According to Greg, “they” say that if you can ride a century and you can ride 150 miles in a weekend then you’re ready for STP.

My century was already taken care of by biking to and from Marymoor and doing the Flying Wheels metric century in between, but I still hadn’t come close to 150 miles in a weekend, nor riding two high mileage days in a row.

With weekends running out, I chose to take the Tuesday before the 4th off and follow the cue sheet from the previous Saturday’s CBC ride to Flaming Geyser. (Thanks, Lauren, for the cue sheet!)

The scenery was wonderful, but the ride really sucked for me. It was hot, and hydration was a struggle. My legs felt like lead and I was thinking that I would not be doing STP since this sucked so bad. I took several long rests which made the whole ride take more than an hour longer than for Lauren’s crew, even though I started from downtown.

Eventually I figured out the problem — my front brake was rubbing. I did not have the proper tools to fix it, so the ride home went like this: pedal, pedal, pedal, whap the front brake to the right, pedal, pedal, pedal, whap, …

I arrived home sweaty, exhausted, and cursing.

(This was, however, a fantastic route. I’d like to go to Flaming Geyser again, with a car load full of inner tubes once Omar is waterproof again. I also loved Lester Burrows park — it’s got big, big, shade trees and a good breeze coming through the river valley — a great place to hang out on a hot day.)

After a few tries, Greg (with “help” from me) got the brake fixed the morning of the 4th. Emmett really wanted mommy time, and Greg and Omar had some important not-suitable-for-pre-schoolers video watching to wrap up, so I hooked up the trailer and took Emmett up the trail.

I was tired enough that I couldn’t go very fast, but I could tell that pulling Emmett was substantially easier than biking with the rubbing brake had been. Lauren may be very proud of her stereo set-up but I was treated to live music much of the way. Bet she doesn’t have “One, Two, Three, Four, Five. Once I Caught a Fish Alive” on her i-pod!

We turned around at the twenty mile mark and headed back to Bothell Landing for lunch at Ivar’s and were delighted to find a 4th of July celebration with musket men, women spinning wool and several bouncy houses. I’m hoping next year Omar can ride a bike solo so I can take both boys.

We finished the ride with a stop at the View Ridge wading pool. My feet shrank two sizes.

In short: it wasn’t the weekend, and it was only 142 miles, but I’m going to check that one off the list.

Sting relief stuff.

After our camping trip, Ruben dropped me off in Arlington at the head of the Centennial trail. It took a little longer than expected because the valve broke off on my front tire… So I’ve been pre-flatted for the STP I guess.

The trail is really nice. It’s very wide, very few bumps and at least today there weren’t too many people on the trail until I hit around Lake Stevens. It was really wooded and pretty… the only annoyance are these obnoxious gates to slow people like me around.

I boogied my way down to Snohomish, knowing Ruben was going there with the boys to get Pie. I got into town, Almost got a little lost, but found the pie shop. Just as I was about to give up on finding Ruben, I saw him pulling out and caught up with him!

I went back (not to the pie shop) to find something to eat (wound up with ice cream)… and then left about maybe 20 minutes later.

Just as I turned onto Airport road to head back a flying insect (probably a hornet or wasp) got under my helmet above my right eye. Unlike the other 3-4 times this year this has happened, this one started to sting me. Still on my bike I tried to move my helmet off to the side to let it out, but it got wedged in there - stinging at least 3-4 times above my eyebrow. Then it fell into my glasses and stung me a few more times just below my eye (near the corner).

I somehow got off my bike without crashing and started to throw water on it. After finding out I didn’t have any thing int he Group Health Ouch Pouch that I carry, I realized I at least had paper towels folded up in a plastic bag - I got one out and could use that as a compress.

I had to call Ruben back (who was in Bothell by this point) - the swelling caused my eyesight to blur. The pain was pretty intense too. I was still in pain 1+ hours later when I got home.

What was really annoying was how many people drove passed me (including 3 walkers) who didn’t even ask if I was ok or needed help. Just one person asking would have been NICE - not to mention I was a little too shakey to go get ice - getting some would have been helpful. I’m not so much a fan of human nature at the moment.

So in short: having paper towels in the bike bag == good. Water in at least one water bottle == good (better to have ice in said water). Not having sting relief - really bad.

Saturday morning Lauren gave me the opportunity to bike one-way from Seattle to Camano Island and given that it was something I hadn’t done before I thought…. Why not?.

Background:
The reason for the trip was that we go to a July 4th party at a friends place up where they have a great cabin, and enough space for 3-5 families to camp out on their lawn and eat and drink to excess and light up some Indian Reservation fireworks into the sound. The weather was forecasted to be sunny and beautiful and 2/3rds of the trip I had traveled before and 1/3 of it would be new bike route. Lauren was taking up the kids and the camping gear, so all I had to do was pack up a change of clothes and some things from the night before.

