The Prequel, Part 2: The San Juans

46 Days Left!!

(Sorry that everything is running together... I've been experience technical difficulties of the kind that make me want to break our computer).

As an aside... welcome to anyone from the Canby Swim Team visiting my blog. You probably want to scroll down and read the first post, Getting Started, at the bottom of the page. I hope you enjoy, and continue to read once the real adventure begins.

Well, back to my story... Late in the summer of 2006, Seth and I went on our first Bike tour. We decided (with lots of advice from my dad) that the San Juans would be a great place to start riding. So, on September 5th, we loaded three bikes, three sets of panniers, and three bodies into our car, and drove up to Anacortes Washington. It was my dad marveling at the lack of traffic in Seattle that jinxed us: the short drive up from Seattle to Anacortes seemed to take even longer than the drive up from Portland. Finally we arrived, set up our camp, and went out for Mexican food.

The next morning we all woke early and scarfed breakfast before loading everything back into the car and driving down to the ferry. At the ferry stop we finally got to load up our bikes. First we strapped on the panniers (bags that attach to a rack on the back of your bicycle) then bungeed our tents and sleeping bags to the top of the racks. We awkwardly wheeled our now quite heavy bikes down to the boarding ramp.

When the ferry finally arrived, we were allowed on first. After securing our bikes on the lower level, we climbed to the top to enjoy the view. Even though it was freezing, the ferry ride was one of my favorite parts of the trip. We stood in the front viewing section, watching secluded islands loom out of the early morning mist. Occasionally we would see a house clinging to a heavily wooded slope of an otherwise deserted lump of rock. Seth and I were so impressed by the scenery that we picked up a real-estate brochure from the ferry on the way off.

After the better part of an hour, the ferry's gently throbbing motor quieted, and we were let off at Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. The camp ground was only about five miles away, so we rode over there first and set up camp before going out to explore the island. We visited the old American and British military camps, as well as Roche Harbor, where we bought supplies for dinner. At Roche Harbor, Seth and I walked through the docks (I was bare foot because the bike cleats were hard to walk in and sounded like tap-dance shoes), admiring the sail boats. "Y'know," Seth said at one point, "It would be really neat to live out here. Have a house on one of the little islands and only be able to get in by boat." I agreed, and soon we were discussing what type of boat we'd want and what size of house would be best to live in.

Back at the campground, we jumped into the lake that lay just feet from our tents, not even bothering to change out of our bike shorts. When we were done splashing around (and admiring the denizens of the tiny beach across the lake) we dried off and prepared a spaghetti dinner. After the meal (and the clean up) was over, we started into a pinecone fight. Seth and I continually teamed up to attack my dad; however, when we were all done, my dad told us that neither of us had managed to hit him even once.

We woke up later than we planned the next morning and realized we had only a little over an hour before the ferry we planned to take left the harbor. We ate a hurried breakfast and tossed our gear onto the bikes (Seth was the only one who bothered to fold his tent), then raced to the ferry. We hammered along the back roads of San Juan Island at nearly 20 miles per hour; this was the second time Seth or I had ever ridden a loaded bike.

We caught the ferry just in time, and used the ride to catch our breath before getting off at the isolated Shaw Island (my favorite island on the trip; on the map above, its the lump sitting between Orcas, San Jaun, and Lopez island). There were few people on Shaw, and fewer cars (which is great for cycling). There were, however, some nasty hills on the island. One was steep enough that my front tire lifted off of the pavement. I wobbled for a second, then fell over in the middle of the road. I lay there for a second before my dad and Seth yelled at me, didn't I know a car could be coming? I righted myself and scurried to the side of the road. We continued up the hill, but just a few yards further on Seth's chain fell off his bike (a recurring problem for him on the trip.) We waited for him, then rode on, passing a tiny library attached to a public school house, then continued on right up to a dead end at someone's driveway. We stopped for a mid-morning snack, then turned around and cycled back to the ferry.

The ferry took us to Lopez Island, where we planned to stay the night. After we set up camp, we realized that our camp stove was almost out of fuel. We rode into town to pick up fuel and food. Along the way we passed a lot of flags displaying a big picture of planet earth with the inscription World Peace. They were everywhere throughout the islands, and one of my favorite man-made additions.

