Friday, July 16, 2010

STP#1: The Line Starts Here.

This morning I got a pre-ride reminder of just how big Seattle-To-Portland Bicycle Ride is going to be. It's been a few years since I last took this ride. Today's task: get to Seattle. I drove to Portland where a line of gleaming bikes, their riders, and luggage wrapped around two corners of the city block. We are carefully loading bikes onto trucks, then hopping onto buses where we will join a moving city--10,000 riders--for a 200-mile weekend ride.
It's really quite a spectacle; this annual pilgrimage of steel and spandex, ridden and worn in all colors and shapes, stretching for miles and miles. So many cyclists in one event requires some patience. There are lines for everything, even just to get yourself and your bike to the start line. No worries, this morning everyone seemed pretty relaxed, a little subdued, and just eager to get there. Sometimes it's a kick just being part of something this humungous.
Within a few hours we were re-unite with our bikes, then we scattered for carbs, plus some of that coffee that makes Seattle Seattle. A few of us took short spins on our bikes, others were chillin.'
Tomorrow at sunrise, the lines will form at Husky Stadium, and we'll be rolling.

2 comments:

Geoff said...

I first took your line "that stretched for miles and miles" to mean that the spandex stretched for miles and miles... :-p

Kelly Carlisle said...

Ha! Well, in my case, that may not have been far from the truth! You may have been too young to remember my bumper sticker: "Spandex is a privilege, not a right." :)