“You guys are taking your life in your hands coming out here,” said the grizzled bar veteran. We were out in the middle of nowhere (or… Cumberland, WA if you must), getting low on water, it was 12:30am, and the last 24 hour convenience store was 25 miles ago. We let out a nervous chuckle and told him, “We know that.”

I want to rewind the story though. Chris and I set out on an all night permanent that would test my stomach’s caffeine tolerance and our ability to ride through the night.

We started from a 7-11 in Redmond across from Sammamish Valley Cycle. Both of us picked up a Starbucks Double Shot for the half way point. We knew that miles 46-80 (at least) would have no where to restock on supplies of any sort. The rest of the ride was a mystery. Nobody was familiar with riding at night at all, much less riding through some of these small towns at night.

The first 20 miles were fairly pleasant through Redmond and Issaquah. There was still traffic as people were starting their weekends and going to bars in town. Everyone seemed to give us space though.

We passed several diapers on the side of East Lake Sammamish Rd. and wondered aloud as to who was going to have to pick them up. SIR had a road cleanup planned the next morning on that very road. Someone was going to be grossed out.

After shooting out the bottom of Issaquah, things got very dark quickly. We both have strong lights, but you could feel the blackness close in around us. The moon wasn’t shining much of anything either. There was a heavy cloud cover for most of the night. I could tell pretty early on that this would be a fine test for the two of us.

Chris mentioned later that he hit his “What am I doing here?” moment early on in that ride. We all seem to have them at least once on a ride, sometimes regardless of the length. I never really hit that wall for some reason though. The novelty of the whole situtation really kept my spirits high. I was more worried about when my fatigue and drowsiness would hit. If one of us got very tired, it probably wouldn’t be pretty.

Our first control was in the small town of Cumberland at about mile 35. As I said previously, we hadn’t seen a single open store since we left Issaquah, and it wasn’t looking like we were going to from here on out. It was pretty nerve wracking at that point. I didn’t want to have to find water the entire ride in the dark. We filled out our information cards to prove we were there and looked around for a loose hydrant at the fire station and the single store in town. Both places were dry.

Chris noticed some voices in behind the store though. It sounded like a party. We weren’t exactly excited at the prospect of begging for water at a party, but we didn’t have a lot of options either. Riding around the street we found it was a bar. At that time of the night, it wasn’t visible from the main road through town. It is amazing that we found it at all actually.

The bar patron gave his line about our lives and followed it with, “You two don’t need to worry about your bikes being stolen.” Thanks man, I was not thinking about it until you said that. He drunkenly repeated the line again for emphasis. If he would of had a peg leg and a parrot, he would have made a fine pirate. The beard was outstanding.

We pulled our water bottles in to the bar. The woman behind the counter was nice enough to fill them for us and I tipped her. The rest of the patrons inside were all completely wrecked. They were hanging on each other, stumbling around and singing country favorites out loud. Some poor soul was butchering said favorite on a karaoke stage. We didn’t stick around for a drink. There was riding to be had.

On our way out, there was loud conversations on the patio. A woman was very descriptive of her “titties”. She proclaimed that “one hangs lower than the other”. Some of the men wanted her to prove it, but she wasn’t going to budge on the issue. A man next to her shouted, “5 bucks a titty!”. I like the idea that she could only get away with showing a single breast and still make money. Maybe he has never seen one before.

Chris and I got a high off the entire scenario and it really encouraged us to push on. At the very least, it gave us something to talk about.

None of the following roads were showing any signs of having an actual 24 hour convenience store. The bar was helpful, but it wouldn’t be there after 2am for us. We were still looking at the possibility of 70+ miles without any real support through tiny spaced out towns in the sticks.

We noticed that we were tracing through some of the roads in reverse that we had taken at the end of the spring 600k. They were pleasant, low traffic roads during the day, and even more so at night. We had some surreal moments like an owl that swooped in low near us and several deer crossing the roads. The tree line went away for a while and the sky seemed to light up for a bit. There were still clouds in the sky, but we could see the silhouettes of the mountains in the distance. It was pretty stunning.

Right before we turned on to SR-165, we noted happily that there was finally a 24 hour gas station. This was the turn off towards our turn around at Carbon Glacier, so it was truly a prime location. I think we both breathed a sigh of relief at that point.

That was quickly followed by an “oh, boy” as bars started to let out on the road. It was 2am and we were glad to be turning away from whatever traffic there was. We had a couple of Fast and Furious cars pass us, but that was pretty much it for the next 40 miles.

There was a steady but easy climb up towards the park at Carbon Glacier. There was a heavy fog that we rolled in to. It left condensation on our glasses. I was having trouble seeing if I didn’t wipe them with my fingers every few minutes. I could hear streams and possible water falls nearby, but we really couldn’t see much off of the road.

At some point my helmet light fell off and I lost an important clip on it. It has done it’s job in the past, but never that well. It is a good excuse to finally ditch it for a better light.

We finally made it to the ranger station that was our turn around point. The Double Shots were fantastic. I had been sucking on Espresso Hammer Gel for most of the night at a steady pace, but I never got overly wired. I think it was all that was keeping my body going really… novelty and caffeine. It was mostly downhill from here.

The descent never really felt fantastic, but it was a steady downhill for most of the rest of the ride. We stopped in at the gas station after SR-165 ends and got water, Red Bulls, and some light foods. Everything was coming together. Neither of us were feeling drowsy at all, despite being close to 5am. It was going much better than I expected it would to be honest.

People were starting to wake up to go to their weekend jobs and traffic picked up a bit. We blew on through Cumberland since we didn’t need receipts (not that we could have gotten any).

The sun wasn’t quite out and I was still relying on Chris for some directions because I didn’t have a helmet light. It was at around mile 101 that we turned on to Kent-Kangley Rd. He looked at the cue sheet and it seemed to be straight from there almost until the end. We were tired anyways, so we were happy to shut at least that part of our brains down for a while. Little did we know, there was actually a right turn that we needed to take only a mile after getting onto Kent-Kangley. We got well over 10 miles (all the way into Kent) before we realized the mistake. The odd part was, we were noticing land marks along the way so we never really questioned our path. Apparently, strip malls everywhere look pretty similar. Who knew?

It took some epic rerouting to get back on course too. Traffic was in full (weekend) force by this point. It was getting close to 8am and people were out to do their business. Kent isn’t what I would call the most bicycle friendly neighborhood in Washington either. We had to take tons of extra hills and ride along some shoulderless roads.

Eventually, we were back on course, and just happy to be within sight of Issaquah. I had planned out my nutrition for the 15 miles we thought we had left, not the 20+ extra miles we had tacked on. We decided that we weren’t going to make it back very soon anyways, so we stopped at a coffee shop in town. I ate the smallest piece of dry banana bread that I’ve ever had the pleasure of paying 2 dollars for. Still, it was better than more Hammer gel at that point. Not much, but a little bit.

By the time we got back to East Lake Sammamish Road, the clean up crew was out in full force. We were pretty amazed at the amount of people that showed up this year. It made me feel better for not having made it in time. Mark’s blog has some photos, including one of Chris and I riding in to say hello.

We finished at 7-11 almost 12 hours and 150 miles after we started.

A fantastic breakfast was eaten and we even made it to the annual meeting. Thanks to Chris for being dumb enough to ride it with me and thanks to Mark for being dumb enough to suggest it to folks that are dumb enough to try it. I’m pretty sure that made some sort of sense.

p.s. Chris took more photos. He is nice enough to let me post them later.