Erica, Heidi, Elias, Ruben and I made the trek to the Skagit Valley this morning. First to note, with the front wheel off we can put the tandem on the back rack without having to get a wide load permit. In fact, it doesn’t even stick out more than our side view mirrors. But we can’t fit 4 bikes on the rack that way… so we took the wheels off Ruben’s bike and it fit in the way back no problem.

So all of us managed to fit in the van… Heidi was borrowing my old Allez… sporting a jersey from a century she did down around Gilroy, CA.

After hitting The Old Grind coffee stop (in Mt. Vernon) for a fresh baked chocolate chip cookie and their bathroom, we were biking around 10:15.

There’s a lot of smell of manure - a lot of farmers working the fields. There was one loose dog, but the owner made sure to come out after him. Oh and on Best Road (the busy road just before Dodge Valley) there was a whole slew of motor cyclists who were giving us peace and hang loose
signs as we plugged up the hill and over the bridge. It was awesome.

We didn’t see any Herons, but we did wind up seeing some hawks and what looked big enough to be an eagle, but wasn’t a bald eagle. We also thought we saw a black deer in a field, but it may have been a sculpture ’cause I didn’t see it move.

We wound up at the LaConner Brewing company around 12:15, and parked our bikes on the side, much to Ruben’s nervous chagrin (we had 2 locks, and locked pairs of bikes together, but he was nervous for his bike)….

Anyway the road back was MUCH more crowded - and this isn’t even the bad week (next week is the tulip festival street fair). We were totally dusting the cars… and loving it. There’s definitely color - the daffodil field on Calhoun is nice, plus there are some tulips getting nice and purple and red at Calhoun and Brashaw. We didn’t stop at the Roozengarde ’cause it was crazy, but they had some nice displays
outside. Plus a nice daffodil field across the way. The prettiest daffodil field was just north of the Roosengarde - they were the light yellow ones with darker centers I think. We didn’t stop though - Elias was getting ready to get home. We also didn’t go north of McLean road - we just headed right to Mt. Vernon from there.

Kudos to Elias who made it 30.11 miles AND did a top speed (with Ruben on leading the bike) of 27.5. Afterwards we went back to The Old Grind for more coffee and cookies. I found out they’re going to be closed Sunday, so make sure you know of some place else to hit the bathroom before starting on your journey.

Pictures are here (first are my picture, then Ruben’s)

Info from my garmin is here (ignore the data down I-5 - I forgot to turn
off my GPS and I also thought I had deleted this data, but alas, no).

See this post and this post for background information on the Pastry Powered Cycling Jerseys.

There’s been enough demand we’re looking into printing another round of the cycling jerseys. The cost is $78/shirt, and we will wait until we have pre-ordered before the order is sent in. Once I send in the order, it will take 8 weeks until we receive the shirts. ORDER NOW and we can have them for next cycling season!

Here are some photos:

Women’s and men’s front (Lauren and Ruben)

Front and back of the old shirts worn by Ruben (left) and new shirts worn by Erik

The shirts are manufactured by Canari. They sell some Canari shirts down at Gregg’s Greenlake or REI if you want to try one on for size, which I recommend as they seem a bit tight. (Look for the Reeses Pieces or other logo shirts). The shirts have raglan sleeves, a hidden zipper (zips halfway down) and 3 rear pockets, etc. You can see our modified pastry-powered turing machine on the back along with our new cycling along the infinite tape on the front. On the yellow sides are the CSE logo.

Here’s Canari’s size chart based on Chest sizes

The final artwork for the jersey is in!

Fact #1: The Turing Machine is a simple model of a computer - a concept by Alan Turing.

Fact #2: There is a mural painted of a Steam Powered Turing Machine in Sieg hall, the old home to the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. Click on the link for a history of the mural.

Fact #3: When we did the Seattle To Portland bike ride 11 years ago, we were mostly a group from UW’s Computer Science department (well 9 out of our group of 13 - one of the other 4 was the soon to be wife of a CS person and another of the non-CS 4 was a UW math PhD who worked with the CS Graphics group, so he was virtual CS).

Fact #4: A lot of our rides came from the book “Bakeries by bicycle: A guide to Puget Sound’s best bakeries.” (Now out of print)

So we called ourselves the    (also seen as the Pastry Powered T(o)uring Machines) with the byline “we live to eat, we bike to eat more.” We even had shirts made. The front said the group name and Lauren sketched the artwork (that is on the back of the shirts).

Here’s a picture of all of us (including Erik Selberg, in the picture but not in the caption) from 1995.

This year, 2006, Pastry Powered Turing Machines ride again, with about half of the last group joining back in (including Rich and Joanna who now live in New York) and a whole group of new people we’ve met along the way.

Our proposed schedule is/was largely stolen from Rich’s schedule from 1995, modified slightly:

Sat 4/1 (4/2): Gasworks Park->Bothell via Burke Gillman trail (approx 35-40 mi)
Sat 4/8: Greenlake->Alki (36mi). Alki Bakery & Café at halfway point
Sat 4/15 (4/16): Toe Clips through The Tulips (40 mi)
Sun 4/23: Daffodil Classic (50)
Sat 4/29 (4/30): Gasworks to Ferries and around Vashon Island (50mi)
Sat 5/6: Whidbey to Deception Pass (56)
Sat 5/13 (5/14): Around Lake WA (60) (south first)
Sat 5/20: UW to Issaquah (north over lake, to Issaquah, back via I-90)
Sat 5/27 (5/28): U village to Carnation/Duvall (71)
Sat 6/3: Snohomish(70)
Sat 6/10 (6/11): UW -> Puyallup (via STP route) (78?)
Sat 6/17: Tacoma Wheelmen’s Flying Wheels Summer Century (70)
Sat 6/24: Tour De Blast (67 or 82)
Sat 7/1: SAN JUANS - Orcas(80?)
Sun 7/2: SAN JUANS - Lopez(50)
Sat 7/8: Alki(50)
Sat 7/15: *** STP *** (101)
Sun 7/16: *** STP *** (101)