Ride Notes:
Ideally I would have gotten out the door at 7:30 to avoid the heat of the day but there was a small twist in my planning, I got a major cold that night and my nose was running and that left me without sleep and sluggish getting out the door by 9:45AM. Luckily, bike riding has this great effect that while I am riding I have enough blood flowing to my head that my nose stayed relatively clear. The warm day also helped and with the known route everything was fine. The ride to Arlington was entirely familiar as it is simply Burke Gilman to Woodinville, Woodinville to Snohomish via 156th St, Maltby and Broadway, and Arlington via the Centennial trail. I had done this ride earlier and the only new part would be Arlington to Camano. This part of the ride was lovely, but had one tricky part that no GPS or software planning tool could help me with……..

Sidebar:
While I was up late prepping for the ride not only did I build a paper cue-sheet and some street level maps of the Arlington to Camano trek, I did something _really_ geeky and for the first time I uploaded the biking route into my GPS watch which was _REALLY_ _REALLY_ cool! All I had to do was follow the route on my GPS watch and I had mapped it close enough that I never had to really look at my cue sheets for the majority of the ride. I did use Lauren’s fancy new cueclip that she made for me and it worked wonderfully, but after this ride I thought that it was pointless given that my watch could hold the route for me. Luckily, (again) I also had a paper backup of the route with maps which became really important when I made the one juvenile decision of the day.

Ride notes (Continued):
There was bridge out and under construction at Smoky point at mile 54. My GPS watch said, cross the non-existent bridge. There was a big tractor and large orange construction signs that said ‘Bridge under Construction until September’ There were no easily visible detour routes since I was in the middle of the countryside. I had to resort to the paper maps of the area and found that the nearest detour involved riding 5 miles on the I-5 highway or 15-20 mile backtrack or detour. After looking at the maps, considering the weight of my bike, I wondered if I could walk a 2-3 foot wide ledge 50 yards (and 20-30 feet swampy fall on one side or a 10-20 feet fall onto a partially constructed concrete base on the other side. Must be testosterone poisoning…..I picked up my bike and walked the ledge. In retrospect, it was a completely stupid thing to do, but my balance was good, my bike was light and the winds were quiet. The rest of the trip was uneventful and I arrived to a party that was just starting with _lots_ of food and _lots_ of water which was exactly what any rider would want after such a ride. The weather was in the 70’s arriving on the island and a long stretching session that night, and a morning Yoga session with our yoga instructor (who owns the cabin) made for some very happy legs.

Ride Stats:
94 miles, 5:30 minutes moving time, 17MPH average.

On Saturday, James, Anthony and I went on the Cascade century ride down to Flaming Geyser state park. I didn’t post sooner because I’m missing quite a bit of data apparently (I pressed a button by mistake). Anthony’s garmin may have done better. I saw Linda on the way home - she was the sweep for the yellow group. I saw her husband Mitchel back at the Cascade headquarters - he was apparently the lead for the crazy Orange riders.

(Anthony, James and I were in the Green group.)

Today I ventured out to Fall City to Linda’s house. We did her “Red Barn Loop” - a leisurely ride up through Carnation and near the Nestle farm. It was gorgeous today! We got to see the foals along the route, but the Osprey apparently are not nesting this year. Oh and Sandy’s in Carnation is a great place to get a cold drink. There was a parade/vintage car show/craft fair in Carnation as well.

After Saturday’s lovely twilight ride with Lauren and Erik, I resolved to get some more evening rides in while we’re still at maximum daylight. Since I was in Belltown for an appointment that ended at 5pm Monday, the natural choice was to bike around the lake counter-clockwise.

Rush hour traffic downtown pretty much sucks on a bike, but at least it kept me from going too fast too soon. I took my standard route out: 5th Ave -> S Jackson -> 12th and then on to the I-90 trail. Here I got my first of many great views of Mt. Rainier.

Biking along Lake Washington was spectacular — clear skies, not too warm, and surprisingly, not very much traffic. I was a little nervous about whether I’d remember the route properly, but it turned out to be easy to follow. (The only tricky part is in Bellevue where there’s a tiny sign on an overpass that says “<- Seattle | Factoria ->”).

I stopped briefly at Coulon Park and got myself an iced tea at Kidd Valley (probably a mistake — see below — Elizabeth will be drinking only gookinaid from here on out) and took a quick refueling stop.

Biking up Lake Washington from the park was lovely. Many places I could see the lake through the trees and it had a wonderful summer vacation feel. Unfortunately for us bikers, there’s a lot of new condo developments going in along this part of the route. Pray that the county successfully purchases the nearby rail line so we won’t have to bike through the increased traffic that’s bound to come.

