Shakedown Ride

Date: June 3, 2007 Sunday Shake-down ride Starting Point: Anacortes, WA Ending Point: Anacortes, WA Via: Around island Mileage: 26.3 Time: 3:16 Mph: 8.0 Terrain: coastal hilly Temperature High: 85 Temperature Low: 60 Cooks: Aede and Clive Food: Pasta with marinara and vegetable sauce, salad, tapioca pudding Weather: sunny Lodging: San Juan Motel -our last night in a brick building (officially at least) Cumulative Mileage: 26.3 Miles to go: ≈4,274 Today was the first day that we had to be awake at 6am to get ready for breakfast at 7 and riding at 8. This was in preparation for our upcoming 92-day routine. Granted, it was a short day in terms of riding, but it was a good mini-preview of what was coming. At Washington Park, we enlisted the help of a visiting Canadian to take group pictures with each of our cameras. He was extremely pleasant and agreeable to such an imposition. I have him and his wife two fluorescent bicycle pins as a thank-you. Tim had us put up our tents in the park as a dry-run of our camp set-up. It was after only four miles of riding, so it didn’t exactly duplicate the amount of exhaustion we would have to battle valiantly to be successful against the tent. At Deception Pass I had an extended conversation with two motorcyclists who were very interested in our trip and in the fact that I was biking for the American Lung Association of Maine. The young woman took a card and said, “I think I’ll sponsor you.” That was, of course, music to my ears. On the way back to town, our youngest rider, Anne, had a somewhat serious accident. She required some stitches and clean-up. Her bike might have been overloaded and she fell when her bike began to shake when she was going fairly fast downhill. Fortunately she was alright, but shaken up. She might jump ahead to Winthrop and wait for us there and recover. At map meeting, where the leader goes over the next day’s route, we went through a long and painful process of sharing cell phone numbers. It was “painful” because there are three foreign riders whose numbers had several extra digits we’re not used to and in a different format. The meeting ended in a fine manner with people feeling relatively confident about the route for our first day when we actually begin coming east.