Day Five – Condon to Hermiston

Am grateful to have slept well last night and be well-rested for the ride today. While the elevation map looks significantly different from yesterday’s ride, there were some challenges along the way with a few climbs early in the day and a hot afternoon across the arid country-side.

The theme of today that stood out most was cycling as a team sport. Many think that cycling is an individual sport and that you hop on your bike and ride alone. In many cases, that is true. There are times on this ride that this is how the day plays out. We all have different strengths and abilities. Oddly, there are times when you feel surprisingly strong or surprisingly tired for no reason. What we each understand as individual riders on this trip is that you ride your own ride. If someone rides ahead or drops back – that’s okay. You will meet up or catch up at the next rest stop. Thankfully, with our guides, there is always someone watching out for us along the way. There are times, however, when we do ride in groups for safety-sake – for example, on the freeway. Yes, we have ridden twice on the interstate. The first time, our group split somewhat and it wasn’t a good feeling. I felt unsafe. The second time, we stuck together and ensured that we were together – in this case, the four of us, the entire time. Four got on the freeway, and four got off. Together.

There are times, however, when you are riding along fairly open and desolate roads. These are largely flat with small climbs or rolling hills. That was the bulk of our afternoon. It was hot again today and we were feeling somewhat fatigued from yesterday’s ride. A group of us riding together opted to ride in a pace-line in which you ride one behind the other and the leader takes the brunt of the work ‘pulling’ the train of riders. Doing so allows them to block the wind and set the pace for the rest who are able to draft and spin their way down the road with much less effort. The entire group moves more quickly and everyone takes time getting a break and pulling. No extra points for pulling more, and no deductions for pulling less. It’s a ‘hey, I can pull for this long’ or ‘hey, I need to back off a bit’ self-directed team effort. We spent the better part of the last 40 miles riding in a pace-line. Not having been a big group rider, this has been relatively new for me since my group rides with T3 years ago. I’d forgotten how amazingly effective it can be. Today was a great reminder. Not every day or condition lends itself to riding like this, but today was perfect with the long relatively flat roads for extended periods of time. Riding as a team allowed us to pick up the pace rather than each of us taking the wind individually, and we arrived back at the hotel with legs less shot than they could have been given two back to back 90-mile days.

What I loved about today’s pace-line was that we rode mostly as a group of women for the forty miles, and that each time someone pulled to the left to allow the next in the train to move to the front – we cheered and gave support and appreciation to the person pulling who now got to go to the back of the train and be pulled along for awhile. There was a beautiful sense of camaraderie and support for one another. It added to the beauty of the day.