Trans Am, Day 100: Mitchell, OR to Prineville, OR

Day 100! 100 days ago, I left home and rode to the King Street train station in Seattle!

Now that I am getting closer to home, I am sometimes just ready to be done. The last few days have seemed really hilly, but I look back at Kentucky and realize this is much easier. I think the difficulty is mental. 100 days is a long time to be away from home. But, sometimes, my excitement drowns out my homesickness, like yesterday, when I realized I was going to ride through the fabulous Picture Gorge. At any rate, if there’s one thing I’ve learned on this tour, its that you have to accept things you can’t change, like the existence of hills, the presence of headwinds, or the fact that home is still more than 600 miles away.

Today’s ride was again dominated by a single hill – a 2,000 foot climb, like yesterday’s, but, unlike yesterday’s, it was a little steeper 5% or 6% grade. I greatly prefer this, even on my heavy bike. The awesome roads disappeared for a while. Sometimes, there was no shoulder, and sometimes the shoulder was unusable, due to what appears to me to be really shoddy resurfacing that left a dangerous “lip” on the shoulder. It’s maddening, because it is probably invisible to automobile drivers, but clearly treacherous to any cyclist who has ever caught a wheel on such a lip. I just watched my mirror closely, and pulled over and stopped off the road when I saw big trucks, weekenders hauling trailers, or two or more cars in a line. I am not in a hurry.