| Distance | Average Speed | Max Speed | Time | Elevation gain |
| 96.31 miles | 16.5 mph | 46.0 mph | 5:48:40 | 3697 feet |
Happy Birthday, Jada.
The weather forecast was partially correct. It was much cooler today, and it rained for about 5 minutes at 10:30 last night. The morning was cool. I tried to take a late start, but I could only stay in bed until 5:15am. I went ahead and put on my base layer under my fleece and went to breakfast. There weren't a lot of people up this morning, but there were a few. We had a muffin, scrambled eggs, French toast with apple syrup, fruit, and oatmeal.
I decided, after much deliberation, to wear my full tights, toe covers, and my long sleeve jersey with the reflective sleeve stripes. I took my rain coat, but left the rain pants behind. I also left my camera behind just in case, but there were times I wish I had it.
The ride started slowly. It was cool, and it hurt my knees. I guess that's how I know I'm not a kid any more when the weather makes my knees hurt until they warm up. The ride itself was very peaceful. I was one of the few actually taking in the option today (this realization and that exact phrase triggered my internal CD player to bring up Pink Floyd's "One of the Few" from The Final Cut album. I ended up singing the whole album to myself as I slowly worked my way up the first climb to Catherine Creek state park. It was here that the route joined up with the final day's route from the 2003 CO into Baker City. With the wind at my back, I was flying down to the valley following one of the volunteer cars through a winding canyon at 46 mph not letting it get away until the bottom when the road turned, and the wind hit directly from the side. From there we went through rolling cattle ranch fields all in browns sandwiched between the Wallowas and Elkhorn mountains. With the clouds sweeping over head, it created dramatic patterns on the brown hills (I wish I had my camera). As I neared Baker City, I missed a sign somewhere and took a 5 mile detour that still got me to where I needed to be. There was another guy in front of me, so I kept thinking that I was on the route until we came to a T in the road and there were no CO signs pointing the way. Luckily, the sign pointed towards Baker City one way, so we followed that. After asking around town, we found our way to the park for lunch at around 10am. It was still chilly. Lunch was a chicken sandwich with the usual (pasta salad, chips, apple, cookie, and soda). I had a discussion with the guy who also missed the turn about all the people who complained about the route this year being too hard. It's not like CO isn't up front with it. To get to the really nice places, you have to climb and ride far. If you don't want to put in the training time, don't sign up. It's really that simple.
The rest of the day was uneventful. We rode along the foot hills of the Elkhorns and rejoined the scenic byway. You could really see the size of the burn area on the mountain from that angle. We came back into town on the same route as yesterday, except this time, I was on my own (though I did pull a guy with an Iowa jersey for a while). I felt strong though, and comfortably drove through the wind into town. The bummer was that they didn't have chocolate milk at the finish on the option day. I guess they figured if we were silly enough to ride on the option day, we must be strong enough already. As I told the food coordinator at breakfast when she was surprised people were riding today, "I paid to ride. I'm going to ride." After leaving that morning at 6:30, I was back in camp by 1:30pm.
After getting in, I enjoyed a very hot shower (no line at all, of course) and lay down for what I hoped would be a little nap. However, my tent was too warm from the sun that decided to be out all day despite the cooler temperatures. So I went to the bleachers to work on the journal. I went to the dinner tent to read the paper before dinner, but there weren't any left. Dinner was good though. Chicken parmesan, meatballs, pasta, salad, veggies, and a choice of pies. After dinner I called the family to wish Jada a happy birthday. While on the phone, I tried to pull all my things back together. After 2 days in the same camp site, my duffle had exploded a little. Then came the debate about what to wear tomorrow. In the absence of hard data, I opted for just leaving an assortment out for the morning. It'll be easier to pack tomorrow night when I can just shove everything in together since it'll all be dirty.
Then it was down to the main stage to await announcements. I scored a chair again tonight. That's pretty rare. I contemplated purchasing the DVD of the ride so that I could show the girls and then maybe send to my family to see what goes on during the week that I'm not able to capture because I leave so much earlier than everyone else. I ended up buying it. I'll get it in a few weeks after they've had time to edit the whole thing together.
I returned to my tent after announcements. As I had suspected, Mother Nature just glanced at her calendar and said, "Cycle Oregon is this week? I'd better get started!" In the last 2 days, temps have dropped 20 degrees (all across the state). We were just informed that the awesome climb over Spout Springs at 5000 feet had to be re-routed due to low temperatures and snow over the pass we were going to take. The new route will go over Emigrant Springs at 4000 feet and include a 12 mile section on I-84. ODOT has swept it at least, and the Forest Service granted us quick access to 2 parks on short notice for rest stops and lunch including an indoor facility over the pass just in case. They didn't mention how many riders were on the ride today (though I asked later and found out 256 riders did the option). They did mention that we set all sorts of sales records in Union and surrounding towns since everyone who didn't ride the option descended on the towns like locusts buying and eating everything in sight. Tonight's entertainment was the OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting) Live Wire radio show, but I was too tired to stay up for it. I'm so old. Of course, even when I was young, I was old. It's 8:30pm. I'm going to bed.
Continue to Day 6.