Prologue

Deciding to ride a 1200K was a long process for me.  Starting in 1999, I began riding the intro distances of the brevets with the Georgia club and my Nanimal friends Tom Cross, Hans Mixdorf and Mike Delong.  Through those rides and the Gainesville Florida brevets, I met the unforgettable beer (not) brothers, Mark Wolff and Lou Wolff from Jacksonville.  I have certainly enjoyed their company and pace on a number of brevets. When I heard about the format of the Cascade 1200K including the overnight stops, this concept of a “kindler, gentler” approach to a 1200 seemed quite attractive.

One of my best friends from college, Ted Lundin, who lives in Portland, Oregon decided on the Cascade as his first 1200.  Another cycling friend and ancien, Owen Richards, lives in Seattle, planned to ride and offerred to serve as a base station for our Audax Atlanta assault on the Cascade.  Larry Fyfe is a part of the Jacksonville crew and rounded out our group of 6 who signed up for the ride.

In 2005, my qualification efforts started with the Gainesville, Florida, series where I completed the 200K, 300K, and 600K brevets with Mark, Lou and Larry.  The Georgia brevet series treated me less favorably. Nutritional failures on the Georgia 400 led to my abandonment after the halfway point somewhere in South Carolina.  I had similar problems on the Georgia 600 with abandonment at mile 300.  Accompanying me on the Georgia 400 were the Florida boys who stopped with me rather than leaving me sick in some small town hotel.  Those are good friends but also friends that I didn’t want to subject to the same on a 1200.  On the GA 600, Cary Way offered support and company during the night riding portion and our late return to the overnight control.  I was encouraged that Cary was also planning to do the Cascade 1200.

My DNF’s on the hard Georgia rides had given me some real doubts about my ability to complete the Cascade 1200. After some medical and nutritional consultations, a change in some prescription medication, some advice from Mike Delong and a renewed focus on electrolyte replacement I decide to pursue my original decision and do the ride.

Day One  This 1200K brevet will start in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains northeast of Seattle and head south, along the front range of the Cascades, to the foot hills of Mount Rainier. Riders will then continue south and skirt Mt. St. Helens, then up and over Elk Pass before dropping into the Columbia Gorge to stop at Carson, Washington for the first night.

While our group was standing at the start of the ride Saturday morning looking around at a crowd of fit to being almost gristly riders, Ted and I were struck by a similar scary thought –that we don’t belong with this company!  (Looking deeper we did start to note the very occasional beer belly.)  There were many elegant bikes and folks had come from all over the country.  Many riders were proudly sporting various PBP jerseys from over the years.

It was a pleasant start as we rolled out as a group at 6 AM on Saturday.  The riding began through the agricultural countryside with the smells of the farms in our faces as we pedaled the rollers and turns leading up to the first two controls.  Ted, Larry and I stopped briefly at the Truly Scrumptious Bakery near mile 95 for a quick snack (2 donuts and a Mountain Dew) and then rejoined Mark, Lou and Chris Kaiser to continue toward our planned lunch stop at mile 120 - a great Mexican restaurant near the turn to Randle.  Mark sampled a cold beer but the rest of us settled for iced tea or colas. The plan was to allow lunch to settle prior to starting the climb up to Elk Pass at elevation 4080. And a good plan it was!

The lunch revived me a good bit and we all rode comfortably onto the gorgeous forest service roads at mile 140.  Below, the road surface was great and above was overhung with lush trees and landscape.  Ted and I inched towards the back on this hilly section and were soon riding along at a comfortable, if slow, pace.  Somewhere on this section the sun set and we settled in to work our way towards the next control at Northwoods.

At the Northwoods control was a scene that would be repeated for Ted and I over the next two nights – a cheering and supportive group of volunteers with lanterns, soup, coffee and sandwich makings.  Mark, Lou, Larry and Chris had waited for us here and all except for Chris, we head out together for the last 35 miles to the overnight control in Carson.  It might have been midnight at this control when next the road turned upwards towards Olman pass at elevation 3100.  Ted and I watched the Florida boy’s tail lights wind up in the air above us indicating the work we were going to have to do.  Chris came and passed by us after changing a flat tire and rode on up the road.

The temperatures were in the 40’s at this point.  Ted and I decided that we needed a short nap to rest our eyes (and legs).  Lying beside the road in the gravel and the cold air served as our alarm clock and after 20 minutes we got back on the bikes and finally reached the overnight control at around 3:15 am. After a shower and some food at the middle school we retired to the gym with a wake up time of 5:30. 

