RSVP 2008

Ride Seattle Vancouver (BC) and Party!!
Boy this ride was HOT this year.... We had better than 90 degrees most of the day Friday and between 95 and 100 on Saturday!
Despite the heat - which I generally do not handle well - it was a fun ride. We had a great group we rode with and in general all of us where able to spend time riding together or apart as our speed and sociability level allowed.
The first day is about 105 miles and takes you up to Bellingham where we had a hotel room waiting. Greg (Social Director par excel-lance!!) had set up a dinner in the hotel that night for the group. The meal was fine - but not having to go anywhere to have it was the best thing! I managed a shower, soak in the hot tub and a little relaxation before walking over to dinner.
The next morning Greg had arranged for an early breakfast - again at the hotel. In years past I would get an espresso in Bellingham and then ride up to Lynden and have breakfast there at the Dutch Mamas(??). But with a group of us it was much easier to ride from the hotel after eating. We had a great day but boy was it hot - 95-100!! The heat of the hwy stretch felt like you where riding through an oven.

RAMROD 2008

Don't bother googling RAMROD - you would be amazed at the hits you get by throwing that into a google search. Well probably you can imagine....
Anyway it is just about 1 week since I went off and rode RAMROD - despite my lack of training this year and certain knowledge that riding it would be a world of hurt I went on ahead and used the registration I had earned by working the ride as safety director last year. Last year the ride was a different ride - because of the flooding at Mt. Rainier and washed out roads we where not able to ride all the way around the park but instead did an elaborate out and back route that gave about the same mileage and I believe more climbing. From a personal note it worked out well for me as my recumbent and I caught a lift up to Crystal Mountain the night before and then I rode in to the ranger station at the base of the Sunrise climb to meet up with the ranger I would spend the day with. We drove up and back with the pack of riders and at the end of the day I got to hop on my recumbent and fly downhill to Enumclaw and the finish line without having to bother with all the little side climbing we sent the rest of the riders up.
This year though was different.... I started the year with good intentions - you know - loose weight ride regularly - I had my sights on a partial brevet series perhaps. All that got side tracked by a variety of work & personal issues and was brought to a screeching halt at the end of Feb. during a disastrous 100k "Populaire" where my tandem buddy and I DNFd with 4 flats and a broken pump. Less than a week later my understanding tandem partner and I decided that the 200k coming up was not going to happen. We have since then gotten back into the swing of things and in fact have done multiple century and metric centuries in preparation for RSVP coming up mid August. For that ride I am feeling fine. It is a nice 2 day ride a little over a century the first day and a relaxing second day. For RAMROD though well - One Day, 150 miles and 10000' no I was not ready.... My choices where simple - give up my registration or ride and hurt.... I decided that I would ride - take a small light and if need be finish in the dark!
Several of my ride buddies rode it this year but they where all actually trained up and in shape so I knew that I could only hope to hang with them during the dark morning hours and then party with them afterwards. As it happened I stayed with them very little. As the day wore on I found myself being passed by and s passing up many of the same riders over and over again. I had you see switched over to full Rando "get er done" mode where stops where as brief as possible... only long enough to allow a bit of food, refill the water bottles hit the head and leave. I would typically be in and out in minutes while the faster riders passing me would actually dawdle over their gatorade and chocolate croissant.... . By the Way: My thanks in this to Shane at the first major stop who got me my bagel and cream cheese while I filled my water bottles and hit the porta potty line thus bypassing a long food line. The important thing when one is off ones pace is to just not stop... keep on going - It is the typical turtle and the hare story. Although as a side note I recently heard a quote about climbing cyclists - Something about good climbers don't suffer less just suffer faster.
Anyway my tactics worked. I actually made decent time the first 100 miles and as usual slowed to a crawl on the long climb up Cayuse Pass. This year I lucked out in that I was late enough and the water was moderate enough that the climb was a little cooler than usual. I only had to stop once outside the deer creek water stop (which never comes soon enough!). At the top of cayuse I drank deep, filled my water bottles and then headed downhill with a light heart because now I was in my strong territory. I love that last 40 miles of mostly downhill and flat run back to the finish. This year I was quite happy to roll in just 14 hours after rolling out....

