Bicycling the Lewis & Clark Trail
St. Helens to Astoria, OR

Monday, May 17, 2004
Distance Cycled: 67 miles
Vertically Climbed: 2,680 feet
Average Speed: 11.3 mph

This turned out to be a very hard day because we had been unable to go more than 40 miles on any training ride. It was also a very hard day because our legs were still hurting from the climbing we did on the first two days of our bicycle tour. We left around 8:00 and first 18 miles was easy except for a slight head wind until we left Ranier. Where, we started up a long hill where the grade was almost a constant 6% to 7% for the entire distance. This hill went on and on and we thought it would never end. Half way to the top we stopped at a viewpoint just to get a rest for our already tired legs. And this happened in the first 20 miles of a 67-mile day.

We reached the top of this climb and traveled for about 6 miles going up and down smaller hills until we finally reached a down hill where our speed never fell below 20 miles per hour and reached 35 miles per hour at one point. We would have gone much faster if we had not braked several times for curves.

We ate lunch in Clatskanie and the next 10 miles of the route was mostly flat except that the slight head wind was now much stronger. We reached Wauna, the site of a large paper mill and as soon as we passed the paper mill, the road began another of those 6% to 7% climbs that went on and on and on. The grade never changed except for about 25 yards when the grade was about 5%. We stopped about 2/3 of the way to the top and took a rest. Our legs were very tired and we stopped for a second rest when we could see the top of the hill because our legs just could not go any further. Once over the top we again speeded down the other side of the hill. From the bottom of that hill until we reached Astoria we went up and down several hills with 5% grades and a couple of steeper hills. That headwind had become a challenge from time to time. It was definitely not slight any more.

We reached Astoria and traveled the length of the town (about 2 miles) to reach our motel. We arrived around 5:00, and the rest of the crew followed. Good news we did not have any rain all day. After we cleaned up we went to a Mexican Restaurant for dinner. We met two men and a woman at our motel that were getting ready to start to cycle across the USA. They arrived via Amtrak and did not have any maps just a two page outline they had printed off the Internet. The outline they planned to follow had some 120 mile days on the schedule with very few rest days. We wished them luck as they started out with all their camping gear.

Above Picture is the view from our motel room.