Up Your Cadence: Day 62 John Day, OR to Mitchell, OR

This morning started off with a great breakfast and a nice send off from the host, who waved us off. We knew today would be an easier day, and aside from a few bike issues, it turned out to be that way. We had a gradual down hill until mile 40, and then a slightly steeper climb for 10 miles, then a gradual climb for another 10 or so, and then finally a big descent into Mitchell. The morning started really well, with all the teams moving very quickly to each water stop.

Our very first Portland sign... ever!

We had some difficulty finding a spot for lunch with actual shade, so we just parked the two vans next to each other with some space in between, and placed a big tarp on top of the vans to create shade. Of course, turns out that because we kept the vans running at least part of the time for various reasons, the space between the two of them became extremely hot because of the exhaust and no one could be in there anyway...

Brady somehow had a flat while eating lunch (as in no one was touching his bike). Presumably it was a rim tape problem, but since we were short on time and we had no extra rim tape, he just switched out the tube and hoped for the best. Well, a bit too much hope apparently, because just a few miles into the ride, Brady had yet another flat, and to make matters worse, when we tried a different tube, it went flat immediately. So three flats in just a few miles, which is not encouraging to say the least. To complicate matters worse, the area we were in had no cell phone service, and out of tubes... and the last van / group had already passed us. Aaron and I sprinted up the mountain as fast as we could to hopefully catch a group. Fortunately, the food van had decided to wait for us just to make sure what was going on, and they were sitting up the road by just a mile or so. We switched out Brady's front wheel for Max's wheel and were back on the road. A lot of bike problems definitely take place on 4K, but I'm glad that everyone is willing to share just about every resource to make sure everyone can keep riding. Before the beginning of the trip, I wasn't sure how the team would work when it came to sharing tubes, patch kits, etc., but I can definitely say that no one holds anything back.

We made it up to the summit of the mountain (first we passed by a couple of guys who were long boarding it across the country... twice... for a total of 9000 miles... incredible). We began the descent down the mountain, and although I decided to just coast and not pedal to enjoy the views, we still finished the last 8 miles into Mitchell incredibly quickly. Right before the school we're staying in was what appeared to be a huge hill, which as you can imagine to say the least was super disappointing, since 1. we had just made a massive descent and lost a couple of thousand feet of elevation, and 2. we had already had a big climb and our legs were pretty tired, and finally 3. the climb was nowhere on the elevation profile (which we've started studying religiously). Thankfully the hill turned out to be steep but short and we rode into our teammates cheering us on outside in the parking lot.

Thank you to our host for the night, Mitchell School We had a great dinner (including freeze pops!). Mitchell is definitely the smallest town we have stayed in all trip (population 139 as of the 2012 census). Because it is in a canyon (as I said, we descended down a mountainside for 8 miles to get here), there is zero cell service. The pastor at our last host told us that, but I think for some reason everybody assumed he was exaggerating, but it's completely true. This might be a really small town, but it's nice to be here, especially since I know that the chance of me coming back to Mitchell, OR is extremely slim. Part of the trip for me is definitely getting to see small towns and remote areas that are hard to access. Not too many people in the world will ever see these small towns, especially if they zoom past them at 80 miles an hour on the interstate - nothing quite like climbing up a steep mountain at 8mph... once you do that, you'll never forget the terrain.