August 11, 2022 in Clatskanie, Oregon
This morning, I woke up ready to ride and make the most of this last mid-length ride. After my coffee and cereal, I was even more prepared. Until we set off all the building alarms when someone accidentally went into an off-limits bathroom, forcing us to evacuate.
There’s not much more to the story. The alarm went off and it was super funny, and then life went on
(P.S. I don't have any pictures from today, so here's one I love but never posted from the 12th.)
I rode with Juan and Zoe today, and boy was getting out of Portland a nightmare. We mostly took a bike trail, but after watching a distracted cyclist take out another cyclist, we decided to ride in the bike lane of the road.
The cue sheet read like a mid-length novel, so we kept getting lost as well. But we prevailed!
We had been told that the ride was beautiful but extremely loud, which was exactly right. Once we’d gotten out of Portland, we were in the shoulder of a pretty major highway for the rest of the time. We didn’t have any particularly close passes, it was just beyond loud, which made it quite difficult to hear what my teammates were saying.
Today’s route had a couple of serious climbs, including one that lasted over 3 miles at a 7 or 8 percent incline. It was truly brutal, and I really had to talk myself through it.
I’m a slower climber than most of my teammates, but I’m very consistent. Usually I end up catching up to them when they start to get slower as they tire out, as was the case today.
A truly impressive downhill, which took us all the way through the rest of the ride made the uphills worth it.
We rolled into the host triumphant around 3:30. By that time, Erik, our program director, had arrived for our last few days and we all spent some time catching up with him.
Showers today were at a local pool, and once I got back I decided to lay down for the hour or so before dinner because I knew it would be a later night.
Our host gave us a pretty spectacular layout of soups, and I went with a vegan lemon rice and chickpea soup and a lot of bread, which really did the trick. Dessert was milk and cookies, as it should be.
I spent the meal talking to Eliza and one of the church members, who happened to be a journalist. Her advice to me was “don’t become a journalist,” but I’m going to chose to ignore that.
Today was also our very last presentation, so of course, I cried my face off during the video we play to the song All These Things That I’ve Done by the Killers.
We had a full evening ahead of us, so after the presentation, we regathered as a group to watch some movies that one of the riders had created about our trip.
Han, our trip videographer, had created 3 videos for our mini viewing party. First, we had a parody ad for our sleeping pads, which were terrible. Everyone woke up with a deflated sleeping pad each morning, but the hilarious video made sleeping on the concrete a little less painful.
Next, we watched a video Han had filmed while everyone was stuck in quarantine about the power of cycling to bring communities together. It starred Eliza, Alyssa, and Flavie, and it was truly beautifully done and extremely professional.
Lastly, we watched a 10-minute video with tons of footage of our trip. I thought it would make me cry, but it was really just joyful. It’s too big to share without a hard drive, so I can’t share it here, but hopefully it’ll be on YouTube soon.
Once the excitement was over, we moved to the next room to sit in a circle for town hall.
After our normal town hall things, we passed around our safety triangles, journals, license plates we found on the side of the road, and anything else we wanted the team to sign. I chose to pass around my safety triangle.
We closed out our evening with a little ceremony. It’s Bike and Build tradition to put a paracord bracelet onto your wrist on your last night of the trip. While the ends are being melted together, you tell the team about what the trip meant to you. Personally, I talked about my knee surgery recovery, and what it meant to me to go from not being able to do a single full pedal to biking 101 miles in one day in just 5 months.
As tradition goes, once your bracelet falls off, you send a life update to your team. Basically, it’s a way to consciously stay connected over the years.
It was pretty late by the time that was over, so a few people went to sleep, myself included. And on to the last day!
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