Big Ride Day 4

Photos from Day 4

Day 4 was the best day of the ride so far. The entire day was spent riding through the rolling farmland of Eastern Washington. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous and the weather was sunny and cool. For the first time, I felt like I really had my cycling legs and I cruised easily most of the day. I cycled most of the day with Molly, the woman I met who lives in Doylestown, about 20 miles from where I grew up. We had some great conversations and I thoroughly enjoyed the day. The only bad thing that happened was that I got a broken spoke and a flat tire within 30 seconds of each other. Bad luck! I couldn't fix the spoke on the road so I ended up truing up the wheel and just riding it in with a spoke missing! Kinda scary but it worked out. When I got back to camp, the first thing I had to do was fix the spoke and I did some other bike maintenance too -- my first repairs on the road!

The last 30 miles or so of today's ride were all on a dedicated bike trail that runs through Spokane and all the way to the border with Idaho -- about 60 miles. What a treat to be off the roads and on a dedicated trail. The first part of the trail ran right by a river and was very scenic. Once we got near Spokane, however, the trail was hard to follow and there was some confusion as to how to get to camp. Our route maps made it seems like the trail went right to the camp but it actually didn't! Fortunately, some of the earlier riders had run into some locals from a bike club that agreed to show everyone how to get to camp. We all gathered in a park downtown to wait for these guys to lead us to camp. There was a carousel in the park and a lot of the riders went on it while we were waiting. After we saw how convoluted the directions to camp actually were, we were amazed that the route maps were so deficient and at our luck at having enlisted these local bikers to help us out.

Camp is on the grounds of a middle school tonight which has had some interesting side effects. For one thing, someone forgot to turn off the sprinklers and they went off right around our tents, soaking everything! It also turned out that I pitched my tent right in the left field of a softball diamond and there was a game played tonight. There was an outfielder standing right near my tent. Pretty wild!

Tomorrow is our first day off, so everyone is really fired up. We went down to a local brew pub and there was a live band. They started making up a song about the Big Ride impromptu and it was really good! Everyone was out dancing and singing. It was great fun! We got to bed really late but tomorrow, I can sleep in!

This page modified November 25, 2000