An Epic Ride That Deserves a Blog Post

On Thursdays, I usually do a long road ride but, when Stephanie asked if I wanted to ride the Cascadia Super G 50 mile course (the actual race is April 24th), I thought, hmmm...long road ride by myself, or 50 miles of gravel with Steph. Didn’t even have to think twice. Definitely, 50 miles of gravel with Steph! Have I ever done a 50 mile gravel ride in Capital Forest? No...no I have not. However, since we just came off of the Gorge Gravel Grinder 52 miler last Sunday, I was feeling pretty confident (even though the GGG was nowhere near the same elevation).

Steph was even kind enough to pick me up at my house this morning, to spare me the extra 5 miles to her house. We decided we would go to the official meeting place at Fall Creek (we could have just parked where the race course begins, and saved ourselves 700 feet of climbing and 2.6 miles-actually 5.2 miles total). I was interested in riding the section to the beginning as it is part singletrack (Wedekind Trail). We also figured Fall Creek was a better place to park. 

We headed up the trail. The singletrack was doable. There was a little connector that took us to a road, that then took us to the C-Line, and the official start of the timed portion of the race. 

NOW...we are at the start. Notice, sleeves have already come off. 

The start of the route was downhill to D4000, then down D4630, and eventually to E9000, and the pavement of Bordeaux. It was pavement up the D-Line, and down to D3000.

The grade up the D-Line actually reaches 16% (according to my Garmin).

The climb up D3000 was nothing new, until...it was...something new. Steph had heard from Erin that there was a creek crossing. What??? But, to get to the creek crossing, we first had to do some hike-a-bike. 

Creek crossing...#1. At least Cam put some boards across. 

It seems like one could ride this...nope. 

Creek crossing #2...yes, there were 2 creek crossings!

Erin had told Steph the climb out of the creeks was a steep one. She wasn’t kidding. We were able to ride some, but ended up pushing the bikes again for about 3/4ths of a mile. 

Hmmm...kinda steep!

Looking back from where we walked. 

And still walking...

Finally got to where we could ride again. We were still climbing, but at least we were riding. We stopped and took a break shortly before getting back to the C-Line (but much closer to the Hwy 12 side). We stretched and ate. 

The next part was the C-Line to C1000. This was where we left the 30 mile route (which I will be doing the day of the race/ride). On a side note, I’m pretty sure the 30 mile route will not be doing the hike-a-bike part...I hope...

C1000 took us to the B-Line, and Porter Creek Campground.  I was running low on water, we stopped at the campground and filtered water, drank a bunch, and filtered more. We still had the climb up B1000 (it also topped out at 16%...although, much more difficult than the paved D-Line due to the loose and chunky rocks).

Once we got to C4000, we could almost taste the finish. Oh, and it was mostly downhill. 

Just before this, Steph said, “It wasn’t that long ago that there was snow here.” Turns out, there’s STILL snow there!

I nice view of the Olympicsfrom C4000.

All three peaks (Rainier, Adams, and St. Helens) out today in all their glory!

Still smiling (or is she smiling because we only have downhill to go???)!

Total miles was about 53. Our ride time was 6 hours. While we both felt pretty good at the end, we both decided we wouldn’t really want to climb anymore hills!!! It was a great day!!!