The next morning we woke up and caught the 8:30 ferry to Orcas Island. This was the island Seth and I had been looking forward to... and dreading. On the eastern half of the island, rising above Moran State Park, is Mount Constitution, a grueling five mile ascent at about a fifteen percent grade.

When we first arrived on Orcas, the weather felt different than it had the past two days: the fog had a heavier, damper feel to it, and occasionally we'd be ambushed by a little shower (although never anything serious). From the ferry dock at Orcas (the town) we rode to East Sound, a town right near the middle of the island. To get there we traveled along empty roads through trees hung with neat mobiles, mirrors, and ornaments. In East Sound we stopped at a small coffee shop for bagels and tea, then rode over to the store to pick up supplies for our dinner and breakfast. When we left East Sound, the weather was still looking grim, but by the time we pulled into our camp site at Moran State Park, summer had returned to the San Juans.

At the camp ground we stowed our bags under the picnic table, stripped all unnecessary weight from our bikes and bodies, then remounted our bikes and headed skyward. Both Seth and I already had a descent mountain under our belt (he'd ridden up to Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood with his dad, and I'd gone up Going to the Sun Highway in Glacier Park with my dad), but neither of us were ready for Mt. Constitution. Although the climb up Mt. Constitution is shorter than either the climb up to Timberline, or the climb up to Logan Pass (at the top of Going to the Sun) the road was easily much steeper. There were times during our ascent when we'd turn a corner and be faced with a stretch of pavement that seemed to rise at nearly a 45 degree angle in front of us. Finally we reached the top of Mt. Constitution; in the very end, I managed to push my body a little extra, sprinting ahead of my dad and Seth to be the first one to summit the mountain. At the top, we leaned our bike against the bathrooms, then walked along the trail to the view point. The view certainly was worth the ride: from where we stood, we could see across Puget Sound to the city of Bellingham, and beyond that Mt. Reinier. But by far, the best reward for our efforts was the ride back down the mountain. The whole way down I had my hands clamped tight around the brakes, squeezing them all of the way closed.... and I still never went below seventeen miles per hour. At the bottom of the road was a little, one-lane bridge. Just as Seth began to zip across it (still going incredibly fast from his descent) a car began to cross from the other direction. Seth just barely dodged around the car and off onto the shoulder on the other side of the bridge.

We took the rest of the evening easy, showering, eating dinner, and playing cards. Just after dinner, as dad and I began to do the dishes, Seth headed off for the spigot to refill everyone's water bottles. It was only after he arrived that he became acquainted with the local bees. As they flew out to greet him, Seth sprinted away to a safe distance, leaving the faucet running. There, he carefully unscrewed the cap of one water bottle then dashed back to stick it under the running water for a couple of seconds before the bees chased him away again. Luckily, he returned to camp unstung and with full water bottles.

Each night, my dad had reminded Seth and I to take our bike gear (our helmets, gloves, and shoes) and put them in the tent with us in case it rained. The night on Orcas he decided not to remind us; unfortunately, that was also the night that a storm blew in. We woke up the next morning and ate breakfast huddled in our tent, listening to the rain outside. Then we had to climb out of our warm home, pack up our stuff, don wet shoes, wet gloves and wet helmets, and pedal twelve miles back to the ferry dock in Orcas. We arrived thoroughly wet and cold, and ready to stash our bikes out of sight for a couple of weeks. We arrived home back in Canby later that day, and despite our discomfort, the seed had been planted, and I wasn't about ready to quit bike touring. If anything, I was readier than ever to plan our next adventure.

~Seth

The Prequel, Part 1

T-minus 48 days and counting...

All of the bike touring stories I've read all seem to tell about the start... how the idea to pedal thousands of miles across a continent (or around the world) was born. My madness began nearly two years ago.

In the spring of my Freshman year (2006) my best friend Seth (shone right) decided to start a bike club at our school. His dad, the Chemistry teacher, was the club's advisor, and about ten of his friends joined the club almost immediately. I was one of them. I'd gotten my orange Trek the summer before, and was slowly adding up the miles, and the idea of a bike club sounded like fun.

