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In preparing for our journey, Ben and I were most concerned about the hills. Well, let’s be honest: the mountains. We were concerned that the West Coast mountains would spank our collective bottoms and send us limping back to our East Coast speed bumps chagrined and defeated.

In New England our largest mountains crest 4,000 to 6,000 feet. And they are neat looking mountains. And as a child they are enormous. And as an Illinoisan they make you dizzy. But after you have seen Mount Rainier, Mount Saint Helens, Mount Hood, and all the other mountains in-between, even Mount Washington (the highest peak on the East Coast) looks like a geographical joke played on the early settlers. Sure it has the highest recorded wind speed on the planet; sure it has the most unpredictable weather; sure it is cold. But it is only six thousand feet high. Six thousand. One mile. Not a problem.

Before the beginning of our trip, Ben and I knew that there existed a difference in the East and West and we were worried about bicycling up these West Coast behemoths. We were afraid our Yankee legs might crumble under their inclines and I, in particular, was worried that my eighteen gears would simply not be enough to pull me and my panniers up the hills.

(Let us be honest, for a moment, and revert back to the ACTUAL GOD’S HONEST TRUTH: there was no “we” in any of this worrying. It was just me. Ben loves hills, mountains, inclines, and especially: grades. Big grades. Ones in the double digits. Ski-jump grades. Ben would go out of his way to ride up a hill. Ben would hitchhike down a long incline if that meant he made it to the bottom quicker so he could ride back up it.)

We quickly came to learn the following, however, about the differences between East and West: while the mountains in New England are nothing to look at, the grades on major roads in the West are boyishly easy. I am not exaggerating when I say that a sixteen mile loop near where I grew up contains three inclines more challenging than all but one that we came across during our entire 1,100 miles. Mind you, the hills and climbs on the West Coast were long — very long. Soul crushing long, hours upon hours, and tens of miles at a time, up and up and up and up. But the same vertical, on the East Coast, is accomplished in one tenth the distance.

Early road builders couldn’t be bothered with finding a smooth way around the mountain; they went straight up.

After our depressing and altogether painful stop at the entrance to Mount Rainier National Park, we continued pedaling uphill as we had done earlier, only now starving and thirsty. When we stopped a half hour later at a scenic vista in order to regain our broken spirits I was down to a one quarter a bottle of water and Ben had a half. A fire truck passed us. “Maybe they have a phone,” I said. “Maybe you should shut up about the phone.” Ben paused. “Where are they going? That’s what I want to know.”

I thought perhaps the only answer could be that they were headed to the nearest town … which was where we were headed … which meant that maybe we could catch a ride on the fire truck since we were both going the same way … which meant that maybe if I either threw myself in front of their truck … or if I could grab onto the back … or if could make a lasso out of my brake wire … or use Ben’s body to slow the forward momentum … but it was too late. The firemen (and one woman — who wasn’t, if I recall, cute) didn’t look too pleased and were not interested in stopping — probably tired of answering prank bomb threats thirty miles away. The next person to overtake us at the lookout was riding a bicycle. A very lightweight bike with no panniers, no Bob, no rack, no weight whatsoever — the frame of his bike was constructed out of a type of anti-gravity matter that, when its rider dismounted, had to be tethered to the ground so that it didn’t float away. The man’s only accompanying gear was stored in the pockets of his bike jersey, from which he pulled an energy bar and into which he stored his arm warmers. Whereas I was considering all sorts of odd and unusual methods of hitching a ride on a fire engine, I had no interest whatsoever in receiving any sort of aide from this gentleman. Though he was the only biker we had seen on Route 410 since we left Issaquah, he was not like us.

“Hello.” We just smiled, and nodded. He looked as if he were in his 40s; probably some Microsoft mogul out taking a day off from work while biking around Mount Rainier before he was escorted back to his Chateau in a limousine that was triggered to pick him up the minute his GPS/Heart Monitor unit signaled that his peak exercise level had been reached. It made us both sick.

After a few awkward and silent moments, he jumped back on his bike and took off, practically flying up the hill. We watched him pedal out of sight harboring feelings of resentment and nursing our weary legs, aching stomachs, and dry mouths. And thus began our loathing of: The Biker Enthusiast. That man or woman who had a bike nicer than ours, with accessories cooler than ours, who carried no weight except a highly concentrated mineral infused water bottle and a highly efficient, space-age energy bar capable of sustaining a Somali village for weeks. That biker who had come to the sport after Lance Armstrong’s fifth tour victory and thought it trendy to wear a yellow Trek biking shirt and wear bike shoes to work and talk to people in traffic about the joys of riding. That biker whose life was now better because he or she had come to biking and found her calling and was able to afford bicycle components whose value superseded the entire cost of Ben and my first bicycles. That biker who had, oddly enough, a small pot belly. And with this loathing came a new mission in life, a new goal to our trip, a new purpose that would, from time to time, erase my search for #6, and that was: to out race, out last, and out run: The Biker Enthusiast. And to pass him, laughing, taunting, singing in two-part harmony with much gravitas, and, of course, with all our gear in tow. That was what we would live for, strive for, do anything within our power to accomplish. We would overtake The Biker Enthusiast.

We understood this purpose without having to speak it and when we saddled our trusted and modest steeds we headed up the hill in search of our foe.

However: we never saw that man again.

There exists a picture taken of Ben and me standing at the top of our first pass, where we left Route 410 and began down Route 123, on our second day of riding. We are standing next to my bike, leaning heavily on the sign post. We are both smiling.

The water was gone. I was tired. My legs had just brought me, ever so slowly, up to 4,600 feet and were starting to shrink in size and had been, by that point, depleted of most of their natural energy reserves. We had been trying to mash Sharkies into a liquid form so that we might drink them from our bottles but the efforts were slow and the rewards were lacking. And we were cold again. The wind was there with us whipping us about and reminding us why people settled in the valleys and not above 4,000 feet (if they could help it). We rooted through the panniers and brought out our layers, bundling up as we tried to squeeze the last precious drops of liquid from our water bottles.

We had made it to the top and were as high as we would have to travel that day. Sure, it was higher than expected; sure, it wasn’t where we expected; but it was going to be all right. We were going downhill.

DAMON: 10:10 AM. Ben and I have made it to 4,675 feet. We’ve done about 15 miles at 8.5 MPH. We’re hoping to get cell phone reception. We’re on our eighth bag of Sharkies. That’s all that’s keeping us going at this point. We have no water, no food, but a lot of hope and a lot of love, baby. We’re … we’re headed down.

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