9th September – Elma to Kelso

8.00 planned start time. At 8.05 Maurice notices he has a flat tyre!  (making an early bid for TWIT of the day).  Thankfully, whilst waiting for Maurice, we met up with Dave and Dennis, a couple of American buddies also cycling the Pacific Coast route. We exchanged a few stories of our rides. They are cycling on touring bikes carrying all their gear, including tents, on their bikes. It was very difficult to lift their bikes of the ground – not for us!

We eventually departed around 8.30am after Scott had repaired the puncture for Maurice. Crossed the Chechchalis river and stopped off at Rochester (a mildly more attractive town that the UK version) for coffee and blackberry pancakes and maple syrup – magnificent! We cycled to and then through Centralia around lunchtime and encountered our first nutcase driver who seemed to deliberately cut us all up – we stayed calm (all except for Tom) counted to 10 and moved on!

After 100kms we were all running low on energy so we stopped off for a very late lunch at Sandy’s Parlour in Toledo.  This set us up for the last push to Kelso, our evening stop. Passed by the Lewis and Clark State Park and entered Cowlitz county. After Castle Rock we ended up at Kelso having done a total of 145kms in the day – our biggest ride so far which included several long climbs and periods of strong head winds. Further stress was caused by aggressive dogs chasing us whilst cycling through ‘Billy Bob’ country.  We are all feeling a bit jaded tonight! (see stats page for more details).

A few pictures from today are below – they include a guy from Elma who has a pair of sideburns that puts Bradley Wiggins to shame !

Tomorrow we travel onto Astoria, Oregon – allegedly an easy day of around 60 miles, but with a couple of big climbs. We leave the State of Washington into Oregon with its famous coastline and Redwood trees.

Additional comments from Mr Rowe: Maurice made an early bid for TWIT of the day but was surpassed by Tom who changed his mind ordering milk shakes at least 3 times in less and 5 seconds at our lunch break. This caused the waitress (Sandra) re-writing the whole order for all of us. He later did not confess to his crime and was justly awarded further points which won him TWIT of the day – this is now for two consecutive days.  Will he make it a hat-trick tomorrow?



Dave cycling the same route as us but carrying all his gear
 on the bike - WOW!




Dennis, cycling the Pacific coast with Dave. 




Meet Robert Paul from Elma - eat your heart out
Bradley




The Chechchalis River






Chris with Elvis in Rochester

'Big Cog' Brian pushes on



Pulled over bu the Sherriff - fortunately not us bikers! 




Our best effort at a peleton



Brian - the keeper of the 'yummy bears' - US equivalent of jelly babies

Another long climb



yummy bears handed out - a maximum of 2 bears per rider!



Chris loves his bike - he's now taking it to bed as well!



Maurice punctured before we even start day 4 - TWIT nomination for the day



Coffee and pancakes at Rochester