The Prodigal Son Returns: a Cascade 1200 2008 ride report by Charles Coldwell My family have been natives of Washington State going back two or three generations, depending on which branch of the family tree you follow, and so although I have lived in Boston for most of the last twenty years, it still feels like coming home when I go to sleep in the house that my great grandfather built in Seattle in 1928. And because that house is still in the family, the Cascade 1200 is logistically the second easiest 1200K event for me to attempt (Boston-Montreal-Boston, currently on hiatus, is, of course, the first). It's been a very wet and cold spring in the Pacific Northwest this year, and once again the ride organizers are getting squeezed between opposing priorities: waiting long enough for the snow to be cleared from the mountain passes but starting early enough before the weather in eastern Washington gets too hot. The compromise that they have settled on is to run the ride very near the summer solstice, which has the additional advantage of providing nearly sixteen hours of daylight riding every day. However, this year for the second time Forest Service road 25 on the eastern shoulder of Mt St Helens won't be cleared in time, forcing a re-route over White Pass. Additionally, the week-before pre-ride discovered road construction that forced other last minute alterations of the route. Paraphrasing Mark Thomas, the Cascade 1200 is one for three on actually riding the proposed route in the expected weather conditions. The Cascade 1200 is set up a little bit differently from other 1200K events. Most importantly, there are designated overnight controls. Because the route is a loop route instead of an out-and-back, providing support along the route is logistically impossible if the riders are spread out over hundreds of miles. Having designated overnights gives the slower riders a chance to catch up with the sleeping faster riders, thus keeping the field closer together. Riders are allowed to go straight through, but those who elect to do so are expected to supply their own personal support crew. Thus, the Cascade 1200, more than most 1200Ks, is definitely not a race. This ride comes early in the season for me, and I haven't managed to squeeze in much training for it. In previous years, I have gone down to Gainesville, Florida several times during the winter to ride events in Jim Wilson's brevet series, but the cost of jet fuel and an airline SNAFU conspired to prevent me from getting to anything but the 600K. Several events in the Boston Brevet Series happened to fall on weekends near the date when my first child was due to be born, and it was explained to me by my wife that although I was free to ride my bicycle anywhere I want, if I miss his birthday neither my son nor his mother would ever forgive me. Thus I only managed a 200K and a few centuries during May and June before heading west, leaving my month-old son in the care of his mother, grandmother and aunt for a week while daddy goes on a bike ride. In the weeks before the start the message is getting out that the weather is very cold and wet, and riders should bring an extra layer of clothing for the higher altitudes. Then, suddenly, just days before the start, there is a dramatic improvement in the weather and near perfect cycling conditions in Seattle. It almost seems as if the ghosts of my forefathers are welcoming me back to the ancestral homeland. So on June 28, 2008, my 39th birthday, I find myself astride my bicycle riding south from Monroe, Washington under blue, sunny skies with temperatures in the mid 60s (Fahrenheit). As the day warms up, I fall into a group of about six or eight riders. We click along at a nice pace and I'm pretty content to sit at the back and shamelessly suck wheels for a while. I'm not feeling in top form, and that's a little bit scary at the very beginning of a 1200K. The group spreads out a little on climbs then regroups on level ground. Eventually, it seems like I should take my turn in the breeze up front, and I pull the group into the Cumberland control. I fill one bottle and then dash out of the control to find a bush to relieve myself. The group passes me en pissant, but I'm able to catch up again and we ride together to the second control, a supermarket in Eatonville, at about lunchtime. It has been my experience that large groups simply cannot move fast. Whatever time you gain by riding faster in a peloton is lost again at the controls as the whole group must wait for the last person to get ready. In practice, you lose more time at the controls than you gain in between them. This is especially risky on a fabulously well supported ride like the Cascade 1200 because the organizers provide so many water stops and secret controls to keep the riders from wilting in the heat, but each one presents an opportunity to lose a significant amount of time. My mantra for this ride was "ruthless efficiency at the controls and a sustainable pace in between". The goal is to save up a pad of time that can be spent sleeping at the overnight stops. One might think that a long break here and there during the day helps to