RAMROD

Thats ride around Mt Rainier One Day
It is 3:50AM and the alarm will go off at 4:00 plan to start at 5:00. Weather looks to be clear and cool. Ideal cycling day!

YeHa 100Miles

Well almost anyway but I didn't feel like staying in the saddle for the extra 4 miles to round it out by riding around and around the neighborhood....
Someone in the crazy group of cyclists I associate with decided that getting up at the crack of dawn July 5th and going for a 100 mile ride would be a good thing. So I hooked up with my Tandem buddy Max and we decided to join in the fun. As she put it - "A flat ride with a visit to a bakery, I'm in!"
So up I got at 5:45AM with the Greg, Ruth and Max meeting at my house at a little before 6:30. We then rode on down to the Montlake bridge to meet up with Barb. We then rode on down along Lake Washington to Renton and off towards Black Diamond Bakery for lunch. Then off to flaming geyser and back up along the lake .
At the end of the day we rolled back home with just under 100 miles. A good day!

Sometimes it's the little things....

Been feeling rather low the last few days.... Too many aches and pains and not enough hugs in my life or something.

Today I got to go in to a podiatrist to try to figure out what was causing the foot pain I have started having on the bicycle. It has gotten better since I moved my cleats back a quarter inch (!!) during rides but after the rides now I have severe pain on the outside of my foot/ankle. Mostly it has been on my left foot which is my "good" foot. My right which was smashed when Ginger my horse fell on me back in my teenage years has always been picky but was not the one that was really hurting this time. Anyway got in to see the Doc. and he asked lots of questions poked and prodded (ouch!) and took X-Rays of both feet.

While going over the X-Rays with me (don't you love the digital X-Ray technology that allows them to pull up the pics on a laptop in a few minutes!) he was amazed at the amount of damage in my right foot. Evidently it was fractured and dislocated across the ball of the foot and never correctly set. I remember they just treated the whole thing like a sprained ankle, wrapped the foot and gave me crutches. He mentioned that it was a good thing my exercise of choice was cycling that running or track would have been out. I said I did do track and gymnastics - his response: "After this injury?!" "Yep!" he said if he showed the X-Ray to his colleagues they would never believe the person with it had done sports afterwards....
But wait it gets better - he was curious whether I had kids and whether they where as active as I was. When I told him I had a 25 year old daughter he was shocked - when I said I was 50 he was quite surprised - Said he must have the age on the chart but I did not look or act 50.... SCORE!

Yep Little things... Made me feel good all day.

Oh and the foot? Shot of cortisone and a very good wrap job - oddly enough the tape is on the bottom of the foot and just slightly up the side and over the area behind the toes. It really feels better - I am hoping to get on the bike today and try it. Next week I go back for orthotics and hopefully he will teach me to wrap it myself. He had explanations for what was happening but it will probably be a bit of a trial and error getting the foot happy on the bike. He did not think I should curtail my activities so that is good enough for me.

Flying Wheels 100

We Did It!

100miles, minimal training, but still fun!
We even finished in plenty of time to enjoy the finish line festival.

