A Centurian at Last
Reach the Beach
Although I have ridden hundreds and hundreds of miles all over, up to this point I had never actually ridden one hundred miles in one go. Andrew and I came very close to it on our Eastern Oregon Adventure back in 2023 achieving my previous longest ride of 93 miles.
If you haven’t figured it out by now, I am a very goal oriented person. After hearing about a friend doing the “Reach the Beach” century ride last year, and realizing I actually had the time to train this spring, I decided I would sign myself up for the organized ride this year so that I could finally check off the century milestone from my to-do list. I also really liked the premise of going from Portland to the coast, or “reaching the beach” if you will, rather than just arbitrarily riding 100 miles. Needing to reach the beach not only involved going over the coast mountain range, but it also added a few bonus miles making my total ride 105.9miles!
Reach the Beach is an organized ride put on by the American Lung Association to raise funds and awareness for lung health. In addition to my entry fee I, and the hundreds of other participants, raised money to support their cause. The ride itself was very well supported with food, water, mechanics and lots of signage.
They even had different distance options: 105, 75, 43 and 23 miles. As far as number of participants I’m assuming the totals were around 1000 people. Back when Andrew and I used to run, we always played a game of who could find the lowest bib, and who could find the highest. I feel like I did pretty good this event finding both 3 and 983.
Training
At first I was worried about training for a springtime ride – as it’s usually cold, rainy and just generally harder to motivate oneself to get outside. But as it turns out 2025 was a very dry spring with lots of suspiciously beautiful days, and when you add in the fact that I ride my bike to get to work and for my job, getting my weekly miles really wasn’t too difficult at all. I really only needed to plan out a long ride once a week. Mostly I mapped my training routes around Wandrer trying to explore areas in Portland I had yet to go, albeit some of those areas had probably been avoided for a reason. (Wandrer is a sort of tracking game with the goal to ride as many different or new road & trail miles as possible.)
Because I am so used to training for multi-day rides, I probably over trained for this ride. After having “over used” my knee while riding to the point of being unable to bend my leg I’m always paranoid about hurting myself, so preventing post race-day pain was definitely a priority for me. That paired with my post-ride massage paid off because I was back on the bike pretty much immediately. It was a lot of fun for sure; however, I’m not sure I’ll be doing it again anytime soon, driving to the beach seems a little easier.
Ride Day - "It's not a Race, It's a Ride"
May 17, 2025
As it turns out, riding 100+ miles takes a long time. In order for the event to conclude at a reasonable hour, they had to start before the sun. The official start was from Sauvie Island (about 10 miles north of Portland) between 6 and 7am. Since I was on Pablo, my heavy steel Salsa Vaya mostly meant for touring (and let’s face it I am just slow) I wanted to start the ride as early as I could to maximize my available time. So of course, me being the overly anxious person that I am, I was the 2nd rider there just after 5 in the morning.
The morning started off dark and drizzly. There was a glimpse of hope as the rain paused for moments here and there, but as it turns out, all my beautiful weather training days had come to an end, and instead my first century would be in classic Pacific Northwest weather.
My friend Roy had also signed up for this ride. While this was my first time riding a century, this was his umpteenth time doing it so he opted to enjoy my company and ride at my slower pace throughout the day.
The Route
The route itself was lovely. As is the case with any ride trying to plan a point A to point B path there’s always going to be some shitty sections, but overall, route wise, I would ride it again even without all the support the event provided. The least pleasant portion of the route itself was probably the first several miles which followed along the shoulder of the highway, before we were able to turn off onto less frequented roads. Then the route followed adjacent to the Crown Zellerbach Trail (a popular gravel trail A&I have ridden before) for a while before leading us up our first major climb out of the valley. The climb was long and slow going since I didn’t want to overexert myself too early. But once we summited and began our decent it was pure bliss. The downhills are almost always worth the uphill.
The next 35ish miles were mostly flat with a slight downhill. The roads were fairly quiet taking us between forests and various farm communities. The weather wasn’t the most cooperative, but it did generally stop raining long enough for us to dry off before starting again and it was never too heavy. The head wind was noticeable, but generally pretty light.
The ride had well spaced rest stops every 15-20 miles where we were able to refuel and relieve ourselves as necessary. I didn’t realize I was so picky on my fueling needs, but my one complaint was that I wish there had been more protein food options at each stop. They did at least have lots of fresh fruit and various forms of sugar and carbs for us to enjoy which was great until I started craving something more substantial. They even had a decent selection of vegan friendly options, although I know Roy wishes there had been more. Around the 60 mile mark they fed us a real meal with a delicious salmon hash (with a vegetarian option available). Although I was hungry and the food was delicious, I was nervous to eat too much all at once since I wouldn’t be breaking as long as we typically do on bike tours to let the meal settle.
My legs were definitely feeling the miles around lunch. Roy was eager to keep moving, not wanting to let his muscles chill for too long, and after telling him I wanted my legs to stop hurting before we left he pointed to the aid tent and suggested I go there for a massage. Game changer! They busted out a deep tissue massager and spent a minute or two on each quad and my pain just melted away. I texted Andrew my ride status and told him my legs felt “6 times better”.
After lunch was our second big climb of the day. Thankfully with restored-ish legs and fuel in the belly Roy and I were able to climb it without too much trouble. Around mile 70 Roy noticed that my back tire was looking a bit low, but fortunately the sealant inside must have done its job since after I flagged down a support vehicle for a floor pump I didn’t have any other issues with my tire.
We enjoyed another blissful downhill into a well stocked rest stop around mile 83 and probably took too long of a break – but I was happy to enjoy cranberry juice and cheese! (This rest stop was the start location for the shortest route option, so they had extra goodies for all of them). After reluctantly getting back on the bike, the last 20 plus miles were a slog. At some point we came out of the tree cover entirely and were ultimately facing a strong headwind for the final push to the beach. Next year I may petition for a “Come from the Coast” ride where we get a tailwind instead of headwind!
I got a burst of energy upon spotting the Astoria column in the distance, although as it turns out, Astoria is still a decent distance from the coast by bicycle which I should have known from our Pacific Coast Tour. The last rest stop was a disappointment with only water and no bathrooms, but I suppose that kept us from dawdling too long. Up to this point Roy had been riding ahead and meeting back with me at regular intervals, but for the last 10 miles I hunkered behind his wheel for some headwind shelter and closed out everything else as I let him guide me to Fort Stevens State Park. The last bit of the ride was on a cute albeit bumpy trail through the State Park and we rolled across the finish line just after 5pm – technically only 20 minutes longer than the “official cutoff” (which they had extended due to the weather). Not bad for my first century.
Andrew was there to greet me at the finish line, and after food, beer and some pictures we made the comparatively short drive back to Portland in the car.
I did it, I reached the Beach! And in the process, checked “Ride a Century” off my bucket list.
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