recover strength, especially during the heat of the afternoon, but in my experience I'm much better off if I can combine all those daytime breaks into a long period of recuperative sleep. Mindful that my over-the-road sustainable pace for this ride was going to be considerably slower than usual because of my lack of preparation, I finished my sandwich at the Eatonville control, saw that the rest of my group were settling in for a less rushed lunch, and decided to head off on my own. At this point in the day, I begin to discover that my forefathers have a pretty sick sense of humor as the day that started out with perfect cycling weather has continued to warm up right through the comfort zone and crossed over to the other side. My recollection from riding this route in 2006 is that the section between Eatonville and Randle had gone by pretty fast and easy, but this year I'm all out just to keep the bike moving. This is particularly disturbing because I am still on the west side of the mountains: although eastern Washington State has a hot, high desert climate, western Washington is usually much milder. As the sun reaches its zenith and heats up every surface below I wonder, "Why this crazy tradition of wearing *black* shorts?" I make a quick stop at the supermarket in Morton to fill my bottles, and begin to realize that in the hot, dry conditions I am consuming water at a ferocious pace. I'm a sweaty guy, and normally I drink about twice as much as the second thirstiest person on a brevet. I try to compensate by carrying more bottles. For this ride, I have four: three on the frame and one in my Carradice saddlebag. It's beginning to look like perhaps I haven't brought enough as I'm only getting about seven miles to the bottle. I had done this ride once before in 2006. That year, there was a control at Randle, notice on the cue sheet of services available at Packwood, and the next control was at the summit of White Pass. I made the mistake of not stopping in Packwood, and ran out of water on the twenty mile climb up White Pass. I took a big risk and filled a bottle with surface water from a snowmelt stream near the road (cold and delicious, but potentially laced with giardia); apparently quite a few others on that ride also ran out of water on White Pass and were hitting up passing motorists for help. It reflects well on the Seattle International Randonneurs that they learned from their mistake and put the official control at Packwood to encourage everybody to fill up on water before attempting White Pass. In addition, before Packwood they added a secret control at Randle (the official control in 2006) where father and son Joe and Jesse Llona were giving away ice socks. Ice socks were the invention of Susan France and Peg Winczewski on the 2006 edition of the Cascade 1200, and probably saved many people from DNFs. The idea is brilliant in its simplicity: buy a bunch of cheap cotton tube socks and a bag of ice, fill the former with the latter and drape it around your neck, and there you have it: poor man's air conditioning. When I pulled into Packwood the temperature was already 102 F (39 C) and I knew I had a 20 mile climb ahead of me to reach the summit of White Pass. In 2006, I unraveled completely on the climb up White Pass. I ran out of water, I had to stop for about twenty minutes less than half way up in addition to a number of shorter breaks to catch my breath. That year, the cue sheet had said the summit would be at milepost 150. For the record, the summit is at milepost 151. Reaching milepost 150 and seeing the road continue uphill beyond it was really demoralizing in 2006. I wanted this year to be different. SIR was really determined to get everybody over White Pass, and so there was a staffed water stop half way up the hill. All we had to do is pace ourselves to ride from Packwood to the water stop, then the water stop to the summit, then from there the rest of the day's ride is downhill. I pulled into the water stop depleted, stayed for about twenty minutes eating watermelon, then resumed the assault on the summit. The elevation at the water stop was high enough that temperatures were cooler, and the going got easier. I rolled over the summit and down to the Clear Lake control. There seems to be a policy on the Cascade 1200 that the penultimate control of the day will be staffed and will provide food. I stayed a little longer than I should have at Clear Lake when it became clear that I would not achieve my goal of a daylight 1200K as the sun was already setting. After a little hot food and a sandwich, I donned my evening wear and lit the lights for the rest of the descent into Naches. I felt better, the evening cooled off a little, and I made a strong finish getting into the overnight control at Naches at about 10:30 PM. My wake-up call comes at 3:30 AM. I eat quickly and I'm on the road again at 4:00 AM. There is a glimmer of morning twilight and very little traffic. This day will start with a climb about halfway up Chinook Pass, the eastern entrance to Mt Rainier National Park. Originally, the route had gone all the way to Chinook summit, but road construction in Moses