We couldn't start any trip without a rush, so we had long devised a plan to park the Volvo in Vancouver before the ride. Thursday morning, I drove up with Angela, and because she hadn't been to Vancouver since she was little, I drove her around Stanley Park before parking it and kicking it around Robson. We had a good time browsing and eating ice cream and talking talking talking. Andrew arrived about 7pm. By the time we ate (Shabusen) and beat it back to Seattle, it was midnight.

Five hours later, Andrew and I were pulled over on the side of Sandpoint Way reseating the bikes on the rack. We hit a large bump at speed. In the rearview mirror, I watched both bikes catch air off the rack. Andrew's flew off completely, but was saved by two reliable bungees. Two thousand dollars hanging by a bungee!

We were late, but not the latest. Lots of people were still clustered around the start line. The important thing is not so much when you start, but that you arrive in time to get your overnight bag on the transport. At 6:40, with dozens of people still dinking around, some unseeable authority announced through a bullhorn that we should all think about leaving.

We were the tailend of the riders, but we passed people easily enough along the familiar Burke-Gilman through Woodinville and up the long hill there. We'd ridden this route earlier this year, from Woodinville to Snohomish, and it is one of the prettier ones we've followed. The suburbs cling to the hills. Once you cruise the long downhill into Maltby, you're in farmland, wide and lush.

Just after one particularly gorgeous downhill curve, past a herd of cows stancheoned in a row and gazing confusedly at the bikers whizzing by, one of the spokes on my rear wheel broke. I didn't hear or feel it, but a bit later Andrew noticed something "caught" in my wheel.

Twenty-five miles in, we were looking for the crash truck. Snohomish was within sight, so we pulled out the spoke, unclasped the rear brake to allow clearance for the wobble, and rode on.

Snohomish is one of those cute old farming towns reborn to antique stores and bakeries. Bicyclists and bakeries are like this, so, of course, when we rolled into town, the streets were littered with high-end road bikes propped against store fronts and curbs or lying prone on the pavement. I love how that happens.

The crash truck drove by just as we were wondering where we'd find a functional spoke. The two mechanics were like the bicycling equivalent of Click and Clack, laughing like Popeye and joking in sync. They filled the gap with a shiny cylindrical spoke that sparkled in contrast to my flat black ones. I told them they had iced my grill.

They charged only a buck!

We parked the bikes and got coffee. When we started again, my knee began to hurt. The damn knee!

My knee had been hurting for the last several rides, so, a week before the ride, I started taking therapeutic doses of ibuprofen and icing the spot intermittently throughout the day (ibuprofen on the rocks), every day. It was a total bummer that the pain started so early in the ride; I'd been hoping it would hold off until around 70 miles or so. The pain means taking it easy to prevent injury, which means not being able to tap into my body's fitness. I also get totally cranky and uninterested in the scenery. I can only focus on the end—When will it end? My knee hurt the remaining 80 miles. You don't get tired from the riding, but from tolerating pain, and that really sucks. The RSVP is only partially supported, so at each stop I had to hunt ice from local vendors.

After Snohomish, hurting knee aside, the scenery wasn't all that great and the roads uninteresting as we rode north to Lake Stevens toward Arlington. At one point, Andrew missed a "John Henry" and I stood at the top of a hill jumping up and down and waving my arms hoping he would see me in his rearview mirror. I watched him shrink as he rocketed toward the bottom of the hill and inched toward the top. A car pulled up and the driver yelled, "He missed a turn didn’t he?"

Arlington, 52 miles

We lunched at a deli in Arlington, ditching our bikes among all the others. Then we worked our way north for Mount Vernon and the ride-supported rest-stop at the 75-mile mark. From there, it was a 10-mile traverse across the flood plain along Chuckanut drive. I like the flats the least. The scenery doesn't change fast enough and there are no natural opportunities for varying posture. At mile 90, in Bow, we all stopped at tourist crossroads to rest before the 10-mile uphill toward Bellingham.

Compared to the STP, the pace of this ride is a lot faster. The weekend riders don't sign up for the RSVP, perhaps because the ride is not supported as well or maybe because of its fabled hillyness. The absence of the weekenders makes for a less gruesome journey, overall—fewer crashes—and a faster pace. The bikes are predominently higher-end. A delightful surprise: A lot of older riders populate the pack. I passed many, many 60- to 70-year-olds who were all in amazing shape.

