The hard part is done

The hard part of training for this year's Seattle to Portland 205 mile bike ride was completed as of today.  We did our third century ride of the season, our most difficult.  We know we need to ride 115 miles the first day of the STP, so wanted a ride where we would be in the saddle for a comparable amount of time.  Since the STP has long stretches with little elevation gain, we designed today's ride to give us a lot of elevation gain.  And I mean a lot.  And what that did was give us comparable saddle time.

Here is today's ride:

See the big spike at about mile 90?  That's Hell Hill.  I have done this hill many times in the past 6 years, most of the time to prepare for STPs.  But I (and we) have never done this hill at mile 90 of a ride that is already very hilly.  I and we have usually done this steep hill at about mile 20 of a ride.  So as we approached it today, we were more than a bit anxious.  But, up we went! 

Here we are at mile 62, in Coupeville.  We still felt pretty good then.

And here we are at the end of 100 miles.  I actually believe, and I'm not kidding about this, that we are the two skinniest riders out of the 10,000 who do the STP. 

Another special part of the day:  In Coupeville I saw a couple driving a 1955 Dodge.  Want to know what is cool about that?  WE had a 1955 Dodge when I was growing up.  It was our first new car ever.  I can remember how proud my parents were of it.   I even remembered that the gear shift was on the dash board.  The second photo is of me looking in it to see something I had not seen in 53 years (when we traded it in for our 1960 Dodge).