Coulee forced a reroute through Grand Coulee, and to make up for the additional distance there the climb up Chinook Pass is truncated at the Lodgepole Campground. This trims off about 1,600 feet of climbing, for which I am grateful. My reward for an early start on the second day is a ferocious headwind that slows progress to a crawl. As I creep along I see another cyclist in the distance ahead of me. Two together against the wind is much better than each one on his own, so I crack the throttle open a bit more to see if I can overtake him. When I finally do, I realize that he is a she, namely Michelle Dulieu from Rochester, New York. We start a friendly conversation during the course of which I learn that one year, out of frustration at not getting a job she interviewed for, Michelle had cycled from Rochester to Chicago over four days. In December. Via Canada. On fixed. And, oh by the way, she holds the women's record for Quadzilla. I start to wonder if I should really be trying to ride with her; if my experience with Melinda Lyon is any guide, I know I actually cannot keep up with the top women in this sport. But the conversation is pleasant, and as it turns out it is the only one I will have in the saddle on this event. Much to my surprise, as the grade steepens I'm pulling away from Michelle and so ends our conversation. I spend a little too long at the Lodgepole control (Mark Thomas does brew a mean cup o' joe), and then head out again backtracking the way I came on state road 410 along the Naches River back to the town of Naches where our route follows the south side of the valley on South Naches Road (got it?). The forecast for this day is hot, and we're on the east side of the Cascades now so that means very hot. I'm warming up and wondering about those black shorts again when I finally reach the Fruitvale (essentially Yakima) control at a strip mall Starbucks. I grab a burrito nearby for lunch, then head out again. The Naches River joins the Yakima River in Yakima, just east of the Fruitvale control, and our route takes a bike path right along the river to cross the town of Yakima. These rivers, fed by snowmelt from the Cascade Range, are crucial to the economy of the region. Many people are aware of Washington State's agricultural produce (notably apples), but not as many are aware that it is essentially all grown in the high desert of the eastern part of the state and irrigated by water drawn from these rivers. Irrigation in this climate is fantastically wasteful; a very large fraction of the water evaporates before it even hits the ground. This has a profound effect on the microclimate near an irrigated field. While the water is on, the evaporation cools the air (the phase change from liquid to vapor requires energy, and therefore removes heat from the air). Once the sprinkler has moved on to a new location, however, the now-humid air behind it comes back into temperature equilibrium with its surroundings. Thus, what was a dry heat becomes humid and almost unbearable as you pass by an irrigated field. Very occassionally, you'll pass through a region of cooler air where water is still evaporating, but most of the time, irrigation is bad news for cyclists. The bike path along the Yakima river is a little bit shaded by trees, but still very hot. I refill my bottles and pick up an ice sock from Joe and Jesse Llona at the end of the path and then join state road 24 headed west. Water consumption is again becoming a big concern. On the slow climb up SR 24 I calculate that once again I'm consuming a bottle every 6-7 miles. Joe and Jesse let me know that there would be a water stop no later than the intersection of SR 24 and SR 241 (where the 2006 Cascade 1200 route joins), so I try to pace myself for that. There's not a lot of traffic on SR 24 once you get out of the Yakima area, and in the ensuing silence I start to notice a click. The period is my cadence, so I suspect the problem must be coming from the cranks or the bottom bracket. I go over the possible failure modes in my mind, in order of increasing severity: 1. Crank coming loose from the bottom bracket axle. a. Tools required for repair: 8-mm allen key (check) b. Parts required for repair: none (check) 2. Bottom bracket coming loose in the frame. a. Tools required for repair: 8-mm allen key (check) crank extractor (uh-oh!) Phil Wood BB tool (check) long wrench (uh-oh!) b. Parts required for repair: none (check) 3. Bottom bracket bearing failure a. Tools required for repair: 8-mm allen key (check) crank extractor (uh-oh!) Phil Wood BB tool (check) long wrench (uh-oh!) b. Parts required for repair: replacement BB (uh-oh!) My sincere hope is that we are in failure modes one or two, because even though I don't have a crank extractor or a long wrench, I expect that the mechanic on duty at the overnight control will. The Phil Wood bottom bracket requires a special tool for tightening it in the frame, but since it is light and somewhat rare, I decided to pack it with me. At the water stop a mile or two before the SR 241 intersection I borrow a long 8-mm wrench (too much trouble to dig mine out) and tighten the cranks. I'm not two