Long into the year’s shortest night, muted light plays tricks on heavy eyes, and repetition can deceive a tired mind. Six times this group has completed the 12.29-mile counterclockwise loop: always south alongside the Willamette River, east past the pumpkin patch, north along the Columbia River before curling west near Sturgeon Lake and running south by the dairy farm and the cabbage patch, across the Gilbert River, and then, finally, back to base camp at the Sauvie Island Community Church parking lot.
By 4 a.m., the entire endeavor feels positively Sisyphean. Ian Mackay leads the procession, a small headlight secured to each side of his rig. For hours he’s been flanked by his girlfriend, one of his former professors and a rotating cavalcade of friends and family on wheels. Mackay’s father drives a trail car, dragging an arrow board, directing cars to pass on the left.
These riders form an unlikely constellation: educators, construction workers, salespeople and speech therapists wearing cycling jerseys, tutus and everything in between. They’ve been drawn to this island at the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette, just north of Portland, by the gravitational pull of a 40-year-old wearing checkered Vans and a gray beanie, with a goatee and floor-length dreadlocks that are now braided in pigtails to keep from dragging. Fourteen years ago a bicycle accident left Mackay in a wheelchair. Now he and his co-riders—Mackay in an Invacare TDX SP2, the rest on bikes—embarked on these loops at 8 p.m. on June 21, the summer solstice, and they plan to keep circling at 8.5 mph, the fastest Mackay’s ride can manage, until he sets the record for the greatest distance covered in 24 hours by a motorized wheelchair.