There’s not a lot to say about the section along 116th and 118th except that it’s really boring and ugly. If I do this again soon, I’ll take the I-90 trail back over to Seattle and go up Lake Washington to the arboretum. That would’ve been much nicer.

Anyway, somewhere before entering the 520 trail, I really started hurting. My legs kept threatening to cramp up. It felt like two mice were jockeying for space in each of my calves. Somewhere along the trail, there’s a place where you exit and re-enter. On the side of the trail at re-entry there’s a big “Wrong Way, Do Not Enter” sign on the trail. It really pissed me off until I realized it was for the freeway off ramp paralleling the trail. Doh!

After that I made it uneventfully to the Sammamish River Trail, where I took two refueling breaks. I was getting hungry! Usually I don’t actually get a rumbling hungry when exercising, but I sure did yesterday. By the time I cleared Log Boom, I was ready to be home now!

Anyway, the whole thing took me almost 5 hours, including rest breaks plus a stop to help a group of kids in distress. I really hoping this doesn’t mean I’ll need 15 hours to make it from home to Kelso!

Oh, and apparently, all the cool kids bike only clockwise around the lake. In the whole trip around I neither passed or was passed by bikers going the same direction until I hit the Sammamish River Trail, though I saw many, many bikers coming the other direction.

I rode this morning with Elias on the Tandem - he did 8 miles! And I was able to navigate hills with him on there. I can definitely tell when he helps and when he just spins his legs (Anthony can vouch for this with Emma too)

Then when Ruben and Greg came home, Elizabeth, Erik and I did a quickie to Redmond and back. I saw Anthony up in Bothell zooming the other direction.

The Garmin said 14.3 moving average for 42.3 miles, but I know we were really booking it in some places. Erik split off for dinner at the RedHook Brewery, Elizabeth and I continued until I split off at 100th (should have been 97th, I jumped the gun).

Depending on weather conditions I might try for a short ride in the morning or just hitting the trainer. The day starts out with a 30% chance of showers and gets worse as the day progresses.

Lauren

Good Morning Ride Fans,

Saturday morning found Greg and myself up at 6:45 am and driving towards Lakemont to the start of the ride. The hill climb up Lakemont is daunting because as you are driving up the steep hill, you realize the only way home at the end of the ride will involve you climbing it again to get to the car. The sprinkles while we were loading the car were making us wonder if this ride were a good idea, but by the time we got to the ride start everything is partly sunny and dry. The ride was a 100 mile loop south to Enumclaw via Ravensdale and back up to Lakemont via Black Diamond and Factoria. The ride leader was especially cruel in that he specifically chose side routes that had the steepest/ugliest/gnarliest hills I have ever seen on a ride. The majority of them were relatively short, but to end the ride on a 1200 foot climb is just not nice.

The only things of note were that for the first time this season my inner leg cramped while I was in the 95th mile and I realized I was just pushing to hard for too long. I was doing a paceline with a bunch of young’uns who were leading it out at 22-25MPH pacelines which was a little beyond my capacity (at least for 100 miles). Luckily some of my compatriot riders realized the same and we ended up taking the last hill at our own pace. Fortunately, the cramping disappeared after a mile of riding (slower) and standing up and stretching on my bike. It was intense enough I was worried it was going to lock up my right leg and cause me to fall off my bike.

I still want Lauren’s triple for RAMROD, but I was able to slog out some very steep hills on my double.

Greg was a trooper in that he did the entire ride using a very heavy bike, and large tires which put him completely out of drafting zone of the rest of the group. That said he soldiered through the entire ride and we were both able to get back in time to do kid duty and let Lauren and Elizabeth go out for a ride.

Obligatory trip stats:
104Miles, 7700 feet of elevation gain. 15.9mph base

5 _very_ steep multiple mile ascents.

Ah, a lovely day for a long ride. Ruben, Elizabeth, James, and I did the Cascade Flying Wheels Summer Century , a lovely tour on the east side of Lake Sammamish. It had been raining the week before, and forecase called for a 30% chance of rain. Well, Ruben came to get me about 7:30, and we were off. In Ruben’s words:

Great day for a bike ride!

Erik and I headed out at 7:30 on the Burke Gilman Trail to get to the ride start at Marymoor. There was the option to drive out, do 100 miles and then drive home, but that seemed silly. So we ended up biking out to Marymoor, catching up with Elizabeth (who also biked out) and James. The weather was lovely and the 65 mile route had enough hills to keep it entertaining. We all overdosed on peanut butter, bagels and clif bars. By the end of the ride I would have killed for an egg burrito with a steak, and James was talking about taking a hard salami to cut up and eat while riding, and Elizabeth thought about cubed cheeses. Can you tell we were tired of all the sugar and cheap carbs on the ride?

The weather conditions were overcast with occasional sun breaks which kept the weather warm enough to ride without a jacket, but not so warm that you ever felt overheated. There was some opportunities to tuck in some pacelines, and on one of the down hills I averaged 31 MPH for a mile and peaked at 44MPH. The total ride was 108 miles and well supported. Next year I take Elias on the tandem…..