revolutions out of the water stop when the click returns and option one is ruled out as a possibility. I hope for option two; after all, this is a very expensive Phil Wood component with less than 5,000 miles on it, so I could hardly imagine a catastrophic bearing failure so early in its life. But then again, I've had problems with Phil Wood components in the past. The summit on route 24 is not far beyond the intersection with route 241, and as I descend the other side I can see the flags flying at the entrance to the DOE's Hanford Reservation below. The flags are telling me that when I turn north just before the entrance, I'm going to be turning into a headwind. Oh well, at least it's downhill to the Columbia River. The day is getting hotter, and I'm consuming water too fast to skip a stop at the Vernita rest area just before the bridge over the Columbia River. I keep it brief; just fill my bottles and ride through the sprinkler on the way back out to route 24. After crossing the river, the route turns left on state road 243, then immediately right on Road L SW. The cue sheet says, "Yes, up that hill!". A couple of days later, at the Mazama overnight, another rider complained about my cheery mood and said there must be something about this ride that I didn't like. Well, I said, there was some redundant grade. Redundant grade is a concept that comes from railroad engineering. On railroads, uniquely among transportation modes, the same organization that operates the vehicles also builds and maintains the right-of-way. Thus the railroad seeks to strike a balance between the additional cost of building a very straight and level road against the operational savings gained by running trains on one. A line that carries light traffic can be expected to be crooked and steep; one that carries a lot of traffic will be straight and level. Long ago, the railroad engineers discovered that the most efficient route from point A to point B when there is a summit in between is to gradually ascend to the summit on one side and then gradually descend from it on the other, without any intervening downhills on the uphill side nor uphills on the downhill side. In other words, you only want to have to gain or lose the elevation once. The Mattawa control on the Cascade 1200 is an exercise in redundant grade. The route drops down to the level of the Columbia river on SR 24, then turns left on SR 243, which follows the river all the way to Mattawa, but the route immediately leaves SR 243 to climb "up that hill" on Road L SW, then takes a left on 24 SW Rd into Mattawa (spending a bit of time in some deadly humid irrigation microclimates east of Mattawa), just to drop back down to SR 243 beside the river again after the control. Now, this ride is largely about demonstrating an ability to climb, so one really shouldn't complain about redundant grade (in fact, the climb up Loup Loup pass could also be avoided by following SR 153 up the Methow River valley from Pateros, hence the control at Mallot). As it is, the route does avoid a chunk of busy road. Nonetheless, I'm the sort of person who notices these things, so there it is. During the depression, my paternal grandfather (born in Spokane, Washington) worked as a "fruit tramp", basically a migrant farm worker moving from farm to farm harvesting fruit in season and then moving to the coast to dig clams in the winter. My grandmother (born in Woodland, Washington) was the farmer's daughter. Their opportunity to move up a social class came during World War II, when my grandfather got his first steady job working at the shipyard in Bellingham. They really never looked back after that, eventually sending their son, my father, to the University of Washington in Seattle where he transformed himself into an effete intellectual. Eastern Washington has changed its complexion over the past fifty years or so. These days, I don't think there are many native English speakers among the fruit tramps. Here, as elsewhere across the United States, the backbone of the agricultural workforce is made up of Mexican immigrants. Mattawa is dominated by hispanic culture now, with a Mexican grocery and most commercial signs in Spanish. I don't know how aware the folks on the west side of the Cascade range are of the transformation that has come to eastern Washington, but it was inevitable that at least some of the imported workforce would remain permanently. There are people who resent this change, but personally I think their resentment is futile; I'm sure the Wenatchee Indians resented the arrival of the English speakers, too. I spend enough time in Mattawa to eat a sandwich and cool my feet for a few minutes, then I'm off again. I drop back down to SR 243 beside the Columbia River, cursing the redundant grade, then climb right back out of the river valley again on Beverly Burke Road. After the initial climb out of the river valley, this road turns north and becomes a series of long rollers stair-stepping up to a tremendous descent down onto a plain where everything is straight and flat. From there, it's a pretty easy cruise up to I-90, a dog-leg to cut across to SR 281, and then follow that in