My dear friends:

This is my Day 3 Courage Classic update. Thank you to Cam for writing the Day 1 & 2 updates.

I am very grateful for your tremendous show of support and kindness of me during this ride through the majestic mountains and for the kids that are benefiting from your generosity.

Here are some catch up pictures from the first two days.

From Day 1 Additional photos:

Climbing to Snoqualmie Pass in rainy conditions  ..

 

 At Snoqualmie Pass the rain stopped, we were on the leeward side!

From Day 2 Additional photos:

Some riders finishing at Blewett pass elevation 4100 ft.

Camp at Leavenworth – my beautiful new tent amongst the mountains. I was far enough away from everyone such that I had a quiet night.

Relaxing before dinner at Leavenworth on courage classic day 2

This was the craziest rig I had ever seen, talk about unstable!

After dinner on Day 2. I met many first time riders and volunteers. Everyone had big smiles of pride for being a part of this unique community.

One elderly gentleman, who was cherubic and cheerful was in charge of road safety during this ride, helping riders follow rules of the road and to be cautious and courteous to others.  He was very curious about me and where I was from.  He seemed drawn to me and was convinced that I looked exactly like his long time friend, a Brazilian missionary.   He said it was not just my looks, but also my mannerisms and accent. I assured him that I did not know of any Brazilian connection in my ancestry. I told him I had been to Sao Paulo once, for two weeks and that I liked the city a lot.

One bit of advice he had for us was to always say “on your left” as we passed riders and to pause for a moment to offer words of encouragement. Most people were very happy when I exclaimed “on your left”, and even shouted back “on your right”. They always thanked me for the brief moment of distraction from climbing uphill.

Connecting with others is what this ride is all about for me. Many people were struggling during the ride, working hard to face the physical and mental challenge before them.

To my utter surprise, I once again saw the elderly gentleman on the ascent to Stevens Pass, laboring like the rest of us uphill, and he had at least 20 years on all of us!  I felt embarrassed as I had not realized that he was riding,  I apologized for my assumption. He said he had ridden the Courage Classic at least a dozen years. I was floored by his accomplishment, he must have started when he was close to 60! Such is the humility and nonchalance of these riders and volunteers who do not think twice about devoting a significant part of their lives to serving others in need.

Day 3:

The day started by packing up camp at Leavenworth early followed by an excellent pancake breakfast. We scaled the Chumstick Pass and had our first stop for snacks along a beautiful road in Plain, WA. Those are bananas in chocolate, apples, bananas, peanut butter, licorice and trail mix.

 

Do you get the feeling that this ride is really just about the food?  Food and hula hooping! The next stop was 15 miles away at the Nason Creek Rotary Club where we had root beer floats and the infamous hula hoop competition.

I did miserable this year and lost to a novice hooper named Christine. Here are some pictures of my humiliation.

Now wait just a moment, did you see that kick! Sabotage!

 

Last year I did much better, thanks in part to practicing with hoops I made myself. My competition then was against a total beginner hula hooper, and I easily won the grand prize; a t-shirt. And thank goodness I did because as we climbed to Stevens Pass, the temperatures dropped to very close to freezing in a stiff headwind. I was ill prepared for this and just had my cycling jersey which offered no protection against the cold wind. That t-shirt saved me from frostbite on the descent from Stevens Pass to the finish.

Back to this year. After that hooping ignominy, my punishment was 16 miles of climbing up to Stevens Pass. In between, there was a water stop. It looks like my bike has just about had it!

The mountain tested me as usual, but I was determined to not use my smallest front chain ring for the entire ride. I have not used it now for several months and I didn’t want to have to start using it again now. This commitment to myself made it considerably harder, but it certainly improved my average speed. When I got to the top, there was nothing to do but to celebrate and eat once more!

The ride down to the finish at Skykomish was exhilarating with a tremendous headwind buffeting the bike. I knew what to expect and was careful coming down. I received my medal with pride and got on the shuttle bus to return to the start point at Snoqualmie Ridge. The announcer said this group of riders “won” as we got to take the first bus out!  The kids are the winners in the end. We were all very proud to be a part of this great journey.

Thank you for your interest and encouragement. This year we have had an outpouring of support both through your generous donations and kind words sent during the ride. This has all meant more to us than words could ever describe. We do this for the kids and you give us the push to keep doing it!

Until next year….

Chandru & Cam

At Leavenworth