| got past Sultan, we were in unfamiliar territory for
me, at least with regard to cycling. The road east was
beautiful and the weather for this part of the ride was
perfect. I stopped often to take photos of the various
rivers, streams and waterfalls near the road. It
started raining as we climbed Steven's Pass, although
not very hard. We actually got a little more rain
further east as we descended toward Leavenworth, which
in hind-sight made the ride much more pleasant. Once we
got past the rain with about 20 miles to go, the
temperature soared. My bike computer thermometer
measured 102 degrees F. Fortunately, we had a nice tail
wind and most of the route from Steven's Pass to
Wenatchee is downhill, so we literally flew for the last
60 miles of the ride.
I pulled into the motel in the leading group at about
3:10PM with an average speed of 18 mph. Tomorrow's ride
is supposed to be quite a bit tougher and I'm sure it
will be much hotter (at least compared to the average
temp for the day), so I'll have to slow down the pace to
have the energy to make it the full 160 miles.
All in all, a great day. I met some very nice people
that I'm sure I'll get to know much better over the
coming weeks, and really enjoyed myself. Oh, the minor
glitches - well, really only one to speak of - somewhere
along the way I hit a rock and cut the sidewall of my
rear tire. To be safe, I replaced it when we got to the
motel even though it only had about 300 miles on it. |
