Day 4 - Coulee City, WA to Spokane, WA

Weather
Temperature: 72°F
Conditions: Mostly Sunny
Wind: SE 14 mph; gusts to 24 mph

Ride Info
Altimeter Trip: 1,460 ft
Altimeter Odometer: 11,680 ft
Maximum Speed: 41.5 mph
Average Speed: 18.7 mph
Distance Trip: 100.3 miles
Distance Odometer: 309.1 miles
Elapsed Time: 5 hr 20 min 57 sec

Coach mentioned that in all his years doing this trip, he had never had such good weather to start off with. Today was no exception. Only difference, today, was that there was a pretty brisk breeze blowing from the southeast.

The scenery changed to more “grass land” than the barren rock heading into Coulee City. Thinking back, I guess those were wheat fields. Jim, Chip, and I became an inseparable team. We’d take turns at the front of our paceline to help cut through the wind. It was great riding with some experienced guys in a paceline. Back on the first day, I tried riding in a pace line with those crazy college students, but they were too squirrely and couldn’t hold a straight line to save their lives. Way too dangerous.

Chip, Jim, and I picked up a new addition to our group – a husband and wife team on a tandem - Neil and Fran. Both of them were computer programmers from California and simply took the time off to make this trip. Neil went to school at RPI which is a hockey rival of Clarkson. Neil and Fran were great to ride with because they were fast, and it was like drafting behind a tractor trailer when they headed the paceline. Fran was easy on the eyes too. One had to be careful drafting behind the tandem because you could fall in a trance staring at Fran’s ass (hubba-hubba). The five us riding together set a blistering pace. There was a nice wide shoulder heading all the way into Spokane. The wide shoulder proved fortunate so we could set up an echelon to battle the crosswind.

My bike computer was on the fritz all day because one of the wires had become frayed. Actually, the wire had been cut several weeks ago and I had spliced it back together. My splice had come undone. We stopped at a grocery store for lunch, and I bought some superglue and electrical tape so I could hob-cob the wires back together. My repair lasted the rest of the trip.

There’s a big long downhill heading into Spokane. None of us could keep up with the tandem going down the hill as they have an unfair advantage. We were staying at a school in Spokane. I was really happy with my average speed for the day. It was one of my fastest century rides ever. I was so psyched because I’ve had three great days of riding in a row.

Set up shop in the gym and then headed to the showers. It was always great to get out of your cycling clothes and into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. People were still trickling in at 6:00 when we had dinner. A bunch of us headed out for ice cream an hour or so after dinner. Cy (the kid from Deleware that wrecked his bike back in Seattle) had been riding the WW spare bike all this time. He went to a bike shop in Spokane and got himself a new bike – a nice looking Trek.

The rest of the evening I spent writing my daily letter to my girlfriend. I also broke out my bike supplies and gave my bike a quick cleaning. Everyone was amazed at how prepare I was and joked that they’d pay me to clean their bike.

The next couple days would be short days and were meant to serve as “rest days”. Much of tomorrow’s ride would be spent on a bike path. One thing I was looking forward to was entering a new state – Idaho.