2024 STP - 200 Miles in 1 Day!

Every year, the Cascade Bicycle Club of Seattle organizes a supported bike ride from the University of Washingon in Seattle to Holiday Park in downtown Portland called the “STP” (Seattle to Portland). This year about 5,000 riders participated. The ride followed a 206 mile route created by Cascade. The route was over highways and back roads and felt very safe the whole way with large shoulders on the roads or via trails (like the 14-mile trail between Yelm and Tenino). This years ride was on Saturday, July 13 and Sunday, July 14.

Here is the route > ridewithgps.com/routes/47725874

The Cascade Club organizes a great many volunteers to make the ride happen. These volunteers will set up and facilitate several rest stops on the route. The stops include mechanics, rest rooms, water, snacks and/or medical help (from volunteer doctors and EMT’s). Thankfully, we only used the rest stops for snacks, water and rest rooms. It really was a bit amazing that none of us had a flat tire with 600+ bike miles split between us.

Our group was myself, Danny Westin (BHC employee), and our friend Sam Sachs. The 3 of us had been training together for a few months before the big ride. I recall starting with rides of 25-30 miles and then building up to 50, 60, 70, 80, 85 and then a 100-mile ride 2 weeks before the STP. I believe I put in a total of 900 miles in preparation. In hindsight, doing more would have been better.

Most riders plan on breaking the 200-mile ride in half by riding 100 miles to someplace around Centralia (the mid-point) and then staying at a hotel/camp or other places set up by Cascade and then doing the other 100 miles the next day.

Our “team” decided that we would do our best to try and accomplish the whole 206-mile route in one day. This clearly was greatly influenced by having 2 of the 3 of us on our team aged in the mid-twenties! We did have a hotel room booked in Longview that was at about mile 150 thinking it would be very likely to only make it that far.

One of the many factors to attempt to do 200 miles in one day is just how much time it takes. In other words, we had to keep a pretty fast pace and maintain that for the whole ride - or we would simply not get done. The finish line in Portland “closes” at 9pm so we needed to be sure to make it to the finish line by that time or not attempt it. An important strategy for keeping the speed as high as possible is to use draft lines. This is a bunch of riders lined up directly behind each other about a foot apart with only the first rider in the line dealing with the wind resistance of going 20-25 mph. When the lead rider tires from fighting that wind resistance and setting a fast pace for the draft line, they move to one side and the next person takes the lead and does the same thing. I remember about 10 of us were in a draft line going 22-23 mph and feeling pretty good about the pace, and then another draft line of about 16 people suddenly shows up right next to us and blows by going a fair bit faster.

We decided to start a bit early to give us the best chance of doing it in one day - and to avoid as much heat of the day as possible. I biked down from my house on Crown Hill and met Danny outside the club in Ballard at 3:40 am. A little video of Danny rolling in to meet me is below. We then took off through the very quiet and dark streets of Ballard and then Fremont to meet up with Sam at Gas Works Park. Danny and I got to the meeting spot a bit early and saw rider after rider go by us having the same idea we had about starting early. When Sam showed up, we took off and got on the STP planned route at the University Bridge.

Our route took us on Lake Washington boulevard to Seward Park and it happened to be timed just as the sun was coming up – it was a gorgeous morning.

I knew we needed to average about 4 hours for every 50 miles we traveled. This would get us to Portland by 8pm – worst case. We knew we would be fresh the first 100 miles or so (because of the training) and it would be not as hot yet traveling in the morning. We knew the forecast south of Centralia would be 86-88 with very little wind and the heat could be a big factor in how we do. Normally a 50 mile ride would be not that difficult within 4 hours, but on this ride, you have factor in many breaks.

The plan was to blow by the first rest stops and make our first major stop for a meal at Spanaway – about mile 56. We left Spanaway about 8:30am and I was already a bit worried about time. Our next major stop would be Centralia and Chehalis and I think we got there before noon so we made up time in that 2nd 50 miles. The stop took a bit longer since we were already pretty hot and needed more rest. They had full sized water misters set up that we could walk through at the major rest stops because of the heat and we made the most of that. From this point on, we probably used more water to pour over us than what we drank and we drank A LOT of water for the rest of the day.

It was quite the experience cycling through small towns like Roy and Yelm with the town folk on the sidelines cheering you on in some places and the police cordoning off roads and directing the cyclists through the towns to make it safer. With our early start and pushing our speed to attempt the 1 day ride, we were some of the very first people to reach these towns and I was thinking there would be several thousand riders coming behind us the same day since Roy and Yelm were in the first 100 miles.

I remember leaving Chehalis at about mile 107 and how hot it was on the pavement with it being 88 at the time and no shade for many miles.

We continued to drink lots of water with electrolytes added to prevent cramping up. I estimated I drank about 40 large bike bottles of liquids during the entire ride. Then at mile 130 near Vader my legs completely cramped up and all the sudden I could barely walk let alone do anymore riding. My thinking at that point is I just need to get a ride from one of the support guys to the hotel in Longview and let Danny and Sam plow on. Instead, Sam coached me quite a bit on stretching which I did for a fair amount of time and then switched out my electrolytes from Gatorade to Nuun. I also had some mustard packs that my good friend Pat Hughes clued me into when she had her legs cramped up on a long ride in the past. After all that treatment taking a half an hour or so, I started up again by walking my bike up the next hill and then slowly biking again on the flat. I was able to slowly speed up the ride and over a while we were all rolling again. Unfortunately, that ordeal and the slower riding after took a while which threatened our goal.

At this point in time, we stopped at a lot of rest break spots because we needed to continually replenish our water. At a more major rest stop just before Longview at mile 148, Danny pointed out a rider across the way that had on a BHC bike jersey. We had 2 BHC jersey designs made (which we sell at the club), and he was wearing the one style that our team was not. It was fun going over and introducing myself to fellow BHC member Alex Van Roijen and getting a picture with him. We have now seen each other at BHC since the ride, and we have this pretty cool thing in common about both doing the STP in one day.

I remember leaving that rest top at mile 148 realizing that we did not have any conversation about the idea of stopping in Longview with our hotel just down the road. The funny thing is I don’t really remember what time it was, seemed that we were going for the full ride no matter what. So we cycled through Longview, which seemed to take forever, and then went over the very long Longview bridge into Oregon. I knew once we did that, there was no turning back and we had to work against time to get to the finish line as soon as possible.

That last 50 miles did seem to go on forever. We are traveling through a part of Oregon that most people don’t see since most everyone usually drives on I-5 and goes from Vancouver to Portland. The route we took has us enter Oregon about 50 miles north of Portland and come in from the West side. It was a very hot time of the day and we continued to cycle as fast as possible but stopped to get water constantly. We then finally got to the St John bridge which by crossing, has us enter Portland. Once we entered Portland, it still took us at least 30 minutes to get through the city to the finish line because of the slower city streets. But we finally got there and rolled into the finish line at 8:45pm.

Below are pictures of our adventure:

Meeting Danny at 3:40am, meeting up with Sam at 4am, good shoulder riding, Sam leading a draft line, on the Yelm-Tenino trail, meeting BHC member, Alex at mile 148, commiting to 1 day by going over the Longview bridge, team picture at the St John Bridge, Danny going through the finish line, team photo at the finish, opening a nice cold beer at the finish, bike computer summary of the ride, video of Danny rolling in at 3:40am.