Day 59 – Support from Portland

Distance: 66.28mi | Time 5:30 | 2088kcal | 1978 vertical feet

bicycle-on-the-beach-in-washington

streifenhoernchen-in-washingtonWe didn’t have much food left when we left the Olympic National Forest today and after we ate the last pack of spaghetti, prepared of course with water from a nearby creek, we were completely out of food. So we pulled over at the next supermarket there was. Just minutes later our support car for the next few days arrived. And they had everything with them: New bicycle tires with smoother tread and a warm and waterproof rain-jacket!! Thanks to our sponsors Continental and bike-components.de again for sending those gear to our friend Bill in Gladstone. With him, Steve and Paolo we’ll continue our journey until Portland and the best part is, they switch with driving the truck. Means it will follow us until Portland. So this means NO HEAVY GEAR ON OUR RACKS UNTIL PORTLAND!!! Yehhaa, thanks guys! We continued and it felt a lot easier, so we kept riding until we came back to the beach again. This was a cool spot to take a little shortcut over the packed sand of the beach into town. The ride over this sand was quite an adventure and so much fun! A friendly family let us stay for free on their property after we found out the State Park was already full with all the clamers coming here to find the tasty shellfish. So we just sneaked into the showers at the park and rode back across the beach watching the sunset. What an awesome day!bicycle-on-the-beach-low-tide

Day 60 – Razor clam season

Distance: 68.11mi | Time 5:43 | 2381kcal | 3208 vertical feet

moclips-houses-washingtonAfter a rather late start at about 11AM we started a far ride and made it past South Bend and Reymond to a little campground right after the town and right next to a little boat launch. And what do you really need after a long day of riding with guys on carbon fiber road bike? Correct, enough “winner-beers” :-) So we checked out a nice bar in the town, the only one which was still open at 8PM and had two pitchers and some burgers there. What was really cool about this neat place, the owner was catching razor clams during the day and prepared them fresh for us. Means he showed us how to clean those clams and then also how to cook them. If you’ve never seen one in real life, they are extremely big and don’t even fit in their shell all the way. And of course they are very delicious. The owner also said, there are only about two weeks per year, where it is allowed to catch them, so our plan for tomorrow is to catch some of these special clams with the new “clam-gun” Steve bought today from somebody selling it directly next to the road. Press both thumbs for us, that we find some tomorrow!

Day 61 - The longest bridge we’ve ever seen!

Distance: 64.75mi | Time 5:27 | 2220kcal | 1959 vertical feet

astroria-megler-bridge-washington-sideAfter a rich and typical American breakfast, we finished the stage Washington today. We reached the border to Oregon at the Astoria-Megler-Bridge under heavy rain, which especially got us wet around the pants, because we weren’t able to put on the pants fast enough. That is an incredible 3mi long bridge over the Columbia River. Thank god the side winds were not too strong, and therefore we did not have to walk our bikes. We spend the night on the nearby St. Stevens State Park, where we just saw a raccoon looking for left over foods. Unfortunately for him our food is now all safe stored in the truck and this little animal has to try to get something else for this time :-)astoria-megler-bridge-on-bicycle