Today was another long tough day through the high desert of Eastern Oregon as we traveled the 90 miles from Condon to Hermiston. The majority of the 4300 ft in elevation gain occurred in the first 40 miles. There were two 4ish mile climbs and the reminder was rolling up and down. I personally find the rolling hills to be difficult to ride because I can't settle into a rhythm. Additionally, my legs (and butt) were still a bit tired from yesterday's effort. This made the first of the two big climbs slow going, but I caught up with one of the guides by the second and he nicely paced me up the hill while we chatted.
After lunch we anticipated an easy 40 miles into Hermiston as we descended back towards the Columbia River. However, the wind had other plans. It was a bit more of a cross-wind as opposed to a head-wind, but didn't allow for much coasting, which we were all hoping for after almost 12,000 ft of climbing over two days. In fact, one of my travel mates actually got blown off the road. Luckily the gravel shoulder was compacted enough that he was able to keep the bike upright and no harm was done other than to his nerves.
The picture above pretty much captures the landscape of the day. We saw beautiful rolling hills, wheat fields, a few cattle farms, and I even rode behind a coyote for a short distance as it tried to find a safe route down into a canyon. We also had a beautiful lunch prepared by one of the guides. Her ability to pull together a nutritious and beautiful spread of food out of the back of a trailer is amazing. I just wish I was able to eat that much food in the middle of a ride.
I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but there are 5 guides on the trip and they rotate through different roles each day. Every day 2 of the guides ride with us and the other three drive the vans. There is a luggage van, a lunch van, and a mini van. All of the vans provide support throughout the ride, but after lunch the luggage van heads to the hotel so it's generally only available for at most one aid station after lunch. The guide driving the lunch van is responsible for preparing and setting up lunch along the route, so if you are one of the first out of lunch you may not see that van again until the hotel. The mini van ends up providing most of the post-lunch aid.
I'm looking forward to a slightly shorter day tomorrow as we travel the 70 miles to Walla Walla, WA and the second state on our journey.
Day 5 stats:
distance: 90.3 miles
elevation gain: 4331 ft
nutrition:
breakfast: eggs, hash browns, yogurt, pancake, fruit, and NuGo protein bar
lunch: PB&J, smashed peas with goat cheese, watermelon with Tajin, 1 oatmeal cream pie
post-ride: 1 recovery drink, 2 small cokes, kate's real food chocolate cherry & almond bar, and a banana
gels: 3
bloks: 1 sleeve
39 oz scratch superfuel, 78 oz zym
Day 6 details - Hermiston to Walla Walla, WA
planned distance: 70.5 miles
planned elevation gain: 2971 ft