Simon's TransAmerica cycle ride - 2012: Day 76

Start time: 07.07
Start location: Baker City
Start State: Oregon
Start weather: Cool
Total millage so far: 3,907.2

Finish time: 13.18
Finish location: Prairie City
Finish State: Oregon
Finish weather: Hot
Miles today: 69.63
Total millage so far: 3,976.80
Today's top speed: 39.9
Today's average speed: 13.4
Today’s ride time: 5hr 10min 22sec
Punctures - 5 (slow back wheel), (staple in back wheel), (major blowout), (back wheel 31/7/12) , (back wheel 01/8/12)

Music played:
The Essential Mix - Ferry Corsten - 17-04-10
The Essential Mix - Carl Cox - 11-04-09
The Essential Mix - Funkagenda - 30-04-11
The Essential Mix - Mauro Picotto - 01-07-07

Blog for today:

Chilly start today, it didn’t really warm up very quick at all. The shadows thrown by the mountains seemed colder than normal and I had to put on my jacket early on in the ride. As always, which I think I take for granted now, the scenery was amazing. I have to keep reminding myself that this time next week, I will be back in horrible London and cycling to work again, trying not to get squashed like so many have this year. For the first time in months, I am starting to see passenger planes high up in the sky, I guess one of those will be me soon, looking down on the country I cycled across, just me, my bike and my two legs which took me over 4,000miles. I’m starting to come to terms now that this trip is coming to an end, that I wont be waking up each morning and banging out another 60-80miles, just the 5-6miles to work, to sit in a dungeon for 8hrs. It’s kinda hard to think about what we have done, its hard to realise or put it together that each days little cycle ride has been adding up to something bigger, cycling across a continent.

Along with the scenery there have been amazing smells coming from the flowers, pine trees and the every present roadkill. Today was billed as a hard ride with three mountain passes to get through with some really long climbs. Tomorrow should be worse as we have a 40mile climb. I stopped off for my huckleberry ice cream which I will miss, unless I can get some in F&M or somewhere similar. I don’t think Tesco stock it – yet. Too busy stacking the shelves with all kind of other countries crap. There was lots of cold air blasts early on, and those climbs were pretty steep to begin with, very similar to those in Virginia. The sky was an amazing blue for the whole day, so clear and bright.

It has been nice to have Jake join us, Ollie’s son, he came yesterday to Baker City yesterday. He rode with us today. I didn’t see much of him, but it still feels nice that he is here on his dad’s bike an will finish the trip with us. Oh, Baker city had an old garage with the rubber tube which runs across the entrance to the forecourt, which, when run over, will ding the bell. I had great fun jumping up and down on it every time I passed, trying to make it ding lol.

The final descent into Prairie City was pretty awesome too. Coming over the ridge and seeing the mountains in the distance was great, some still with snow on. We had ten miles of lovely paved downhill road to ride. It’s hard to choose what to do when in these situations. Do you stop and take photo’s on the decent and loose the thrill of the ride, or do you just think, sod it, and enjoy the cycle experience. Hard to tell at times. Anyway, that’s about it. The town/city is nice, small, but nice. It has a great little bar with interesting carvings, an some pretty good strawberry and rhubarb pie. The beers are good here too, one of the best states for locally brewed beer.