On June 16th I participated in the Tour de Blast, an 82-mile ride that followed an out and back route to the Johnson Ridge Observatory at Mt. St. Helens National Monument. The ride was organized by the Longview Rotary club, and included over 6000 vertical feet of climbing.
Gordon and other riders make their way up a climb early in the ride.
After ending 10 years of regular competitive bike racing in 1997, I started doing some organized tours and century rides as a way to still have fun participating in cycling events and give me some goals to train for. For the past few years I have wanted to ride the Tour de Blast, but it always conflicted with other commitments.
I did the ride with a friend named Gordon who started riding a few years ago. He lives close to me, so he has been a regular training partner. We rode the Wenatchee Apple Century ride together earlier in June, and we figured the Tour de Blast would be great training for the Seattle to Portland which we are also signed up for in July.
The morning of the Tour de Blast, Gordon picked me up at 6 a.m. We made the two-hour drive from the suburbs of Seattle down I-5 to Castle Rock. The ride started from Toutle High School, and when we arrived, the parking lot and fields surrounding the school were full of cars with roof racks.
Riding into the clouds near Elk Rock Summit at 3,800 feet.
There was a long line of people at the registration sign in, but it turned out that was for people who hadn’t pre-registered. Gordon and I had registered online, so we quickly picked up our registration packets, and t-shirts.
The sky was overcast, and the temperature was on the cool side, but the roads were dry, and I was hopeful the clouds would burn off later in the day. I put on arm warmers, knee warmers, and a vest over my jersey for some extra warmth.
We were on our bikes by 9 a.m., and before long we were starting a gradual climb. About 11 miles into the ride the road started to tilt upward a little more and we started doing some serious climbing. I was happy I had installed a cassette with a wider range of gears the night before. At this point we were on a new stretch of highway that was built after the eruption of Mt. St. Helens.
Passing the 4000 feet elevation sign. Just 200 more feet to the Johnson Observatory and the turn around.
The road surface was great with a nice shoulder. The first official rest stop was at the 17-mile mark. We thought about riding past, but we made a quick stop to use the port-o-lets, and I grabbed a couple of cookies and half a banana. The ride starts out at 500 feet elevation, and reaches 3,800 feet by the 27-mile mark at Elk Rock Summit. By this time we were in the clouds, and the visibility was next to nothing.
At Elk Rock summit I pulled up my arm warmers, zipped up my vest, and began the quick descent. Soon we were out of the clouds, and there were some great views of the Toutle river valley as we made our way to Coldwater Ridge and a little more climbing.
At Coldwater Ridge, 32 miles into the ride, we descended to Coldwater Creek at 2,530 feet elevation, then made the final climb to the Johnson Visitor Center at 4,200 feet, which is also the turn-around at the 41 mile mark. With all the cloud cover there wasn’t much of a view of Mt. St. Helen’s, but you could still see many fallen trees that lined the hillsides like toothpicks as a reminder of the power of the mountain’s blast twenty one years ago.
The view from the Johnson Ridge Observatory. The Mt. St. Helens crater is behind those clouds somewhere.
The food stop at the turn-around had run out of most of the food, and bottled water due to a higher number of riders than expected signing up the day of the ride. I was starting to get pretty cold standing around, so Gordon and I didn’t stay long before we began the descent from the Johnson Visitor Center. I started shivering as we reached 45 or 50 miles per hour. I thought I was going pretty fast when a tandem came blowing by me doing at least 10 miles per hour faster.
By the time we reached the valley on the return trip, I was starting to warm up, the sun was shining, and there was no more fog at the Elk Rock Summit. With 17 miles to go I was getting pretty hungry from the lack of food at the turn around, so we stopped at the last rest stop where they had some great sandwiches that gave me some much needed energy for the final push to the finish.
At the finish we were treated to a pasta feed that was included in the price of the registration fee.
Overall, the Tour de Blast was a blast! The ride was well organized, except for a lack of food and water at the turn around. The road was smooth and wide with climbs that never seemed too steep. This ride is a must if you are training for a longer ride like RAMROD later in the season that has lots of climbing. This is a ride I will definitely want to do again.
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