During the first few meetings, Seth laid out his plans of bicycle maintenance classes, time trials, and track races. It was all going to be fast, testosterone laced, riding. That night, I went home and talked to my dad about everything Seth had said. He suggested another direction that the bike club could go: bicycle touring. To me, the slow and usually not too competitive rider, this idea sounded brilliant.

The next day at school, I told Seth of this new idea. "Maybe the bike club could ride out to the beach the week after school." I suggested, "we could build up to it in the next couple of months, and it would only take a few days." Seth himmed-and-hahed a bit, trying to think up a reason why we shouldn't do a tour. "Or..." the idea had been building inside of me for some time, since my dad had admiringly mentioned a bike trip across the United States, "we could go all the way across the country." Perhaps it was just my own enthusiasm, but Seth seemed to catch the bug.

"Or maybe we could go and bike around Europe." he said, getting excited, "We could bike all through Germany." (Seth had just fallen in love with one of the school's German exchange students, and desperately wanted to see her again.)

I was too excited by my own idea to be distracted. "We could do that the summer after we cross America. You have to start small, of course." My faulty logic (crossing America certainly won't be a small undertaking) seemed to convince Seth.

We spent most of our lunch that day, and most of the days that week, pouring over a map of America in Seth's history classroom. We carefully plotted out which states we wanted to pass through, discussing, with absolute ignorance, the merits of each possible route we could take. We decided that both of our dads would accompany us, as well as one of our friends, Tyler, who really wanted to go along, but first he'd have to convince his mom.

The initial excitement began to die out after the first week, and we moved on to more every day tasks, putting our dream momentarily on the back burner. A few weeks later we attended a free REI class on all of the basics of bicycle touring. I came home from that with a new energy, and instantly sent out a flurry of letters to the states we planned to ride through, requesting bicycle maps of the state.

Around that time, my dad also gave me a copy of the book Miles From Nowhere, by Barbara Savage. The book is the story of Barbara and her husband Larry's bicycle trip around the world. (It's an excellent book that I highly recommend to anyone looking for a good adventure.) This book finally sold me on the trip (if I wasn't sold on it already), making it clear to me that I would ride my bike across the country, even if it meant doing it all by myself. This, I suppose, is how my adventure was born.

~Seth

A Training Ride

50 days left!!

So, I suppose that I'm not the best at posting regularly... I let it get away from me. Part of the problem is that I'm not totally sure what to post; I'll get over that once we start on our ride.

I went on a forty mile ride today with my dad (a bit longer than we usually go). The weather was not promising as we began, with big black clouds massing above us. Less than a mile into the ride, rain started to fall, then hail. Looking down, I noticed snow starting to stick to my gloves and tights. Within a few minutes, though, the sky had cleared, and a warm breeze (albiet a head wind) dried off our gear. The weather remained dry for the rest of our ride, fluctuating from warm to cold just enough that I was continually unzipping and re-zipping my jacket.

Later on, as we rode by a house, a white Saint Bernard ran out after us. My dad sprayed it with water and shouted at it to go home, but the dog just bounded along next to use, panting.
"Seth, stop riding!" my dad finally yelled, and I pulled to the side of the road, hoping the dog would leave us alone. Instead, it ran up to me, than placed a big paw on my leg.
"Ohhh, hi there." I cooed, and reached out to pet the dog.
"Don't pet it, Seth." My dad called, and I backed away, shouting "Go home!" The dog followed us for a couple hundred yards, before giving up and trotting back along the road. "I just didn't want you to encourage it." my dad explained later, "I've had at least two dogs try to follow me and get hit by cars."

In the last few miles of our ride, we ran into another cyclist going up a hill near our house. My dad and I passed her going up, but she caught us again as we went down the other side. My dad tried to start a conversation, but we were almost home, so it didn't last long.

Now I'm recooperating from the 40 mile ride by sitting in front of a computer screen and writing about it. This is my first feeble attempt at a narrative on my "travels"... any suggestions on how to improve my writing would be great.

Thanks For Reading,
Seth

P.S. The picture above is of my cousin, Nathan (for whom I'm using this trip to raise awarness and money for the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network) and I. To learn more, read my first post getting started or visit my website at http://www.firstgiving.com/cycling4allergies .