My First STP

So last July me and some buddies of mine did the Seattle To Portland (STP), and it was so much fun. The STP, is a 200 mile bike ride from Seattle, WA to Portland, OR. In 2006 over 9,000 riders made the trip, of all age groups, some make the trip in one day but the majority do it in two days. The beauty about this trip is EVERYTHING is taken care of. There are cops holding off traffic at every major intersection and most minor intersections, support and escort vehicles (health and bike repair), and there are even thick rugs over the rugged railroad tracks. There are a ton of places to stop along the way so you can take it at your own pace. At the official stops (every 25 miles or less) there is free food, water, powerade, bathrooms, space to rest, and it's all easy to find with the signs and support staff waving you on. You can get the same stuff at the unoffical stops (every 5-10 miles) but it's not free.

I love it because you just keep eating through this whole thing, but you're burning calories so fast you never really get full.

I've gone on bike trips before but never really travelled from one city to another like this. So when Jesse first suggested the idea, it seemed a little intimidating. But it was cake. Anyone can do this thing because you can really take it at your own pace. I found my road bike online for around $200 on Craigslist. It's a nice deep blue, 3 year-old, lightweight steel, pretty rare Swedish-made Ochsner, streaker of bicycle machinery.

Day 1
I arrived at Husky Stadium late to the startign line (held up by traffic), and found the guys Jesse, Pawan, IHOP, Amiko, Clemen (Jesse's buddy from Chicago) and Sam (also traveled out here from Chicago to do the STP), all of them waiting for me. So I scrambled to get my tags on, tossed my bag on the truck to Centralia, jumped on my bike, and lined up at the starting line (they launch waves of 100 or so every ten mintues between 5-8am). I was still strapping in, zipping up, and securing lose items until a mile or two down the road. But after I did, I fired up some ZZ Top on the MP3 player and I found myself on the road with my buddies and nothing to do but pedal.

It was awesome.

There was a lot of passing on day one (read Rob being passed), but to start out we crossed the UW bridge and headed south along Lake Washington and into the lowlands towards Kent/Auburn. It was a beautiful sunny day in the low 80s, with no himidity, so you barely broke sweat. I ended up chatting and trading bad jokes with a complete stranger; Jim a police officer from Lynnwood. In daily life you just can't start talking with strangers on the street about their job as a police office, or thier 4month old daughter, and football, and socitey, etc. But when you're in a pack of people all moving towards the same goal, I love that feeling.

Speaking of unity, I have a big Bush-Cheney '04 sticker on my helmet that I got when the President was campaigning back in Michigan. So I got an extra thrill outta smiling-waving at the sign-carrying wacko liberals on the side of the road, that read "Bush is a terrorist", "happy people are evil", "I hate everything American but don't you DARE question my patriotism!", "Bush blew up the twin towers", you know, the usual lefty blather. But wacha gonna do, it's Seattle.

For those of you who are still reading... The first stop was at the 50mile mark, and it was a sea of bikes. There were 9,000 riders in this thing but it was really well coordinated. They channeled all the riders to open parking, and explained where everything was within a few seconds of entering the parking lot. Repairs, Bathrooms, First Aid, Sandwiches, water, power bars, fruit, cookies, and samples of all kinds of promo bike stuff.

There were seven in our group, and we kind of all decided that we'd all go at our own pace and meetup where we could. It's really tough keeping more than three riders together because everyone has different speeds they want to go on an uphill, downhill or whatever. The climber in our group goes to Jeff "IHOP". That guy bikes up Captiol Hill everyday coming back form work. He and his girl Amiko both were definitely the most fit for this thing.

Most of day one was in the bloated bike lane, but there was this 10-15 miles stretch of this beautiful jogging path off the road, which was really relaxing. What's cool about making the trip on a bike versus driving it that you get up close and personal with the scenery. You can smell and touch things as you go by.

We arrived in Centralia Community College, cleverly located in Centralia, WA in the mid-late afternoon. There were a handful of people along the side of the rode cheering the riders on. You rode directly into the courtyard area of the college, and there was food, showers, music, tons of tents, a police-patrolled corral for the bikes, repair/parts shop. One guy in our group arrived an hour or two after the first of us did, so we walked over to the local mexican bar in Centralia. It reminded me a LOT of this college bar called The Cantina that my college buddies and I used to meet at on Thursday nights back in Grand Rapids, MI. We got the same chips and the same salsa and bean dip, and the same beer. After the last of our group arrived, we all headed out to our respective "hosts" place to crash. It's free to camp, crash in the local church gym on cots, or you can pay some I think it was $20 and have someone pick you up, drive you to their place, and give you a place to sack out. Some of them give you dinner/breakfast (like Jesse and Pawan's host). Others had a pool, tennis court, deck with amazing view (like me, Jeff, Jesse's Chicago Buddy (damit), and Sam). I wish I had my camera then.

Day 2
Woke up around 7am and got a ride back to the college from our host and we met the rest of the group, and headed out around 7:20am. It was about upper 60s, and morning fog was beginning to break away. About 10 miles down the road at the next town, we found a church that had all-you-can eat thick blueberry pancakes, eggs, sausages, OJ, coffee, for $10. Those pancakes were sooo good. THOSE folks smiled at my Bush-Cheney '04 sticker on my helmet.

The first 1/2 of day two was really hilly. After 20 miles or so, you kind of knew what the road was going to do. Downhills are a great reward/rest for most of the trip but every time you got a downhill, you knew the same incline was right around the corner.

By about 12pm all that was over, and we got to the Columbia River crossing on the Lewis and Clark Bridge. The bridge was maybe a mile and a half long so cops had to block traffic and escort us over in groups. I reached my top speed of the trip at 38.5mph coming down the other side. While the real bikers I know laugh at this speed, I've never gone that fast before on a bike so it was a thrill.

Then we cruised southeast on Oregon Highway 30 along the Columbia River side into a handful of small towns the rest of the day into Portland. By mid day two we were all pretty scattered out but we still caught up at different stops and we all arrived at the finish line in Portland. The finish line party there was awesome (see images from the blogs below), just like the day one finish there were showers massages, and tons of free food with live bands, big DJ booth welcoming in all the riders, to this welcome ramp you ride down just before you cross the line. There were approximately 200-300 at the finish line welcoming all the riders in looking for their family and friends. It was great.

And we celebrated at the Henry Winehard's really nice bar/restaurant in downtown Portland and drove home. Actually they drove home (we opted to not take the bus and rent our own ride) and dropped me off back at the UW parking lot where my bike and backpack were waiting for me. Melis picked me up and I slept real good that night.

So that was my first STP, here are some other blogs, images, and other cool stuff I've found.

STP Route Map
Eric Gunnerson
Tony Chor
Bike Hugger
C. Chase Taylor
atomicmoo