Ruben is far too modest, but he’s looking in great shape for RAMROD. Clearly, my race training has put me in shape for short races - 2-3 hour hard intensity. I was doing fine until about the halfway point, 55 miles or so. Then I started to run low on gas. Yeah, there are decent hills on the ride, and my bike probably has 10 pounds on Ruben’s, not to mention my 25 pounds of gut. But that’s no excuse — I just haven’t been pushing on the endurance as much as I thought, and it showed today!

For the second half of the ride, Ruben and I went ahead of Elizabeth and James. We found a couple of other riders in a paceline, and made some reasonable time. Ruben took a monster pull — clearly he still had plenty of gas left in the tank. I sat on his wheel for a few miles, and then let him go ahead on the beginning of the last, and biggest, hill. I was talking to a woman in a Velo Bella shirt… and she mentions so casually, “Is this the 3-mile hill?” Yeah, not something I really wanted to hear. So I huffed it up mostly in the granny gear. Just before the top of the final summit, my right calf started to cramp hard. I quickly got to the side and rested it for a bit… it was fine for the rest of the ride.

The only other issue that cropped up was on the final steep downhill. My rear tube got a small leak - puncture at the rip in the tire from a glass shard I ran over 6 months or so ago. So I pulled off at the side halfway down, pumped up the tire a bit to get me back, and was off. I caught up with Elizabeth and pulled her in to Marymoor, where I swapped the tubes for the ride back at the Pedro’s tent. Ruben, Elizabeth, and I then headed home for the recovery portion of the ride — check out the HRMs below!

The ride to today was Seattle to Snohomish and then up the Interuban to Arlignton. Despite the forecast for 30% rains, know was to be found and we had a slow ride out with some great pie in Snohomish. That said my ride back was a little more stressful as it was 2pm and I was 50 miles away and had to be home by 5pm (I got home by 5:30) the second part of the trips is noted by the higher heart rate. That said it was lovely day to ride as I could do it with just lycra and a short sleeve, and figured out how to attach my jacket to my bike using the velco and turning the thing inside out. (I have only had it for 2-3 year, and wondered what the velcro was for…duh).

Had a really strong biking day today and a “lucky I live in a good place” moment. Headed off to Renton to go do the Cascade Bicycle Ride (advertised as “Very Hilly”) down to Black Diamond and then back and over I-90 to head back to Renton for an 80 mile ride. I drove down and arrived within 15 minutes of the start so I was worried I would miss the start. (I thought I forgot something, and I did but that would not be revealed until later…..)

I hurriedly parked, got my stuff together and headed off underneath the 405 to find 4 huge groups of riders out biking on a sunny Sunday morning. They grouped the people into 4 speed groups 18+, 16-18, 14-16 and 14 and under. Not knowing where I would fit in, I selected the 16-18 group and took off down at the start. Having never done that road before, the ride was gorgeous and it’s really amazing how fast Seattle turns rural the second you get a few miles east of 405.

After biking with the group for a bit, I realized that when they said 16-18 they _meant_ the base was 16-18 regardless of uphill or downhill, realizing that I was just pedaling in the back of the crowd, I got my cue sheet and decided to bike on ahead so that I could at least train a little harder. (I did fall off the bike at one intersection because my left pedal refused to un-clip, but fortunately that occurred while I was just stopping. *sigh*). I took off solo and had a great time biking at the pace my legs wanted to go. The ride was gorgeous and there were relatively few cars and just a joy to be riding. When I got to the rest-stop in Ravensdale, I realized that A) Erik was in the middle of the race I just had gotten to and B) I had just caught up with the 18+ mile/hour group. (They had just finished a 10 minute break, and I was able to down some food, and take off when they did).

The ride bike via May Road was a bit car-filled, but the group formed into some pace lines and we were flying down the road. The pace was great, and 2 times on the ride home I pulled the pace line at 21-24 miles for a 2-3 mile stretch (and then fell back to the end of the line exhausted, that said the group complimented me). We ended up shaving 10 miles off the route by not riding around Mercer (because of some other event conflict).

By the time I got back to the car, I realized what I had forgotten, I had left the sliding door of the mini-van open for the entire morning. After taking a quick peek at the contents of the vehicle (everything was still there), I realized that I was glad that nobody had thought to do some car prowling on a Sunday morning in Renton.

Anyway, the ride was great. I love my skinny go fast bike and I definitely need to take a nap.

Total Ride: 70 miles, 18 MPH Average, 3:50 hours riding time (4:20 total)

Obligatory trip data: There is an anomaly in the data in that it is only good for the first 70 miles. the last data point by the house was triggered accidently and I didn’t bother to delete it.