stop.

Mario and Channing caught up after a little while and I settled into the front of the pace line. The pursuit by Mario was pretty intense and I could hear him breathing behind me so I was content to pull for a good while so they could relax a little bit. But after a little while I was ready to pull off so I motioned to Mario and peeled off to the left to slow down. But instead of him going past me he followed me left. I looked back and he just smiled and shook his head, apparently not ready to go up front yet. I laughed and kept going up front biding my time until he was ready.

But, surprisingly, a short time later he and Channing tore out of the pace line with Channing leading Mario past me and accelerating away. Mario later told me that they were again practicing their racing techniques, but all I saw at the time was some decidedly un-team like actions and I was pretty pissed about it. So I kicked it into a higher gear again and followed.

But this time Channing was in front and he is definitely one of the fastest, if not the fastest, person on the team so I didn’t have too much hope of catching him. With Mario surfing in the draft he was able to keep pace as well and they slowly pulled away. I kept up the pursuit, though, and, according to Mario’s computer, we were going at least 27 mph, even up the steep hills. I felt like I was pushing at my hardest as well so it was good to know that if I wanted too I could put out that kind of effort.

The whole series of events lasted about 15 or so miles and they were definitely some of the fastest miles I’ve ever done. We pulled into the last rest stop with them coming in about 45 seconds before me, a fairly significant time margin and a testament to the power of the duo. I hopped off my bike, still pissed and I let them know about it. For their part they were impressed by my speed and Mario told me that he was only playing around and hoped that I wasn’t offended. I let him know I was, but immediately we let it go and except for explaining what happened I never was bothered by it enough to mention it again.

But still pumped up, I didn’t want to wait too long and indeed Brett had already gone on since it was only about ten miles to the end and then a day off awaited. I took off and was very pleasanly surprised that it was almost all downhill, with a steep descent for about 6 miles. I went all out on the way down in my highest gear and was having a blast ripping through the turns and zipping past the various river bends and valleys.

The road finally flattened out just as I came up on Brett at an “Arctic-Pacific Contintental Divide” sign. It was a great little sign that pointed out just how far north we were and I stopped to take pictures with Brett. From there, we cruised the last little bit into town and stopped at the grocery store to ask for directions.

I was also on a mission to first, get ice cream, and second to find the Risk board game which Stephen, Sam and I had been hunting for. They had ice cream, but no game so when Stephen showed up we went on a wild goose chase across the town, from store to store before finally giving up. I went back to the grocery store and bought the ice cream, which I promptly ate with the help of Stephen, Mallory, and Nick Weaver.

From there, I went over to the hardware store and picked up some fishing gear, including a pole, reel and some simple tackle. I talked with the owner for a little while about what we were doing and she gave me a ten percent discount. Nice.

Went over to the school we were staying at and was blown away by what we were setup with. We had full access to the school and there were forty computers, all with high speed internet. We also had our own rooms and a gym with all sorts of sports equipment. Sweet!

We rested for a little while until dinner was ready, which we all scarfed down in preparation for the night’s activities which mostly centered around celebrating Leah’s birthday. Before we left, she opened her presents and we all sang happy birthday. It took a little bit of organizing, but we finally took off to the local pub where they had karaoke.

What a blast! We had an awesome time singing along and dancing and just letting loose after a long stretch on the road. It was so much fun that the team quickly agreed it was some of the best fun we’d had yet, and that’s saying a lot! Awesome fun.

We went back to the school when they finally kicked us out at closing time, but we continued to party by pulling out the cake and ice cream and using an iPod to keep the music going. It was a while before everybody went to bed, but when they did they absolutely crashed out since it was after 2 AM and we had been in constant motion for almost 16 hours.