“Well, I made it,” Buckley’s Al Knopik wrote to friends and family in an e-mail after his 154-mile bicycle ride around Mount Rainier Thursday. “It was a great ride with some very brutal climbs. Very, very brutal climbs.”
Knopik crossed the finish line about 5 p.m.
Enumclaw’s Chris Searcy also made it. He cruised across the finish line at Enumclaw High around 3:30 p.m.
Riders left Enumclaw High in a cool drizzle and finished in the hot sun.
According to Knopik’s bicycle computer, he was in the saddle 10 hours, 18 minutes and 51 seconds. Searcy came in well within his goal of less than 10 hours.
“It means I stopped at each rest stop, each water stop, and each food stop with a few extra stops thrown in along the way,” the 58-year-old Knopik said. “I averaged 14.4 mph for the entire 154-mile route with a top downhill speed of 37 mph, there were a number of places I would have liked to come down faster but the road was too torn up.
“Even stopping and hydrating all day long I ended up losing four pounds today,” he said.