Rainy Day Training

So today a small group of us headed up to Monroe to ride a hilly route from Monroe to Index and back. Of course being JUNE it was cold and rainy! So most of us decided that maybe if we headed south instead of East towards the mountain we would hit better weather. (My comment was I had not brought my passport so I did not think we could go far enough south...) At this point we lost the other tandem and a couple single bike riders who decided Index was really the way to go. The rest of us headed off towards Carnation by way of a little 4 mile climb up Lake Fontal Rd. and a screaming descent back down to Hwy 203 where we turned to head South some more. I quickly passed the fender-less bikes in the party to keep from eating all the mud and yuck they where throwing up from the increasingly wet and rainy road. And well it was flat and wet and a busy road and I did mention flat right? So I might have pushed the pace a tad - Up to 20+ Pretty soon I spun most of the group off the back so slowed a tad. Especially important that one slows down enough to keep the ride leader close when one does not know the route!
We soon hit our turnoff where we lost three more of or group... They decided the cold and rain was too much fun and they should get out of it before they had too much more...... At this point we headed up NE Cherry Valley Rd. We were down to Max and I on the tandem and Steve the ride Leader and Barb. We stayed together for a while but the single bikes soon out climbed us. Max and I enjoyed the climbing and really enjoyed the long descent afterwards down to Stillwater for a quick break and regroup. We decided to keep heading towards Carnation where Max and I would head off over Union Hill towards Redmond where I was thinking about leaving the bike at the Sammamish Valley cycle for its scheduled maintenance next week and we would call for rescue. Steve was thinking about heading off with us until Barb protested that she had to get back to Monroe! Oopsie! we had forgotten that bit. Steve immediately said not to worry he would hang with Barb. Off we headed (still going South - still rainy, but only a little mist now.) We almost immediately spun Barb off the back when she dropped her chain. We slowed down and let her catch up (I try to be a good paceline participant- and on the flats especially with a strong stoker you have to watch out that you don't ride the single bikes off the back.)
We had a cosy and warm stop at Sandy's(??) in Carnation where we got some warm drinks. We then headed off again this time across the valley where on the downhill by the old Carnation farms we snuck by at speed - Steve managed to jump onto our wheel but Barb wisely decided to save her breath.
Of course soon we where across the valley and Barb and Steve headed back towards Monroe - Max and I headed on up Union Hill - We kept waiting for the really hard part but it never really came. We stopped and took our rain jackets off on the way up. The rain of course had stopped.... Once in Redmond we stopped at the shop and Susan drove up with some dry clothes on and offered us a lift. No worries we where already wet - only had a little bit of flat trail and then a yucky hill back to my house....
So back at home we got almost exactly a 100k ride in.


For the Picasaweb pics:

Rainy Training

Back in the Saddle

It has been a tough year for me and cycling this past year. Between a variety of work and life events I had to more or less pull the plug on training for the Brevets I had hoped to do this year. My tandem buddy and I had attempted the SIR 100k and had planned on doing the 200k. But about that time life decided to smack me in the face and between little sleep and a tough course not to mention 4 flats we DNF'd. A week later I decided I needed to refocus my energies and pulled out of the 200k.
But now things are getting a little calmer and in a wild fit of insanity and probably lack of coffee a couple mornings back I got online and signed up for a 1 day STP. So this is it - I have just over a month to get in shape! I know I won't be at record breaking fitness level but what the heck I got lights!

RCC Hood Canal 200K

Great ride! - Left me seriously tired in fact.

The RCC group headed off for a 200k ride around Hood Canal. Wonderful ride, starts by catching the first ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge Island where we ride off and across the Island, Up to Port Gamble, Hood Canal Bridge then Quilcene arriving after 80miles and a climb over Mt. Walker at Hoodsport for lunch. Then on around to Union, Belfair and finally the Bremerton Ferry back home. Route Here

The ride was organized by the unstoppable RCC social Director "Buck-a-mile Sneed" and his wife "Lovey" They always do a great job putting the ride together and keeping everyone heading more or less in the right direction. The phrase herding cats often comes in to mind.... This year Greg has a line of rides on his the RCC calendar leading up to hopefully a successful RAMROD for some of us... (I do have a ticket to ride RAMROD this year but I am still keeping my fingers crossed that I will be able to get enough training time in!)

Now I have not gotten any serious bike time in this year so I was not up for the whole 200k - I called up my tandem buddy Max and she signed on for a 100k of the ride. Since the plan was for some of us to share driving duties this worked out very well. I signed up to drive the ascent and unfortunately also the descent of Walker Pass (fairs fair - if you climb it you should get to descend it also....) plus I figured at Hoodsport we could take over driving duties for the rest of the trip that would give us right around 100K - In fact the odometer was just over 100K at 68 miles when we put the bike on the car in Hoodsport.

