Day Six
Centralia to Paradise Point SP, 79 miles
Up and out early from the Olympic Club in Centralia. This is another of the McMenamin brothers’ restored historic buildings, now serving as quaint and interesting restaurants, hotels, and in the case of the Olympic Club, a pool hall. Centralia is a railroad town and the Olympic Club is downtown and next to the tracks. In its day is served Centralia’s regular flow of rail passengers, rail workers, card sharps, pool hustlers and providers for whatever urge or or need a traveler passing through town might be looking for.
The was promising to be hot (and the heat was certainly delivered), but the morning was cool and sunny. Most of us rush through this part of Washingon on Interstate 5. But not too far from the interstate, the land is peppered with small farms, wood lots and well-kept homes and small businesses. Traffic was light and polite, the roads good, with lots of recent paving and fresh chip seal surfaces. Chip seal was a bane to my cycling back when I rode skinny, high pressure tires. This combination of roadbed and bike could rattle your fillings out, and was very fatiguing. I ran my low volume, high pressure tires at 110 psi. I now run with mid volume tires at 65 psi. Chip seal is now just fine.
My route from Centralia to Longview more or less stuck to the Seattle to Portland (STP) route, which as I mentioned was just a few weeks ago. When we rode the STP we were usually riding with about 10,000 of our best friends. Like so many activities, Covid hit the STP hard. This year there were 6,000 riders, the most since 2019.
In Longview the STP turns west and crosses the Lewis and Clark Bridge over the Columbia River to Rainier, Oregon. I had thought about continuing to Portland on this route, staying tonight at a lovely river-side campground near Scappoose, OR. But I reasoned, why put up with heavy US Highway 30 traffic, and add 7 miles to my ride tomorrow? Instead, I decided to stay on the Washington side and continue to enjoy these nice country roads.
Ozzie & Joan
We did take the Lewis & Clark Bridge on our way to McMinnville and had a delightful afternoon at the Rainier Riverfront Park.
There’s a reason the STP goes to Oregon where it does. It’s flat over there! On the Washington side, it’s the hilliest riding I have ever faced. Just south of Kalama, I passed a sign that said, “Narrow, winding road. Combination trucks prohibited”. It didn’t say steep. I’ll never bike past a sign like that again without thinking twice. I have ridden over the Appalachians, the Rockies, the Cascades, and from Palm Desert to Joshua Tree. Ridden. Today, I walked. For the first time ever, I think, I walked my bike up a steep, never-ending hill. The descents on the south side was just as steep, so I took it easy and stopped a few times to cool my brakes. These hills, in this heat, were brutal. I wrung out my sweaty bandana twice. So much sweat dried on my sunglasses that I couldn’t see through them.
The infamous Green Mountain Road
I think today was the hardest-earned 79 miles I have ever done. The good news is, everything held together and I blearily weaved my way into camp as planned, just a few hours late. This last week of steadily ramped-up training has paid off. Today was my crux day, which if done well, would, in my mind at least, give me confidence that I can in fact make this ride all the way through Oregon and California. I have only 1 ibuprofen left. Hopefully that will get me through the night and I can rise and shine tomorrow, which is mercifully only 37 miles to Troutdale, Oregon, just east of Portland.
