Mmmm… Coffeeee…

Ian writes- Hello everyone!

Before i start, I must say that Oregon has lot’s of coffee drive thru’s, and I have now approved all of them… Delicious. Anyway, there is only one word that can appropriately sum up today’s ride in my mind, and that word is climbing. In fact, cimbing is indeed quite the understatement when I think about the hills back home in Wisconsin, oh wait, we don’t have any. Riiiggghhhhttttt. Anyway, there were quite a few interesting happenings today. For one, Peter suffered a flat tire not three miles into the ride, and upon fixing it we realized that the only spare we had on us was also dead. That was just the beginning. Everything was great after that until I stopped to adjust my leg warmers and Peter’s chain snapped as Brian and Dan were already riding away. Well, after waiting around for support for a while we finally made it to a safe stopping point and had lunch while we congregated around Pete’s dead bike. Needless to say I now know how to replace and chain and add or remove links as necessary, and I do believe that we are all very thankful for that now. Apart from some McGuyvering early on in the ride, today was really just jam-packed with the most spectacular views and climbs I have ever seen. Along with that, I also experienced all four seasons in one ride. The ride started in a spring/ fall type of climate down in the misty valleys, then we ascended into winter and were literally riding alongside snow and passing ski resorts. From then on, we descended straight into a cool and windy summer type of climate. Only one word can sum up the entire trip thus far; wicked. That’s all I have for now, it’s time for me to go watch the Colbert Report and settle into bed for the night. Bye Bye!

-Ian