June 7, 1998 - STP (Seattle to Portland)

I bought a new bike, and so we have been riding a lot. Some times we would go 50 miles in one day just for the fun of it. We have been going almost every weekend.

One weekend we did the 50 miles and then just for fun we went up and down a lot of mountain trails. It was a lot of fun on my other new bike, which is a mountain bike. It was a little bit more than my Klein. It is a Cannondale. It has low gears and I use them a lot. When you are on the trails the tall gears are not much good.

My Klein is for the road and going fast. When I am on the flat it goes 17 to 18 miles an hour. What takes your average down is the stops and starts.

The STP was better this year. My sons, Myran and Vellen, my son-in-law, Tim, and my cousin, Cory, accompanied me.

There was a heavy mist out of Seattle that was almost a rain. We got wet. It slowly went away and just clouded over. We went faster this year and so we were able to put down about 140 miles the first day. I only got about 5 hours sleep the night before, so when I sat in the truck, off to sleep I went. I didn't wake up until they had the truck unloaded. After a shower, the chills and I went to bed. The next day I was a lot better, so back to Castle Rock to start where we left off. We started at 9:45 a.m. and it was an easy ride from there to the finish line and home . . . two Hundred ten miles in all.