The Journey Was Long, But Somehow Not Long Enough

It always starts in a fit of stress and turmoil.  But it never has to.  That's just the way we do it.  Oh, you can plan and plod and think about all the things you need to do and pack in advance, but when it comes right down to it, it's a term paper all over again.  Somehow, we get 'er done.  We pack.  Only, the list is not complete and we've forgotten the simple fact that nights are . . . cold.  Still, these are minor details among the grand scheme of things.  Even though it takes a year before we do it again, it has become somehow more rhythmic.  There's an inner calm that no matter what we forget, we'll manage.

It's been four straight years now that we've been doing the RAW.  That is to say, the Ride Around Washington.  At first, it was daunting and somewhat arbitrary.  But, we didn't care.  We wanted to spend some time exploring what it would be like to be on bikes, every day, for a whole week, riding over 50 miles a day, as a vacation.  The coolest part, we didn't have to own/buy touring bikes and pack all our shit!  Seriously, that was the first coolest part.


I wanted to start writing about this then, but life got in my face and . . . well, I just couldn't see past it.  But that's a story for another, much darker time.  What we didn't expect, was to find friends for life.  Oh, I guess if for some reason one of us or the other stopped riding, we'd no longer "belong".  But I, for one, don't get that feeling with this particular group of people.  We barely know each other, yet we are such . . . mates in . . . "Bike Camp".

That's exactly what it feels like, bike camp.  I never went to "summer camp" of any kind, but after the last four years of riding the Ride Around Washington (RAW), this is what I believe the best of summer camp must've felt like.  The movie, Meatballs comes to mind.  Heck, even Breaking Away is heavy in the air of our camp.  In its own way, it's a version of Twilight Zone's "Kick the Can" episode.  We all become younger the more we delve into the journey.

And by "journey", I mean no small feat.  Each year has had it's . . . epic-ness.  What would you consider epic?  This year we climbed over 15,000 vertical feet.  Last year we fought hellacious winds of over 30 knots over death-defying bridges.  Each year we traveled well over 400 miles in a week.  We've tackled extreme heat of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit while climbing grades up to 15% and greater and wished we had a cool one waiting for us at the finish of that particular day's challenge.  And ya know what, Cascade Bicycle Club (CBC) made damn sure we did!  That and a shower and a decent meal.  Awesome.
So what got us to do something so seemingly crazy?  Ah, therein lies the rub.  Touring is self-supported, as in, "you on yo' own, BITCH!"  Not only do you have to ride, you also have to carry all of your supplies, set up camp and cook for yourself.  I was never introduced to the whole camping experience until well into my teens so the whole "camping experience" thing was never, "my thing" to begin with.  I was in the US Army and did learn to, shit in the woods -- so to speak.  But, as my father would attest to, there ain't nothin' more civilized than indoor plumbing.


So CBC caught onto the trend of, "hey, let's schlep their luggage for them and cater to them and they'll be more than happy to ride like Tour de France domestiques for beaucoup bucks".  And, yeah, as a matter of fact, we love the shit out of doing that!  We just ride, set up our tents, eat, shower, and . . . party.  Oh, and then, we get up, tear down, eat, load our gear and do it all over again.  Yeah, we call this, "vacation".  But when you do the math, it's sooo worth it.  Especially when you factor in the loose variable, f = friendship.  That my friends is invaluable!