We are making progress on our bikes once again! It’s also Nishk’s and Lauren’s birthday!! Yes, both of them! For a day with only a little over 30 miles of scheduled riding, this was a special one for sure. We had short stretches between rest stops, fun activities, a special guest, and some sidequests too. Illini 4000 is back in full swing!
Ride Overview
Mileage: 38.3 miles
Elevation: +1,568 ft. / -1,099 ft.
Points of Interest: Lava Butte, Sunriver Food Trucks, Paulina Peak
Tales of the Trail
Despite a pretty quick and easy ride as compared with our usual routes, the beginning of the day did not start out with a ton of fun on the bike… which is why we had fun off the bike! Ren had a promposal for Lauren, who of course accepted after hearing our beautiful voices singing “I Want It That Way.” Then, after morning circle, Maaike designated today as the backwards jersey day. For the entirety of the ride (thank goodness it is a short one) we wore our jerseys in reverse just because we could. Some of the team cracked (I won’t name names) but most of us made it all the way to La Pine with our jerseys on the wrong way and likely getting some strange looks from the plenty of other cyclists we passed wondering what in the world our group was doing. After 12 highway miles that had quite a bit of elevation gain, we made it to our first rest stop at Lava Butte. The road to the top was optional because it was about 500 ft. of elevation gain averaging an 8% grade. That was pretty significant! We still had a pretty good contingent deciding to sacrifice their fresh legs and make it to the top. For the views, the effort was worth it. Since the road was a spiral around the mountain, it made the descent a lot of fun too. It was one continuous corner.
Another 5 miles down the road, we stopped again in Sunriver to snack at some food trucks where we also found a fellow Illini. Some bike trails interspersed and continued mountain views later, we made it to La Pine. The High Lakes Christian Church where we were going to spend our night was beautiful and had great spaces to rest in. Lauren, Max, Nishk, and Parker found a Spikeball set and went outside to play where they could have been found for hours. Also, we were visited by a former rider from 2024, Olaf Schwink! Olaf was one of Maaike’s favorite riding pals on her previous Illini 4000 team, so it was exciting to see them reunite and tell stories from the past. He also brought his dog which garnered many “awws” from the team and snacks because he knows that nothing endears a cycling team more than filling their stomachs.
In the evening, Cole decided to go out on a solo adventure to summit Paulina Peak which he had been thinking of over the last two rest days in Bend, but never got close enough or with the legs and time to accomplish. Today, it was just a 43-mile out and back, but one that had almost 4,000 ft of elevation gain! The beginning of the climb was pretty mellow, but before making it to the summit at 7,984 ft. he had to ascend the final 3 miles on rutted dirt roads while climbing 1,392 ft. at an 8.2% grade. Was the sunset worth that? You can be the judge:
Today was a happy day and all of our activities had us feeling good and ready for our next days on the road. This was also the first time that we had everyone start the day on a bike, all 12 of us with the exception of the van driver who we had to have off the bike, since Parker’s crash going into Salt Lake City, Utah. Hopefully we can have many more of these in the days to come.
