Thursday Ride Report with pictures

Today was a nice 30 miler. I gotta be honest with you, after the freezing cold and hunter disrupted Sauvie Island ride I wasn't feeling the bike rides. I was spending more time trying to figure out the weather, dodge the weather, and predict the weather than I was riding. I was looking for an elusive nice day with some sun and above freezing temps and I just wasn't getting one.

Until today! I decided to try another ride across the river into Washington. One of my first training rides was over there, but not the one I wanted to do today and I hadn't been back across the water since.

The route was so-so but the ride was great. The sun was out, the temps were the nicest yet and I was able to feel my toes the whole time.

I left the house and headed up Willamette, then cut across the peninsula for the dreaded I5 bride. That bridge is a beast. It isn't even fun to cross in a car. And the designers decided the walkway/bikeway needed only be about 9 inches wide. Not the best, but it didn't last too long. Once across I turned down into Vancouver and headed...west? The road was wide with no cars and a big shoulder. Though not the most scenic, I was happy for the quiet and the sun. The ride ended at Vancouver Lake where I turned around and headed back.

All told, a nice day. I'm super excited to be riding after a little slump, and I'm beyond excited for tomorrow's 60-70 miler with Glenn. Word is this route is gonna be epic. You'll know when I do!

And hey, if you've donated to my ride (www.firstgiving.com/joshhooten) thank you sooooo much. We're halfway there! You all are the best and make this all so much easier for me to take on.

-Josh

Off-bike preparations

Getting my legs and brain in shape for this ride is obviously a big part of my training but there is a lot more to it than that. There is gear to collect, campsites to reserve, altitudes to calculate, and routes to nail down.

So far my gear collecting has been super on the cheap, which is nice cuz....you know...recession and all. I got a 4 dollar water bottle cage at Target the other day and a 24 dollar tent on sale. I also got a 29 dollar wind shell jacket on sale. I'm borrowing a bike rack and panniers (thank you Heather Bendyshoe.) I found a camping stove in our garage which we got for our wedding and had forgotten about. I also found a camping espresso maker. (Woo! That may prove to be the single most important bit of gear I carry! Or at least the most likely to save my life!)

On the still to find really cheap list is an inflatable pad to sleep on, perhaps a handle bar bag, cookware, and I think I'm going to get new tires and tubes before I go cuz my current ones have been wonderful, but have about 1500 miles on em. I think they are going to get an honorable discharge before I leave.

I'm going to be camping on the way down and all the campgrounds have biker-hiker walkup sites that are about 4 bux a night. Day 4 I roll into Harris Beach State Park where Michelle and Ruby will meet me and we have booked a Yurt for two nights. Woo! Yurt! The Yurt has heat and....wait for it....cable television, you just have to provide the television. We...uh...won't. All the sites I'm staying at have hot showers, which will be awesome at the end of a long day. Most of them have 24 hour vegan donut carts as well.

No they don't.

So far so good!

Some nice coverage

This ride is getting some attention, which I'm very happy about. Mark Hawthorne, author of Striking At The Roots wrote a nice piece, as did Parrish over at Ecorazzi. Woo!

Though we have a looooong way to go to raise my goal of $10,000, I am so pleased with how it's going so far. Thanks a million to all the people who have donated so far, and thanks in advance to all of you who are planning to.