Sept 16-Shelton to Chehalis-70 miles-1340 feet of climing

Today was a great day and a horrible day. We started out with great weather again. 4 days in a row with no jacket, leg or arm warmers for most people. It actually got quite warm at the end of the day. The team was looking forward to a relatively short day with on a very flat route. After the long day yesterday it provided a much needed boost to the team. The day started out great with all of us agreeing to regroup about 5 miles up the road for a group video shot of everyone riding together. We all regrouped and starting up a paceline. That was a huge mistake. With 23 riders, and some of them not too experienced riding in a paceline we had a lot of challenges getting going. It was like stop and go traffic. The stopping and going got worse the farther back in the paceline until disaster struck. We heard a crash and heard a bunch of the riders yelling man down. We stopped riding and when I turned around, Fred was on the pavement with a banged up face, shoulder and knee. He was dazed and it took him a while to sit up and get him in the van. Off to the hospital to get checked out. Unfortunately he broke a few bones in his shoulder when he slammed on the brakes to avoid crashing into the rider in front of him and flipped over his handlebars. It put a definite dent in the teams spirits for the rest of the day.

Now for the rest of the ride. It was fast and all the riders made great time. We had large groups of riders that were able to stick together for long periods of time so it made for a fun ride. We stopped in the town of Elma to go to the bathroom. One of the riders spotted a local saloon across the street that had a large Miller Lite sign that said "Bikers Welcome. It was 11 AM and the open sign came on so we crossed the street for a quick beer and ended up ordering some food as well. It was a good break from the ride but it was difficult to get back on the ride. Everyone complained of tired legs so it took a while to get going again. We got into a face paced paceline and cruised for 20+ miles without stopping until we came across the support van parked in a parking lot to the Broken Wheel Saloon, an old time country saloon with a huge amount of character. The locals in the bar didn't know what to make of our group and probably have never seen so much lycra and spandex. We had half a beer and got back on the road for a fast 20 miles to the hotel. At one point in the ride the paceline was about 8 riders and we were moving at about 25 miles per hour. The road was very smooth and all you could hear was the hum of the wheels on the smooth pavement and the rhythmic cranking of the chain. During those kinds of rides, you get amazing focus on the task at hand (keeping up the pace), ignore the aches and pains you are experiencing, and keep going. Professional athletes train year round to get into that state of mind and because we all have full time day jobs we can only experience this clarity of focus for brief moments of time.

Everyone arrived back at the hotel within an hour of each other and we road down the road to a nice park were we had a late lunch of southern style barbecue from a roadside shack called 2 old crows and a Hen. It was great. Everyone was stuffed for the quick ride back to the hotel where the team got checked in, took showers and got cleaned up for the 7 pm team meeting where we discussed the events of the day and initial planning for tomorrow.

There is alot of behind the scenes work that has to be done to get the 23 riders on the road in the morning. Its quit busy for the support team. The set up rest stops every 20 or 25 miles, do grocery shopping in between the rest stops and ride the route looking for riders that might need help. Its a lot of work the the team is very appreciative of the support team of Hannah Kook (Jeff Waybright's girlfriend), Mellisa Mueller, Senior Associate from Sacramento and Rich Fifield, a brand new associate in the Silicon Valley office. The work extremely hard during the day to keep us going

Tomorrow is going to be a long day (over 100 miles) with a bit more climbing that the past few days so its going to be a physical and mental challenge for many of the riders given they have already rode 260 miles. It will take a lot of mental focus for the team to complete the day before sunset. We will definitely be chasing daylight tomorrow. The reward is a nice hotel close to the Oregon coast in the town of Astoria.