a due north straight line all the way to the overnight in Quincy. I feel myself slowing down as fatigue gets the better of me during the last ten miles into Quincy, but I make it in before dark nonetheless. When I get to Quincy, the first order of business is to hand my bike over to the mechanic on duty, Eamon Stanley. I describe my problem to him, mentioning that the bottom bracket is a Phil Wood. I've hardly got the words out when he starts to say that he doesn't have the tool. I tell him I have it, and finally feel vindicated for carrying around 5+ lbs of tools and spare parts on these rides. I dig the tool out of my saddlebag, hand it to Eamon, and head over for something to eat. When I return from the mess hall, Eamon pulls me over to his stand and gives me the bad news. He has pulled the cranks, and invites me to try turning the bottom bracket axle with my fingers. It can barely be rotated. I am, in fact, a victim of option three: a catastrophic bearing failure in my bottom bracket, and neither Eamon nor I have a spare with which to replace it. My options are limited: put the cranks back on and hope for the best or take a mechanical DNF right there in Quincy. I mentioned earlier that I have had problems with Phil Wood bearings in the past. The first time was also a bottom bracket, but one that had had a long and useful life including a trans-America ride and years of heavy commuting. Then one day it spilled its guts on the pavement (literally; ball bearings everywhere) about two blocks from home. I walked the bike back home; it was no big deal. The second major failure was a rear hub. I was about two thirds of the way through a double century coasting downhill when the hub emitted a puff of smoke (literally! witnessed by Max Poletto who was riding behind me) and then spilled its guts on the road, forcing me to DNF. I took the hub to Milton Trimitsis, a Nobel Prize quality bike mechanic in Boston (now working as a carpenter), who told me that once a Phil hub has destroyed a bearing cartridge like this, they will destroy the replacements very rapidly afterwards. I should expect to get only several hundred miles per replacement! That was especially bad news, as I was leaving for Paris-Brest-Paris in less than a week. Milton replaced the bearings and gave me an extra set of spares to take to France. In the event, outbound at Carhaix, the hub had indeed already chewed through the replacement bearings as foretold by Milton. The mechanic at Carhaix had the required bearing press, but strangely had no replacement bearings, so once again I was vindicated for carrying around spares. The second replacement made it through the rest of PBP, but at the end once again the bearings were shot. A Canadian bike mechanic I met riding between Carhaix and Brest who had also seen this failure mode recommended installing Enduromax cartridge bearings; I had better luck with those, getting in several thousand miles before the next failure (which forced me to ride a 200K on fixed, but that's another story). So the failure of my bottom bracket with less than 5,000 miles on it marked the third catastrophic Phil Wood bearing failure during my cycling career. Once could be bad luck, twice could be very bad luck, but three times and I start to think the Reverend Bayes is trying to tell me something. I am sending the bottom bracket back to Phil Wood for a post-mortem, but irregardless of how that turns out, I think I am now done with Phil Wood. I did not suffer through two days of riding in that awful, hot weather to take a mechanical DNF at Quincy. I decided that my best option at this point was to get a replacement part delivered to the next overnight control at Mazama, and hope that the old part has enough life left in it to make it through the next 180 miles. If I got stranded in the middle of nowhere, hopefully a passing motorist or SIR support staff would take pity on me before my water ran out. Eamon recommended a 107-mm Shimano UN-54 BB (at about a fourth the cost of a Phil Wood), so I called my father in Seattle and passed along Eamon's recommendation. It's about a four hour drive from Seattle to Mazama, and the bike shops won't open until 10AM the following morning. I get in a good night's sleep in Quincy, wake up the next morning at 3:30AM again, and dally over breakfast long enough that it's about 4:30AM before I'm on the move again. Morning twilight is all around, and the day starts with a gradual climb out of Quincy that goes very slowly. The route starts going due east as the sun rises right into my eyes, then I turn northeast on SR 28 just south of Ephrata. In 2006 we took a left in Ephrata to head up into the Moses Coulee; this year road construction has forced a reroute through the Grand Coulee on SR 17. Because the original route through the Moses Coulee is still shorter than the official route, a secret control is located at the Dry Falls visitor's center that provides a dramatic view and an opportunity for another cup of Mark Thomas' potent brew. From there, the route follows US 2 due west. This has to be the loneliest stretch of the ride. It's a dry-farming region because there are no rivers