Around this time, it struck me that our 10.6 mph average speed for the day did not bode well for our sleep potential for the reminder of the ride.  It probably helped that I did not know this would be the last time Ted and I would have time to sleep at one of the overnight controls. Our pace from this point onward forced us to ride straight through with only road naps to revive us. Lou must have had some similar thoughts because at breakfast we heard he had decided to abandon the ride and become a volunteer.  Larry had a look of fear in his face as he told us about Lou. It was a shock to us and my thoughts turned to the fact that one of our stronger, experienced companions had decided this ride may be too hard to complete.

Day Two From Carson, riders will travel east, up the gorge, climb out of the Columbia Breaks to Goldendale and over Status Pass before dropping into the Yakima River valley, in Eastern Washington. Riders will turn east in Toppenish to cross the Rattlesnake Hills and then drop into the Columbia basin for the second night.

Mark, Larry, Chris, Ted and I rolled out together from Carson.  One of the volunteers who took our photo tried hard to animate the group but everyone was thinking their own thoughts and mulling over their concerns about our short night of sleep.  None of us had gotten much more than 2 hours.

We had a great ride along the Columbia River with a tailwind and paceline helping to make good time.  We picked up our friend Owen Richards somewhere in this stretch and turned up a pretty river road to start our climb out of the valley to Klickitat.  This was another gorgeous section with great views in the valley and even better ones heading up the plateau to the Goldendale control. On the way to the Status Pass summit, Ted and I assumed our usual position at the back as we were dropped from the group that then roared on a great long downhill.  This turned into a hot section on a too traveled road that had us looking for shade.  The experience was made worse by one narrow-shouldered section with trucks and RV’s roaring by much too close for comfort.

We regrouped with Mark, Larry, Chris and Owen at the Café control in Toppenish where they were splayed out on the sidewalk in the shade of the building.  Larry looked particularly red faced and toasted so everyone was OK with waiting on Ted and me to eat and get back on the road.  This leg was generally uphill and Ted could not keep the pace so I dropped back to ride with him.  We met Peter Norris on this stretch and helped him change a flat.  We rode with Peter for several miles until we were almost at the Mattawa control.

Ted and I biked on through the waning daylight to the control at Mattawa, to be greeted by our great control group.  After hot soup, good coffee and sandwiches we took a 20 minute nap and then headed off for the last leg.  We both hit a low point on that leg.  The road was not steep but seemed to be generally uphill and we were generally uncomfortable.  We did a lot of stopping and adjusting on this section and did not feel very good until the sun came up.  At that point we enjoyed a couple of comfortable hours cycling to the Quincy -supposed to be - overnight control.  We arrived in time to greet departing riders (including Cary, Davy and Charlie and Jim Solonick) and for a great breakfast.

Day Three From here riders will travel through time as they encounter the prehistoric archaeology of Moses Coulee, and the mid-Columbia plateau. Riders will then head west to once again cross the Columbia and head north to Loop Loop pass before spending the last night in the scenic Methow river valley at the foot of the North Cascades.

Day Three should not have been so hard but it was my worst.  The distance was only 170 miles but based on our late finish of the previous day we got a late start heading back out.  Showering and clothing changes took us until 8 am before Ted and I were on the road again.  The route also started with a long section of chip and asphalt being laid on the way out as we were riding combined with being the very last riders in the group at this point.  It seemed that all the folks that had been struggling in and around us had dropped out and we missed the shared misery.

The route went through a really pretty farming valley that was bordered by basalt cliffs.  The cliffs had a lot of great detail like they had been carved.  Ted informed me that they were columnar basalt. We recharged at the Farmer control which was in a great looking wooden community building.  Surprisingly, another rider came in while we were there.  We went down the road a bit from there and laid down in the sun for a nap. My memory gets a little fuzzy on this section.  I know there was a long section where the straight road just went up and down and eventually we got to McNeil Canyon Road, dropped down off the plateau back to the river and finally to the control in Malott.

The sun set on our way up the valley to Malott. The control guys in Malott were my same favorite folks.  It seemed like we only saw them at night. They were encouraging, helpful and supplied the now familiar soup, sandwich and coffee. We were trying to move fast motivated by thoughts of getting some sleep that night but that was before we left and encountered Loup Loup Pass.

