The soak in the tub and the good night’s sleep felt great, and I was up and ready to go. Probably a bit too excited to leave, as I failed to ensure I picked up all of my belongings before leaving :( I forgot my excellent 10400 Mah battery pack and my wind-free ear covers, in my haste to leave. By the time I noticed it, I was some twenty five kilometers away, and just didn’t want to lose two more hours, riding back and forth. I called the motel owner, explaining that I’d forgotten some stuff, and if he could put it away safely for me. When I called him back later, he said nothing was found, so I guess somebody quietly pocketed it. Their gain, my loss. Losing the wind-free was particularly bad, as it did a very good job of cutting the wind whine around my ears, as I’m a bit sensitive about that, and it makes my tinnitus worse.

My breakfast consisted of a coffee and two warmed up burritos which I purchased at a gas station in Redmond, and I pushed off as soon as I was done with it. There was some wind, and a fair bit of climbing to do, so I got down to it and pushed away. My nemesis, the saddlebag, remained held in place by a piece of rope that Jeff the samaritan had used a stiff sailor’s knot on, and I didn’t even want to touch it. I rolled along, struggling to keep an average above 18 kmph. In just under six hours since I’d started, I’d covered 104 km, and pulled into a gas station in Michelle, where I bought a cold coffee and a bottle of strawberry milk, and also some new AA batteries for my Garmin; the store didn’t have lithium, so ended up buying two sets of Alkanine batteries. Alkaline batteries die fairly fast, and sometimes need to be swapped out more than once per 24 hr period, while Lithiums comfortably cleared 36hrs or more of active use. Somebody at the gas station mentioned that there was a hostel up the street, but I didn’t realize at that point that it was the Spoke-n-Hostel, and I rue having missed out on meeting the wonderful folk who run it. Since I wasn’t looking to rest, I stopped right next door, at The Bridge Creek Cafe, where I ate a big meal of sandwiches and fries, and washed it down with a ginger beer. Just as I was about to leave, who should come trooping in, but Jeffrey Stamerjohn, on his trusty bike called Big Red! I greeted him, wished him luck, and returned to the road.

The temperature was in the high 20s (Celcius), and for a guy who’d been riding a lot in single digit temperatures and on ocassions, even below freezing conditions, this was already powerfully warm. The climb right out of Mitchell was brutal; it was steep, and seemed to go on forever, without any respite. There’s about 530 meters of climbing in a 12 km steady climb that goes up to 8% in sections. Once I got there though, I knew I had an easy ride over the next few hours, where I steadily descended. The descent though was not as fast as I’d imagined, as there was a terrific head-wind, almost all the way till the bottom, near the John Day Fossil-bed National Monument. The fossil-beds were spectacularly beautiful, and it almost felt like being inside an Indiana Jones movie, going through the canyon, with rocks from a different millenia lining both sides. It was both exhilarating and humbling at the same time. After the fossil-beds, I started a low-grade climb towards Dayville. I was very disciplined during this section of the ride. Perhaps for the first time in the race, the bike felt like a true extension of myself, and pedaling seemed as natural as breathing.

I reached Dayville at 1740, thankfully before the mercantile store closed. The guy manning the store was either the son of the store owner, or at any rate, a blood relation. He received me quite enthusiastically and catered to my needs. He helped to fix an additional bottle cage under my aerobars, and that was some neat work. I bought a bunch of small tubes of riding cream, which was of quite excellent quality, drank about a quart of buttermilk, and ate two burritos for dinner. Now that I was fed, I could roll on. The temperature had cooled considerably, and I was loving it. I thought of riding through Mount Vernon, right up to John Day, but as I started rolling, I started to feel a bit uneasy. I’ve ridden lots of rides in Sweden, even right through the night, but here, I was feeling a bit ill-at-ease. By the time I got to about a couple of miles to Mount Vernon however, I started to feel better, but suddenly, out of nowwhere, a dog jumped out of the darkness and started aggressively chasing me and barking at me. I’m terrified of dogs, and had decided that I’d worry about facing them when I reached Kansas, but this was unexpected. My heart-rate redlined in no time, and I was pushing like crazy and it seemed like an eternity before the dog appeared to lose interest. Whoa! Suddenly, I began to see feral dogs in every shadow, and the prospect of biking onwards to John Day seemed less attractive. I pulled up in front of Blue Mountain Lodge Motel, and after negotiating a bit, I had a room to sleep in, for 50 bucks, which I thought was great. I settled in, updated my wife about my dog-induced change of plans, and fell asleep almost immediately.

Mileage: 205.02 km (128 miles)
Climb: 1669 m (5475 ft)
Total time: 14 hrs 13 mins
Moving time: 10hrs 04 mins
Link to Strava activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/1024755143

You can access other posts of mine related to TABR 2017, by clicking on this link: https://pchengi.com/tag/tabr2017