The trip was a great success - We felt great and thanks in part to Max's never ending cheerfulness and her willingness to push an undertrained captain around the course I had a wonderful ride! I was ready to get off the bike at Hoodsport as I was feeling the lack of time on the bike. She of course would probably have been ready for some more. I had no major mechanicals to worry over although the bike is overdue for some shop time. We did hit a raised plate hard at the Hood Canal bridge which I believe caused a few spokes to loosen on the rear wheel - Max heard a strange noise from the rear wheel after we got off 104 and where headed for Quilcene. She insisted that we look at the wheel before going down any more screaming descents.... I had a spoke wrench and tightened up the loose spokes. The wheel was fine otherwise.

At Hoodsport we had a fine lunch and then as we were now in charge of the SAG vehicle we made a stop at the Hoodsport Winery where we bought 7 bottles of wine! Then on to Union where Max bought a great T-shirt for her brother and a latte for me. We then headed up to catch the group who where making great time. We normally catch the 5:30 ferry at Bremerton but they managed to get in in time to catch the 4:15!

Hot weather cycling

After snow in late April we now get 90s in May?!
Sinan and I got up early and tossed the tandem on the car and headed down to gasworks to join some RCC riders in a nice social ride. First down to the new Portage Bay Cafe for breakfast and then off to West Seattle for coffee. Pretty much all flat and good thing to because it was really hot! We came back by way of Fisherman's terminal and Fremont. Around about 25 miles in all.

Tandem Jaunt

So it was a pretty busy weekend. Some of the gang from work hit the slopes on Friday and spent a very nice day snowboarding and skiing. I had a very good day, hardly fell at all except for one memorable tumble on a packed cat track which made me quite happy to have a helmet. Even with the helmet I came out of it slightly stunned and with a sore head. I of course accused Sinan of taking us up that run just to get rid of me. Dick explained to him that he should have invested in a breakaway helmet for me.
Anyway we had a great time and on the drive down I got a call from Max my tandem buddy. She wanted to know if we were riding the next day, Saturday. See we made plans (wine might have been involved) to do a 100k and 200k in early March. So some time on the bike was in order! We agreed that around noon was a great time to start out.
So Saturday after a bit of a lie in and some excellent oatmeal (plus some house cleaning but let’s not go there) we set off for an unknown distance on an unknown route. It was a beautiful spring day so the route gradually morphed into one with a maximum of lakeside riding eventually ending up as a south lake Washington loop route. Max was really feeling her oats and pushed the pace any time any racer boys had the temerity to get close or even worse pass us. I on the other hand was feeling the snowboarding I had done the day before. The legs were a little tired, but it was such a nice day it did not really matter and we flew down towards Seward park. In one of the route morphs we decided to do a south lake loop and so I made an abrupt turn to head up. In the turn I felt that strange out of control feel in the bike that told me that we had a flat. On stopping we found the rear tire soft but not flat so decided to pump it and go on. A few miles down the road in a busy Rainier avenue we had to stop and pump again at which point we knew we had to change the tire but decided to see if we could get to a more pleasant spot to do it. After a quick pump we went off and around the Renton airport and rolled to a stop in a Boeing walkway to change the tube. At this point I realized several things: only 1 of my two spares was the correct size, I was being particularly clutzy and my patch kit had migrated elsewhere. So between the being a clutzy and being extra careful I took forever to change that tube. In randonneur mode I could have had dinner and a nap in the time it took! No worries though no one was waiting for us or laughing at us so off we went…. Eventually….
After a quick stop for some supplies at target and a bathroom stop at Gene Coulin park we continued on around the lake when another turn and I felt that same squirelly feeling along with a sinking feeling about the lack of patches or spares…. No we had not missed a piece of glass this flat was due to a defect in the rubber near the stem. In any case we called for a pickup and started walking. Pretty soon an older gentleman came along and offered help. He had a patch kit and a lecture on being more prepared for us and pretty soon we were on our way…..