MS 150 - Part 2

Steve and I started out from the turnaround. He snapped a picture of me while we where biking along on a straight stretch of the road (I guess we were doing some unsafe biking here). After going a few miles, Steve decided it was time to head out ahead. At this point we started climbing out to Secesh Summit to make fun descent to McCall. As I got going down the hill to the 20 mile rest stop (40 mile for those of us crazy enough to bike all the way), I felt the urge to tuck down to see how fast the bike would go. After looking down at my speed I looked up to see a deer in the other lane of the road coming into my lane. A three-point running across the road. Now this kind of scared me and I don’t even think I thought of an escape route. The deer however decided the road was not where it wanted to be and it ran off to the right side and ran beside me for a little while. I shouted at it as it ran beside me for a little way down the road. It decided that I was a little too weird, so it bounded off into the protection of the brush. It was at this point I was thankful that I had not tucked down otherwise I probably would have ran into the deer at 30 instead of getting scared at 20. I quickly made for the rest stop and reported on the deer that was hiding in the bushes scared of the weird bike rider.

After getting some nutrition and more water at the rest stop, Steve and I decided to head out again. Again riding together for a while before he decided that I was the slower one. I did not mind him going ahead. I seem to like riding by myself since it gives me time to contemplate all sorts of things. The rest of the ride down to the 10 mile rest stop (50 mile for those whose legs where about ready to fall off) was pretty boring except for the dead deer that was off to the side of the road. It was at this point that I was glad I had not hit the one previously because it would have hurt. I arrived safely at the rest stop and again got some stuff for the rest of the way in.

Steve and I started out this time with a goal in mind: he was going to ride out in front again and I would again meet him when he stopped. I of course did not mind the roll I had undertaken in this elaborate scheme. Just as long as I made it to the finish line for the day. That was my goal and I was sticking to it. We started out and I was soon behind Steve again but this time I was drafting. This is like when you are driving your car closely behind another car to kind of help you along with minimal work. We soon caught up with another person and passed him. At this point Steve got tired of pulling me and decided that it was best for him to head on out. So I ended up pulling the person that we passed for about 2 miles before he decided to pass me. Please note that my legs were starting to turn into jelly (don’t know what flavor but they were having a little problem working with each other). While passing me he asked if I wanted to follow him and I told him that I would be just fine by myself (more like please let me die all alone, I don’t want you to see the agonizing death). So he headed on out and I was once again alone to ponder the meaning of more interesting things. One of which was: what ran over those two squirrels back there and why are they in that pose? It looked like a scene from a Shakespeare tragedy (as Steve pointed out later). It seems that a previous biker ran over one of them on his way back into McCall. Don’t know if the other one was so distraught over this that it decided that life was no longer worth living for.

I somehow managed to catch up with some other people on the ride (ok, there was a stop sign and lots of traffic so they were waiting). We turned onto the main road by Lardo’s in McCall and headed back to the place we started from. As we got to the high school, I turned and headed to my parent’s house. Steve and Deb were there at the house. Steve, Philip and I headed down to the McCall Brewing Company after Steve and I got cleaned up. We arrived at the finish line by the Brewery riding in the Suburban. We went in where I bought Steve a couple rounds of beer, Philip a root beer and I had a nice dark drink that looked and tasted like beer.

After being there for about an hour and chatting with others who had made the long trip we decided that it was time to head back to the house and take a nice rest.

At the starting place for the bike ride they had a nice dinner for all of the riders and guests so we ended up going there to eat that evening. Eating was not the only thing on my mind as we arrived at this function. My body was telling me that there was something that it needed and it involved being elbowed, stretched and kneaded. Yes, they had a group of massage therapists there to make all of the aches go away. After slamming down dinner, I sprinted (hobbled) over to the tables lined up for the massage and waited in line. The massage felt great.

They had drawing for some items and then Maureen Manley (she was a world class cyclist in 1990 and 1991 and lives in Kirkland) spoke about her battle with MS.

After this we went back to the house and decided that sleep was the best thing for all. Tomorrow would be another busy day on the bike.

To be continued…