Tour de bLAST
Turn to Coldwater Lake
With 6240 feet of elevation gain, the 84 mile Tour de Blast, from Toutle to the Johnston Ridge Observatory, is one of the most brutal rides I’ve done. It’s at freeway grade and while there are only three climbs, they’re long.
I’m a big guy with a small cassette. The last time I did this ride I was forty pounds lighter. Yesterday, it was clear those forty pounds are making a huge difference in my climbing. Throw in my innate distrust of my very upright bike on descents and it’s little wonder I was one of the last folks off the course, if not the very last. Everyone was gone, the school locked up. Vic was waiting in the car with to go boxes from pasta feed.
While I finished and felt pretty good those last ten rolling miles, this bodes very poorly for the Ramrod.
The Rotary Club of Longview does a great support job: good food, friendly volunteers, lots of sag passes. I particularly liked the campfire at Elk Rock. Vic includes a map on his post about the ride here.
Here’s one last thing: I took the wrong lens, thinking I had the double glass Lensbaby, but instead had the plastic, so the pictures of the awesome scenery are, um, different, than I wanted.
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- Turn to Coldwater Lake
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- Resting at Hoffstadt Bluffs
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- View from Elk Rock
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- Riders on Descent
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- Johnston Ridge Road
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- Wildflower Season
I am so proud of you!!! Are your photos blurry because you took them while you were pedaling? or are you still testing out that crazy “vaseline around the edges Senior Prom” lens?
It’s that lensbaby I’m still playing with. It comes with different style lens you can swap. I love the plastic lens for lots of shots, but thought I had in the Double glass that provides great sharp focus with the blur. Alas, I did not check my lens before leaving on the ride!
Lesson learned!
I read ‘one of the last, if not the very last’ and thought that at least you enjoyed it, even if it wasn’t a great effort. Then I saw the race web page, with ‘CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 71% OF YOU WHO MADE IT TO THE TOP’ and realised that it was a great effort as well. I am a small guy, with a big cassette, and you can see what I expect will be my second hardest ride on http://www.tourletour.com.
Well done,
Rowan