Monster Cookie Ride

Had planned to do the Monster Cookie ride with friends on Sunday, but they bailed Saturday when it was cold and pouring down rain so I did it solo. Sunday though was bright and sunny, but cold, my Jeep said 47 degrees when I parked at the State capital in Salem. As you can see by the sparse crowd in the picture, I was at the tail end of the start time. Rode through back streets to get out of Salem and then through farmland with a pretty good headwind, but for reasons I can't remember now, I wanted to do the whole ride in my big chain ring, so I did. There were only a few small steep hills and I stood for them, it was like spinning class at the gym. After 15 miles they had a food stop with 7 huge boxes of different kinds of cookies. The volunteers said, "eat, we have too many cookies", so of course I obliged. At this stop I saw Kirk R a powerhouse in the Oregon triathlon scene, he said he's doing a half-ironman in California next week. On to Champoeg park at the 30 mile mark for more boxes of cookies and there I saw Frank S from the base, we'd ridden several rides together last year. He was riding with his sister who was doing her first group ride. He invited me along, but said they were going slow, so I went on alone. On the way back I should have had a tail wind but the wind was sideways, but it was a beautiful day out with over a thousand fellow riders on the road, so it didn't matter. So I rode along waving to the girls, mooing at the cows, and giving a thumbs down to the Mannix for governor signs. There's a mooing contest in Southern Oregon in August so I have to practice. At mile 55, my body let me know this was the first long ride of the year, but I wasn't alone because I started passing tons of slow riding people with their heads down. When I got back to the capital I found out why it's called the Monster Cookie- at the finish line they had 7 boxes of the same cookies, but maybe triple the size of the other ones. I only ate one of those. I remembered a really good cafe in downtown Salem and found it, but it was closed. Saw another cafe sign, closed- a Saigon restaurant sign, closed. Then I saw a Big Town Hero, open- it's a chain, but good enough. Stats for the ride- 61.3 miles at a 15.7 MPH average and an unknown amount of cookie consumption.