Day 4 - Coulee Dam WA to Spokane WA, 90 miles, 3500' cumulative climbing

No route map or profile for today; I forgot to snap a photo when I had the chance.  But we knew in advance that there would be a 10 mile long climb right out of the hotel parking lot, gaining about 2000' elevation without any easy warm-up miles.  The really good news is that I had signed up for a half hour session with our traveling massage therapist Barb for last night, figuring that after 3 days my legs would be hurting, and was I ever right!  She did her thing, and I felt much, much better this morning. Getting the lactic acid build-up out of your legs is the only way to reduce the soreness from tired, overworked muscles. And, after a disappointing dinner in town last night, the usual PAC Tour breakfast made everything right in the nutrition department!

Another busy parking lot breakfast 

I rode again with our little group that has been coalescing for a couple of days, including Cliff, Gerry, Amy and sometimes Ed and Mark. One of the most important strategies for a trip of this length is finding others with whom you get along, and who ride approximately the same pace.  To ride 3600 miles in a month on your own is way, way more difficult than riding in a pack of 3-6 cyclists.  You get a lot of shelter from the winds this way, and the physics of drafting, or following very closely behind the rider in front of you, is that you can expend about 30% less energy to go the same speed.  So we ride in a "paceline" and have a regular rotation through so that everyone gets a little time up front doing the hard work, and a lot more time riding in the pack conserving energy.

Amy, Cliff and Gerry in a display of team strength!

Going up long hills in a pack is different in that you don't really get the break from wind resistance, but it's still more motivating to keep pedaling upward when the pack is together. So like the previous days' climbs, we stuck together on this early climb and once it was over, the rest of the day was a much easier, more level terrain. We climbed up onto a plain rich with hay, alfalfa and other grasses known as the Columbia Plateau.  It's basically sitting on one of the world's largest deposits of lava, and over the past several million years it has become very fertile soil. More could be done agriculturally but for the desert-like lack of precipitation.  It's still quite spectacular to experience.


Rolling into Spokane was a kind of culture shock; we had been in small towns and rural countryside for the past 3 days or so, but it was a chance to get a good Italian dinner at Luigi's, a classic red-check tablecloth family-owned pasta house.  What a treat after the previous night's disaster of a restaurant in Coulee Dam.  Let's face it, we need to eat and eat well on this trip.  I'm burning an average of 5000 calories per day on our journey and energy spent has to be replaced with fresh fuel!  Mission accomplished tonight.