LCHR--Should Be Called the 100 Mile 1 Ride

Jean, me, Maria, Cindy, and Karen at the beginning

This is my second year to do the Lewis County Historical Ride, and it was a blast!

Jean picked me up this morning a bit before 7:00. We met up with Karen, Cindy, and Maria at the start in Chehalis. We took off around 8:15 in glorious sunshine. Temps were forecasted to reach 80 degrees. But, it was still a little chilly in the morning. 

The first rest stop was at about mile 12. They had usual rest stop fare, but the best thing was the Jelly Bellys in the trail mix. I took off my leg and arm warmers, and switched to my sun sleeves. One guy warned us about taking off stuff because there was "a big downhill in the shade". Yeah well, we're tough women! 

We did the downhill, but I don't recall feeling cold. The route follows the great rural roads of Lewis County. We had beautiful views of both Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens. Even at the same time! Here's a view of my companions from my riding position at the time.

Karen is just in front of Cindy. You can see her bike shadow.

We're moving along at a pretty good clip...up some hills, down some hills, up and down some rollers. The next rest stop was at St. Francis Mission. It was supposed to be around Mile 42. Mile 42 came and went. Where is that rest stop? Finally, as we came to a hill that turned at the top, I remembered the stop was just around the corner at the top. Yep, there it was. We were at around 45 miles. I enjoyed some more trail mix with Jelly Bellys, and some banana with peanut butter. 

Fueled up, we got back on the road. The guy at the rest stop said the next one was 20 miles further. None of us consulted our cue sheets to see if he was right. He wasn't. We didn't pull into Evaline School (a still-functioning two-room schoolhouse) until around mile 78. This was my favorite rest stop. The members of the Centralia-Chehalis Optimist Club (the Happy People Club, and sponsors of the ride) had made a bunch of homemade cookies. They were delicious, and I consumed plenty. They also had watermelon and cantalope, but the cookies were the best. 

Now we had just 16 miles to the final rest stop. Yay (because, on a supported ride, it's all about the food at the rest stops)! More ups and downs led us to Claquato Church, the last rest stop.

A historic landmark of the Claquato Tribe

The Optimists at this stop fed us the usual, but also cake and brownies! Nothing like some pure sugar to fuel the last few miles! They also had a fan and a mister going. According to my bike computer, the temp was 86 (probably a tad exaggerated, but it was definately toasty). One of the ladies took our picture for their blog. She also took one with my phone.

Dude to the right of me is a guy named Ron. He kinda-sorta rode about half the ride with us. 

When we came to the new Mellen St. exit in Centralia, the route changed from last year. Now there is a most awesome bike path running along the west side of I-5 (there's a road in between) to Airport Rd. It continues for a short distance more, but we turned onto Airport Rd. and rode around the back side of the airport. We came out, and crossed over the freeway into Chehalis proper. The route wound around the residential streets, and popped out to the road that would take us back over the freeway, and back to the start. 

With the new bike path, the route was not quite 100 miles. Strava had me at 98.1. Our average was 16.1mph. We did it in 6 hours of ride time, and about 6:45 total time.

As for the reason the route should be called "The 100 Milepost 1 Ride" is because we passed Milepost 1 over and over! We joked that everytime we seemed to be making progress, we'd see Milepost 1 again! We threatened to stop and take a photo at one of the mileposts, but we didn't.

This was one of the most fun almost-100 mile rides I've done. I love riding with my OOA gal pals!