nearby from which to pull irrigation water. Acre after acre of wheat and hardly any other signs of human activity but the road we're on, which carries very little traffic. The monotony is broken by a fast descent into Moses Coulee, followed by the inevitable long, slow climb back out. The control at Farmer is a very improbable meeting hall so isolated it is hard to imagine there being enough population to support a meeting within a hundred mile radius. My theory is that it wasn't always that way, and a just a little bit north of the control on SR 172 there is a lonely graveyard that seems to indicate the area once had a larger population. My stay in Farmer is brief, and I head north on SR 172 accompanied only by my clicking bottom bracket. At the top of a hill, I'm able to get a cell phone signal and call my dad to learn that he has obtained the part I need, and will be arriving in Mazama in the late afternoon. Then there's a welcome water stop after the road turns from due north to due east, followed by a left turn that takes us back down to the Columbia River at Bridgeport. The route stays on the south side of the river until Brewster, then crosses the bridge and joins US 97. From here, the water-level route to Mazama would be to take a left on US 97 (following the Columbia River) and then a right on SR 153 (following the Methow River), but instead we turn right on US 97 and then almost immediately leave it in favor of old route 97, a much quieter road on the west side of the Okanogan River (a tributary of the Columbia). My recollection from 2006 was that Mallot was very hot. I was not disappointed, and there were even a few almost unbearable irrigation microclimates on the way into town. The control in Mallot is a convenience store staffed by its very industrious and hospitable owner. I sit at a table in the corner with three other cyclists for twenty minutes before going back out into the hottest part of the day. There are a few more cyclists lying in the city park waiting for the day to cool off. I stopped long enough to use the restroom then began the assault on Loup Loup pass at 3PM in the afternoon in 100+F temperatures. The route out of Mallot takes a shortcut to SR 20, the North Cascades Highway, then a left turn and the real climb begins. There is no shade at the bottom of the climb, and it starts out very steep. Once again, water consumption becomes a concern as I realize I am getting only about one mile per bottle now. If there isn't a water stop on the climb, I am going to be in trouble. My recollection from 2006 is that there had been one just before route 20 dropped into Loup Loup canyon before resuming the climb to the pass on the other side (another little bit of redundant grade, this time unavoidable), and that there had been a cool stream behind the water stop where I could soak my feet. Unfortunately, when I got there, there was no water stop and the stream was stagnant and uninviting, so I decided to press on. On the other side of the canyon, Joe and Jesse Llona drive up next to me in their car and ask how things are going. "I could use some water," I said. They take the next pullout and fill my bottles. Joe tells me he is setting up a water stop about halfway between the canyon and the summit, so I relax the water discipline. When creeping up a mountain pass one tends to obsess a little about progress. In 2006, I had an altimeter which is really the ideal way to measure progress climbing, but this year there was only the cue sheet and my odometer. I kept expecting to see the water stop around the next bend, only to be disappointed. The grade gets shallower and the air gets cooler with increasing altitude, so my water supply was adequate; nonetheless, I was looking forward to a breather. Finally, I overtake a Michael Wolfe on a recumbent and almost immediately there they are, by my reckoning only about three miles from the summit. I stop to fill my bottles again (why not?), but Michael cruises past without stopping. Joe shouts to him that it's at least six or seven miles to the top, but Michael thinks it's a joke. I tell Joe that I also figure only about three miles to the top, but Joe remains confident. Oh well, even if he's right and I'm wrong, I won't go thirsty. I press on and find the top after only 2.5 miles. The descent from Loup Loup pass is fast and fun, and ends in the Methow River valley where SR 153 from Pateros joins the North Cascades Highway (a.k.a. SR 20). The route takes a right turn here and follows the Methow River upstream all the way to Mazama, via the resort towns of Twisp and Winthrop. Once again, during the last fifteen miles or so fatigue takes its toll and I find my pace degenerating into a slog, but nonetheless I make it in to the Mazama control before dark. When I get there, my parents have already come and gone, leaving behind three bottom brackets (107, 110 and 113 mm axles) and my father's old Schwinn Paramount bicycle just in case the repair can't be done. Fortunately, it doesn't come to that, because Eamon is able to quickly install the Shimano 107 mm bottom bracket after borrowing the Phil Wood tool from me again in order to