These last 15 miles of the first day were the best stretch of the entire ride. I love the gradual uphill broken by curves and downhills. The road winds up the coast and offers stunning views of the San Juan Islands. By this time I felt great—used to the pain and in good shape. I passed a lot of people who looked too tired to pedal any longer and I decided that the difference four months of training makes is whether or not you feel like you can still pedal constantly after 100 miles.

We'd reserved a room at WWU, which is on the top of the hill in Bellingham, away from services. We walked to Fairhaven for Mexican food after showering. Then, we caught a cab back.

At the dorm, the teen running the check-in hadn't grown her backbone yet and wouldn't disturb her RD to find out where I could get ice. So Andrew limped with me across campus to another residence hall with a functioning ice machine. It's great that WWU hosts bicyclists. It sucks that they are disorganized and charge too much (over $70 for the two us) without offering basic amenities, such as ice. Anyway, we had a suite with an unoperational kitchenette that, to our surprise, we shared with another couple: Jim and Lynn. We saw just enough of them to get a hint of their dynamic.

Lynn: "Whew! It sures stinks in here."
Jim: "That's just you. The rest of us smell fine."

Day Two, Up and Adam, down the hill in the post-dawn chill, and OUCH! does that seat hurt that second morning (and the entire rest of the day! fuck all). We joined the pile of bicycles at a drive-thru espresso and rode the next 15 miles through dairy country to Lyndon and the Dutch Mother, where everybody had apparently stopped for eggs and bacon and pancakes and locally made baked goods. Mm! (Someone has since told us that Lyndon is a well-established fundamentalist Christian town, which would explain a lot, especially the mechanical, mindless cheerfulness of the waitress.)

Two hours later, we emerged to a rainstorm, the kind so heavy that the raindrops bounce off the pavement. We keep our raingear tied to the handlebars, but many people, seeing the clear skies in Bellingham, had put theirs on the transport. We heard people asking, "Do you know where to buy raingear in town?" A lot of people poked arm and neck holes into trash bags.

It was just a knight's move to Canada, albeit a drenching one. For the last mile or so, the route paralleled the border, and the border was only a small ditch flanked by two-lane roads in different countries. Occasional, but regularly spaced, small obelisks officiated the demarcation. Canadian border officials at the Aldergrove crossing practically waved us through without looking at I.D., but it was still exciting to cross the border.

Not long after that, we approached and summited the third daunting climb on the trip, "The Wall." And it was nothing. I'm always surprised that people worry about the hills on a 200-mile ride. First, it's the distance that gets you, not the hills. Second, if you live and ride in Puget Sound, significant losses and gains in elevation are unavoidable. No hill on the RSVP matched the difficulty of climbing up Cap Hill. Are there people who only ride along the water?

So, rainy fucking rain and straight roads connecting dairy farms to other dairy farms and some small towns. It all looked the same and was hardly available for the looking through rain-smeared vision. We were soaked. Bandages began to appear on exposed skin as more riders lost traction and crashed. In particular, a lot of riders thought they could traverse railroad tracks in the pounding rain and found out otherwise. At each railroad crossing, a rider or two could be seen applying first aid on the side of the road. Andrew and I dismounted and walked across all of them.

At a T-intersection 4 miles from Fort Langley, we noticed another one of my spokes had broken. This time I felt it, like a glitch in the pedaling or a small impact from a tire-flung rock. Same drill as before. We caught up with the crash truck at the rest stop in town.

The thing is, you don't want to stop for long when it's raining. With no opportunity to dry off, standing around in wet gear is the fast track to hypothermia. But, you have to stop sometimes, so you do, but hardly at all.

At Fort Langley we got to take a ferry across the Fraser. It was a small-time, open-air ferry. We stood on the narrow deck among the cars and in the rain, shivering. But it was a fun feature of the ride.

Once ashore, the route got ugly: the Lougheed Hwy. It seemed that Canadian drivers didn't slow or swing wide, which created a lot of close-calls. Also, lots of guys in plaid and baseball hats driving trucks and hooting and hollering at us. One guy pointed something that looked like a gun as he passed. Idiots. Growing up, when we thought of Canadians, that's what we imagined, a la the McKenzie brothers.

Fort Langley, 146 miles

Andrew spotted a beaver in a ditch. We had to walk across the long busy bridge across the Pitt River. We stopped at a Starbucks and an A&W that were nestled in a giant strip mall there.