While pretty, Loup Loup was a vicious climb.  Ted was feeling pretty good at this point but I was starting what was to become several hours of fairly entertaining but ride-crippling hallucinations.  First, the entire road surface appeared to be under laid with leaves and other patterns like they were suspended in Lucite. At other times the road surface was decorated with patterns like a full body tattoo.

The lines on the road assumed different appearances as well.  At times both the white lines and the yellow would disappear or more accurately appear clear and the road would seem to be a guardrail-less bridge in the sky.  I don’t particularly care for heights and found this to be not very conducive to safe riding.  At other times the lines turned into 2 foot tall curbs or low walls. The most disturbing vision involved the center line bending over to connect to the white side line forcing me to ride into a slowly unfolding corner of highway.

Another fairly consistent and persistent vision involved wet or tar patches on the road turning into a half animal that would rise from the road upon our approach and then shrink back down into the two dimensional shape when we passed. 

The edges of the road were full of fairly active visions as well.  Landscape moving in the breeze turned into cubist jack-in-the-boxes grimacing towards the roads.  The horizon and sky were also a little bright which brought about an effect that Ted shared which was feeling like we were riding under a bridge even in the open road!

The picture show continued with the addition of boxy furniture forms appearing on the road so that I was forced to ride through them.  There were also various sheets and other vapors that would drift across the road and obscure Ted’s taillights from view.  One particularly fine example of this was a mattress form that was thick enough that my vision changed for the period that I was “inside” this shape. After this went on for several hours, I decided to try another roadside nap in an effort to shake these visions.

This was a fairly pitiful point for us.  It was raining and the shoulder was just a mud field but finally we found a place to lean against the guardrail under our space blankets and snooze for 30 minutes or so.

We eventually made it to the top, met up with the volunteer that was providing the sweep and headed into the very cold downhill run to Mazama.  We arrived there at around 4:30 am but once again it was all we could do to eat breakfast, get cleaned up and get back on the road for the next day’s start.  While Ted was on a mission to find some relief for his saddle sores, our general stuporous state made us slow to get a move on.  This would have been a good stop to have made early given the nice hotel-type rooms distributed around a ranch-like property.  I managed about 30 minutes of sleep on a couch but Ted was not so lucky. 

Day Four The last day will take the riders over Washington and Rainy Passes in the North Cascades, along the Skagit and Sauk rivers and home to the finish.

We stopped for a shot of espresso at a little stand on the way out of the overnight which improved our spirits.  This was going to be a hard day but I was actually feeling pretty good and was having thoughts that we might just finish the ride within the time limit if we picked up the pace. The road climbed for the first 30 miles up to Washington Pass at elevation 5477feet.  It was well graded but still took almost 3.5 hours of upward pedaling – the best part was knowing it was going to be generally downhill the rest of the day.

Ted was feeling the impact of his saddle and lack of sleep on this section so I ended up doing a lot of pulling.  My legs were feeling strong and we started making good time but Ted kept drifting off the back. He stopped for a nap and I had a bad cup of coffee at a health food store.  Ted had a low point here and considered stopping the ride.  The volunteer providing sweep essentially wouldn’t let him stop; he whipped us into shape and got us moving again.  He waited for us at the turns, kept time and generally urged us on for the remainder of the ride.  His strong manner but good sense of humor was instrumental to our finish.  His name was Ted, too.

So after much pain and torture and riding around in what seemed like circles, there we were back at the hotel.  There was a group waiting to cheer us in but we got turned around in the parking lot and managed to ride up behind them! We could not have planned that part better. Their cheers were still real, we were glad to greet our Florida pals as we handed over our bikes and limped into the control for pizza and beer. We were the last two riders to arrive and right at the time limit.

I had tears in my eyes and could not really believe that we had made it.  We had been chasing controls since the Sunday morning, had gotten less than 4 hours total sleep/naps and now at midnight on Tuesday it was over. It had been questionable most of the ride but now Ted and Andy had successfully completed the Cascade 1200K! The remainer of our group had arrived around an hour earlier.  (Larry had also finished his first 1200K.)

The Seattle International Randonneurs club volunteers who sponsored this ride were absolutely fantastic.  Besides being incredibly organized, everyone involved was focused on providing the best experience possible and offered support and encouragement throughout the ride. We could not have done it with out their encouragement.  Since Ted and I were bringing up the rear, we were also the ones keeping the late controls open and the sweep out late.  This group was not getting enough sleep either.

Ted and I could also have not done it alone since we found that our highs and lows generally did not coincide allowing us to take turns pulling the other along and keeping track of the route and turns.

~Andy