remove the old one. The old BB is a complete wreck, the drive side cartridge bearing has broken open and spilled two balls already. I simply can't thank my parents enough; their ten hour mission to Mazama saved my ride. Mazama is probably the most popular overnight control on the Cascade 1200. SIR rents a hotel in the woods just across the Methow River from route 20. Everyone gets to spend the night in a bed, possibly shared with one other rider (I had one to myself). I spend the evening sitting on the lawn in front of the hotel chatting with some other riders and SIR volunteers, who have slept less than I but nonetheless are ready to help with anything, then get to bed early. The next morning there's a breakfast buffet in the hotel restaurant starting at 5:00 AM; paradise! I eat with Brad Tanner and Urs Koenig, two riders who are much faster than I. They are very businesslike with their meal and get an early start; I linger over my coffee a while and finally get rolling at 5:40 AM. This is probably my favorite part of the ride. The climb up Washington pass goes easily; it's cool and shady in the morning while the sun is still behind the mountains, and the grade on the ascent is never too steep. The section between Mazama and Marblemount is the most beautiful part of the ride, after the summit of Rainy pass there is a long descent next to Granite Creek then Ruby Creek until it joins what was the Skagit River before the Ross Dam turned it into the Ross Lake. The Gorge, Ross and Diablo dams were the major results of the Seattle City Light Company's Skagit River project begun in 1921 and finished in 1953. The three dams turned large portions of the beautiful wild river into sickly green lakes, but supplied the city of Seattle with all of its electrical power for many years (but no longer, SCL now has to look to additional sources to supply the city). The town of Newhalem just downstream from the last dam is a company town, with a steam locomotive that was used during construction of the dams on display in a public park. I have happy memories of playing on that locomotive as a child. The North Cascades Highway is like an old friend to me, and not only because of my prior Cascade 1200 in 2006. The Cascade 1200 route from where it starts the climb up Loup Loup pass until it reaches Arlington on SR 530 is the same route that I followed at the end of my 2001 trans-America ride from Boston to Seattle. That year, my father and I camped at the Early Winters campground in Mazama, then climbed over Washington and Rainy passes the next day and spent the next night camping in the state park in Rockport, arriving in Seattle on the second day after leaving Mazama. This year, I'm going all the way to Monroe in one shot. The route leaves the North Cascades Highway at Rockport, turning south along the Sauk River on SR 530. SR 530 between Rockport and Darrington is quite pleasant; the Sauk River valley is relatively wide and flat, and there is a good deal of shade from trees alongside the road. However, once the road turns east in Darrington, things get noticeably more difficult. Although we still follow a water-level route (now along the Stillaguamish River), there is a very dependable weather pattern in this part of the state where the winds blow up the passes as the day warms up, and then turn and blow back down as the night cools off, so the ride turns into a long slog against a headwind until you reach Arlington. From Arlington to Granite Falls you ride upstream along the South Fork of the Stillaguamish River, but you wouldn't know that without looking at a map. The river valley is narrower, and the road is forced up and down over nearby hills. The hills are short and steep, much more like the high-power short-duration type of cycling I'm used to from New England (although the road surfaces are in *much* better condition in Washington State). My interest in the ride is renewed and the pace picks up again. It looks like I might manage a strong finish after all. The route from Granite Falls to the finish in Monroe is more of the same terrain, except now it seems like there is a turn on the cue sheet every half mile (also similar to New England randonneuring). I'm definitely feeling a second wind, although maybe that's just the fact that the route is now predominantly downhill. At any rate, I roll into the finish around 6:30 PM feeling better than I have since the summit of Rainy Pass. I can't praise the SIR volunteers enough, I wish I could mention more of them by name, but thanks at least to Eamon Stanley, the mechanic who fixed my bicycle, Joe and Jesse Llona who gave me water and ice socks to keep me from wilting in the heat, and Mark Jackson who drove the truck and was so kind to my parents at Mazama. It seems like every detail on this ride has been looked after; even the cue sheet is designed so that you only turn a page when you are at a control. At the finish they asked me if I would come back again for a 2009 edition; I can't really say since I now have a family and all the obligations that go along with that. Nonetheless, I did leave my bicycle in the basement of the house in Seattle, just in case.