All of our electronics started to die, from drowning. We got one more picture before the camera gave it up.

Then, in to Coquitlam and the Barnet Hwy, which was one of the worst stretches of the ride. The highway had wide shoulders, which was good, but it was long, noisy, and wet. Some stunning views of the easternmost end of Burrard inlet, but otherwise, it was concrete barrier all the way.

Finally, we turned onto Hastings and the Adanac bike route, which would take us through Burnaby and right into downtown Vancouver. (We rode Adanac earlier this summer.) About five miles from the finish, I noticed that I had a flat. How I noticed is that a Vancouver mountain biker was a little ahead of us and when he bounced over bumps, I bounced too. I don't know how long I rode like that before I realized that I'm not supposed to bounce. It was too wet and too close to the finish line to change a flat, so we just pumped it up. I rode until it became bouncy and then we pumped it up again. We did that three times.

At long last, we pulled into the Westin Bayshore, our reward for finishing. I stood in line, muddy and still dripping, in the vast, shiny lobby populated with tidy people wearing Prada. When it was my turn, I conjured my reservation information only to have the front desk tell me the reservation was for the next night. I couldn't believe it and in astonishment rattled off all the ways I'd verified that reservation in the last two months; and moreover, how we already had a car parked in the lot. (Possession is nine-tenths of the law.) The woman said it was a very busy weekend and they were full, but since I was already there she would see what she could do. I was panicking, wondering what we would do for lodging in a sold-out city. But this was The Westin. At that level of service and price, you get whatever you need. She spoke to her manager and her manager gave the OK, and then she gave me a room key for the Tower. The Tower!

We'd gotten a deal, called the Lover's Package (Shh!), that boasted chocolates, flowers, and similar fluff, but above all, a 4pm check-out time. The manager said he'd order the fixings and have the room ready for us when we arrived. I left the lobby and returned to Andrew, who had pumped up my tire, which had deflated in the time it took me to check in. I told him about the ordeal.

Relieved to have a key in hand, we rode on to the finish line, which was fruitful only in that we could pick up our luggage there.

Back at the Westin, we walked into an oversized room on the 15th floor that had a balcony facing the harbor and downtown. I mean, one whole corner was window, with a sliding glass door and narrow deck. And before us the whole bay moved, a kaleidescope of marine activity. Cruise and container ships, pleasure boats, and the reliable little sea buses traversing the bay. But the best!: Suddenly, the soft flutter of a propeller and a float plane level with our room gently gliding past, only a few hundred feet out, on its landing!

At that moment, I wished to live, right there, on the 15th floor of the Westin. I wished and plotted how to save to buy one of the nearby condos—but what would be the point? None of them sit so close to the water and the seaplane path as the resort does.

We showered and put on the robes (Andrew: "So much coverage, so much access."), and stayed that way until 4pm the next day.

We ordered in our 5-star dinner and pushed the table against our 5-star view. A bottle of champagne and some truffles arrived. We watched pleasure cruises sailing around Stanley Park in time for the fireworks show, and with them went the tide and the daylight, so that I got to watch downtown fade and slowly light itself over Andrew's shoulder. We cracked open the champagne, clinked to victory, and then went to bed.

We woke early, ordered breakfast in. We pushed the cart over to the window, and while we ate we watched early-morning crews skim across the bay. Boats clustered around the floating gas stations, and commerce came and went even though it was Sunday. Seaplanes fluttered by at regular intervals.

We spent the day in and out of bed. When the day warmed, we opened the windows wide and in with the breeze came all the sounds of the bay, including the peanut-butter smear of pontoons colliding with the water.

At 4pm, I came out of the shower dressed in the nightgoing clothes I'd meant for the night before. Andrew stood on the balcony in equilibrium with the world's playing light, wearing Kenneth Cole from collar to cuff. His hair a shiny and smooth rope.

We stood on the balcony together telling each other all the things we saw in the view, and I liked hearing about the things he saw that I didn't. Then we said good-bye to the room, and I have never been so sad to leave a hotel.

We packed the bikes in the Volvo and drove to Granville rise, where we bought a Souvenir of Canada and made the first sitting at Vij's. When we drove home, we detoured to the Aldergrove border crossing, where we had crossed with our bikes. It was nice to see the scenery in the sunshine, and without having to work for it.