Flèche NW completed - Portland OR to Olympia, WA via Astoria, OR.. I wasn't sure how I'd like the evening start - 7pm - but it turned out great. We were fresh for the night riding, rather than going into the night already tired. Our fifth rider's wife fell ill Friday afternoon, and he had to cancel at the last moment; five became four. Epic Ride Weather predicted a light headwind the entire route, with overnight lows of 40, daytime high upper 60's, and minimal chance of rain. Being in the PNW, I carried rain gear regardless of the weather model. First stop was Vernonia at mile 45, about 10pm. The only thing open was a bar with a fryer, so we had 3 rounds of tater tots with Cokes. Then the long stretch to Astoria, with a quick warmup in a public restroom at the Elk Viewing Area. We burned about an hour and a half at a 24 hour convenience store in Astoria, where the staff was nice enough to let us nap in the closed seating area. We chowed down on convenience store fare, put our heads down, and lights out. As we crossed the 2 mile long Astoria-Megler Bridge, we saw the first light of dawn. Our team roster came together fairly late leading up to the event, with two Seattle guys joining us. They parked their car in Olympia Thursday afternoon, and road a Perm route Olympia to Portland Thursday night into early Friday morning. They had Friday to sleep and recover for our evening start. These guys were strong, and did a lions share of pulling into the wind for us. It warmed up quickly for the Astoria to Raymond stretch, and we stopped twice to strip off layers. I started struggling with drowsiness, backing off the draft because I couldn't keep the gap consistent. A quick bio stop turned into a not-so-quick group micro-nap stop. Between the quick nap and two espresso gels (2 @ 40mg caffeine), I had no more issues. Late breakfast in Raymond, at a local restaurant, was a great pick me up. We burned an hour there, but didn't nap because it was a bit too busy for that kind of shenanigan. Raymond to Pe Ell had the only southward stretch, giving us a brief respite from the headwind. The thing is, with a couple strong riders to pull against the headwind, having a tailwind stretch isn't really any easier - tailwind means less draft. Anyway, on to Pe Ell, where we had a planned rest stop. The weather was glorious by this time, 70F and sunny, so we resupplied at a convenience store and rested/napped in a trailhead park. Our team captain had a loose plan, and I was tracking miles and hours remaining whenever time or mileage made the math easy. We departed stops when it was roughly 10 miles/hr to go. From Pe Ell, we took the Willapa Hills trail for about 18 miles. The trail was gravel for all but the last couple miles; mostly firm gravel, it allowed us to roll along comfortably at 14-15 mph. We approached but did not enter Centralia. Our 22 hour control was in Rochester, 28k from the finish. Somewhere about an hour out of Rochester we stopped for a quick resupply and thinking session. Time math is hard enough by itself, but add in sleep deprivation, and units conversion factors as half our team had notes in km and half in miles... and we had to do some convenience-store curbside figuring. Eventually we decided to screw the figuring and just ride our bikes. The strongest guy got on the front, asked me if he needed to do anything special with the pace, and I said, "just ride". It came down to two simple decisions:
1) Might we get to the 22 hour control too early, meaning before 20 hours meaning before 3pm? Ok that's easy since it was just after 3pm.
2) Are we in trouble? No, because we had 40 miles to go in just under 4 hours.
So just ride.
We got to the 22 hour control around about 4:45, so we had 15 minutes to kill. I immediately laid down on the sidewalk for a quick nap, while the guys went in the grocery for snacks. I had snacks galore, and valued a quick nap. At 5pm we took a pic and rolled out. The remaining stretch was 18 miles, flat, and mostly car light. Ezpz, cake walk right? Nope, our strong guy got on the front and pulled at a steady 17-19mph, and we finished just past 6pm, with nearly an hour to spare.
There were 4 fleche teams converging in Olympia, and we had a group brunch planned for Sunday morning. Since we had a Saturday evening finish, we had a team dinner at a local pub before our two SIR guys headed home and us two Portland guys headed to our hotel. After a shower I got through about two sentences of my e-book when it was lights out.
The brunch, held at a nearby park shelter, was fun; I've done 4 fleches now, and this was the first one I didn't arrive at the group meal directly from the road. I'm going to call the evening start/finish a winner. At the brunch, stories were told, road jokes were retold, and friendships paused the last few years were rekindled.
The two of us took Amtrak back to Portland, a nice relaxing end to a fantastic, though difficult, weekend.
Cheers
Last edited by downtube42; 05-22-22 at 11:48 PM.