The idea that in less than four weeks I’ll be on the road in Oregon on my way to Idaho and Utah still seems like a fantasy, but here’s a brief update about my recent training and preparations:
The past few weeks have been all about getting my body and bicycle ready for the rigors of a long trip. I’ve fallen a few minutes short of my planned training times a couple of the past few weeks, but I still feel good about progress. Planned weeks of 360, 480 and 540 minutes came in at 347, 490 and 450 — in other words, close, great and not really that close. On the other hand my long day so far is 360 minutes, or 6 hours and over 1500 feet of climbing. This pretty accurately simulates what an average day on the road for me will be like, and while I was certain sore at the end of the day, I wasn’t devastated. That’s a good sign right?
The long day in question was a trip with my friend Brooke to the Bicycle Festival, fun ride and overnight party in the Cascade mountain town of Snoqualmie, Washington. Departing from Seattle at about 7am, I wound my way up the shores of Lake Washington under a sunrise stained deep red by the hanging smoke from a profusion of fires burning in the central part of Washington and Oregon right now (more on them later.) The smoke would stay with us all day as we wound up through the bucolic towns north of Seattle, and then back down through the tranquil valley of the Snoqualmie river toward the first slopes of the cascades, and then finally up a giant lurching hill past Snoqualmie Falls (for those of a certain age, that’s the one in Twin Peaks) and thence to the festival, which took place under the smoky shadow of impressive Mount Si in a rather unimpressive field. The scenery, along with the good music, food trucks and general lack of sobriety made for a good night, however.
Being out on my bike so often over the past few weeks has reconnected me with the powers of nature. The other day here in Seattle — after a very long expanse of dry, hot weather — we experienced a drenching rain and a rather violent, unexpected, wind storm. The tail wind that propelled me north at a rapid clip up one lobe of my usual training loop became a stiff headwind on my way back. This recalled a 2006 bike tour during which my brother and I battled a brutal coastal headwind for 4 days down the Oregon coast until mercifully, and all at once, the air currents wheeled around and blew us practically all the way to San Francisco. This might happen on my upcoming tour — I have no way of knowing for sure, although I believe that the prevailing autumnal winds in the mountain/steppe through which I will ride come from the north and west, which should generally be to my benefit since I am bound south and east.
Turning to ride home from my training, I crossed a familiar large avenue only to see this:
It was an excellent reminder, I thought, that we humans are not in charge of what the planet does when.
Frequently on my mind right now is the fact that there are three significant wildland fires burning more or less in the path I wish to take at the end of September. The fires in question are represented by the three blotches closest to the center of this map:
None of these fires has currently closed the road I wish to take, and many are slowly creeping along in far-flung areas away from the road. But two of the three have crossed US highway 26 over many miles, which means that I will ride through a landscape of charred trees and earth. While it’s true that the terrible fire season we’re having this year has thrown some of my plans into question, this is kind of meaningless when measured against the severe hardship, loss of property, injury and even death that this has caused in the lives of others.
Nature is nature, and we have to accept it — and this applies to the limits of my own body as much as it does to the terror of fire, or the power of wind.