Friday, July 13, 2007

STP starts in less than twelve hours!!

At 4:45 AM tomorrow about 1,000 cyclists (including me) will start a 206-mile journey: the Seattle-to-Portland ride. The fastest will do it in 10 hours or less, while the slowest will take 16 hours, and of course some will give up. The one-day finish festival closes at 9 PM, so that gives us 16 hours and 15 minutes to 'officially' complete it. I think my riding partner and I will make it in about 14 or 15 hours, but we'll see how it goes. I really hope we make it before the close or we won't get our special one-day patches!

I think the hardest part about the day will be getting up so friggin' early (roughly 3 AM!), but I'm probably wrong and the hardest part of the ride will be after 150 miles or so, when I'm dead tired and way sun-burned. In total I'll do about 209 or 210 miles, since I'm riding from my apt on Capitol Hill to the start in the U-district.

My cycling log's graph shows the spike in my mileage over the last few months:


As you can see this will be my longest ride in quite a while! I hope to top it one day with an even longer ride.

Check out an approximation of the STP in 3D using Google Earth. (and turn on elevation exaggeration!). Don't have Google Earth? Here's what the route looks like, but you can zoom in and see the elevation profile in 3D!

1 comment:

matt m said...

and i shouldn't leave out the 7,000 riders that will complete the STP in two days! Either way it's a great accomplishment.