What? Another rest day already? How does a tour organizer determine when to have a rest day? I suspect there are at least two factors.
Factor 1: How difficult the riding has been. And, as the past few day’s blog entries have indicated, it’s been difficult for me. How do the first 7 days compare to the ride as a whole? Overall daily average mileage is supposed to be 50 miles; our average so far has been 61 miles or 21% greater than the overall average. Overall climbing is supposed to be 3,000 feet per day; the first 7 days average has been 3,739 or 25% greater than overall average. So maybe the rest of the ride (17 days) will be easier, although I know of a couple of difficult days; one 97 miles.
Factor 2: Finding good lodging. The Ponderosa Best Western (photo right above) in Sisters is probably the best accommodation so far; large rooms in a park-like setting with large pool, hot-tub, etc. And Sisters is an unusual town. The official population is a little over 2,000 but the downtown is chock full of restaurants, coffee and ice cream shops, galleries, etc. You’d think the population was 20 to 40,000. The architecture is part ski-town and part cowboy-town. Tourism is the main industry. This weekend features some type of cowboy event with fake shootings; next weekend is a 3-day folk music event with many artists at three venues.
This morning many of the females went to a yoga session; rider Patti is a yoga instructor. Most of the males were cleaning and lubricating their bikes because of recent rain. But more rain is forecast for tomorrow. Damn.
Although I don’t usually look at average speed or time in the saddle, I did look at this data for the first 7 riding days. Average total time, including potty stops, butt breaks, lunch stops, etc. was 7 hours and 14 minutes per day. On my cross country ride 4 years ago average daily time – average distance was 80 miles - was less than 6 hours. For the non-cyclist, a butt break occurs when your butt and the saddle no longer are friends. Stopping for just a couple of minutes does wonders and you can resume riding in harmony.
Our leader rode her bike up McKenzie pass this morning. She enjoyed it so much she took some of us up this afternoon in the van. You can see several mountains and the road has been carved in lava fields thousands of years old.
Mt Washington and Three-Fingered Jack Mtn.
Lava is kind of ugly. But the three sisters never looked better.
There are two possible routes tomorrow. We’re taking the shorter, easier route so we can get to town in time for Brenda to have a manicure and a pedicure. At least that is my story.
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