A much anticipated bike ride was successfully completed on the North Cascades Hwy Thursday. Dave proposed a Concrete to Winthrop ride early this summer. We got talking with Andy at Milltown and it eventually turned into a modified version only climbing maniacs would love. We started at Newhalem (east of the passes on Hwy 20) and biked west up Rainy pass and Washington pass then down 15 miles to Mazama. Then we turned around and biked back up Washington Pass and Rainy pass where we were picked up by the volunteer pit crew. It was 80 miles and 9800 vertical feet of climbing, 6 hours of riding time. I survived... Andy and Dave seemed in their element. Before this my longest ride was 53 miles with minimal climbing so I was pretty excited to not finish too far behind these guys. It was a beautiful and epic day! Although much of the beauty goes unnoticed after about mile 60 or 6000 vertical feet..whichever comes first :) The long uphill slogs were about 8mph for me, downhill was up to 40mph. We had the added benefit of a pit crew this day....Dad supplied water refills and Cheetos at strategic locations on the route. With little water along the way this was a huge benefit! Next month...Hurricane Ridge; next year...STP in one day. And that second to last photo is not actually road kill near Mazama...it was Andy keeping the pavement warm before we turned around and headed back up the passes.