Today was a bit longer than the previous day with a little more climbing. For the riders from the Midwest, the little rollers looked like mountains and made the day a little challenging. But the scenery was great. The weather was perfect with the temperature around 75 degrees and very little wind. The day started off riding in cooling forests of tall pines, with lots of ferns. We were riding the same route as the MS bike ride so there were a lot of riders on the same course and it made for an interesting day. When there are a lot of riders on the road it makes it a little bit easier to pass the miles because there is always a rider in front of you that you are trying to catch. This provides the much needed motivation to keep you moving forward at a reasonable pace. We passed so many rest stops for the MS ride that the organizers for the MS ride started to notice up and began referring to us as the "other" ride. A few of the riders rode with workers from a tri shop in Bellingham that were riding in the MS ride. They were so interesting in our CDT that they donated money to support it. You meet lots of interesting people on long bike rides.
We road through Bow and Bayview before arriving at Deception Pass State Park where we had to ride across a really long and narrow bridge that spanned a lot of water. The views were spectacular. We had lunch at the State park. There was about 25 miles left after lunch to Ft. Casey Historical Park where we picked up the ferry to Port Townsend. The ferry only runs every 90 minutes so we had to time our ride to not end up waiting forever at the ferry terminal. With 23 CDT jerseys on the Ferry, you get noticed. A number of passengers asked about the ride and we even got a few more donations!
The ride across Admiralty Inlet was great and a perfect ending to a reasonably long ride. The water was calm and the sun was shining. At the end of the ride we had less than half a mile to get to the hotel. Everyone checking it and we hit the hot tub for a much deserved soak. Dinner was great at the Belmond Saloon on Water Street. Everyone was tired and ready for bed after dinner.
There was a little bit of excitement during the ride when Mark Pennington got clocked in the head by a passing RV. A bar on the side of the RV hit his helmet and put a big dent in the side of it. Luckily he didn’t fall over but we will have to find a bike shop tomorrow to replace the helmet as once they are "dented" they don’t offer much protection. Also, Moiz Shirazi was hammering up a hill and his rear derailleur gave out and ended up severely bent so he had to be SAGed into town. Hopefully we will find a bike store open tomorrow that can make some quick repairs and get him back on the road.
The team is doing great and really enthusiastic about the ride and already there is lots of talk about next years ride. 2 days down and 6 more to go.
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