John’s Ramblings

It was what we refer to around here as “pretty much a suck week” (this isn’t 100% accurate, because while the state of my health sucked, work still blows). I came down with another malaise on Monday, and I spent the week hacking and coughing. No spinning, no riding, no fun at all! I started to feel a little better on Friday, but I laid low on Saturday as well since I was on the hook to lead the 3/12 version of the Cascade Bicycle Club Newcomer’s Ride: Tukwila to Kent.

It was COLD Sunday morning, so I wasn’t too sure how many folks would actually show up. I’d only received two calls about the ride, one from a woman in Olympia (who I don’t think showed), and one from a couple (who did show). The couple wanted to verify that the ride was for newcomers, because that’s what they were. Always nice to have an air of authenticity if your ride has a theme, I guess!

We had 14 total riders on a sunny and brisk spring morning. It was quite nice, actually. We kept the pace at 13 and under to keep from dropping anybody, and that seemed to work out alright for the group. From the Tukwila Community Center, we headed south to Fort Dent, took the Green River Trail to Kent, then traversed James Street to Kent Station for the obligatory Mocha stop at the Dilletante espresso bar. Highlight of the trip down was the bald eagle sighting at Briscoe Park in Kent.

Kent Station is really a marvelous place for a midpoint or end stop for any cycling ride. There are lots of food choices, plus there is the espresso bar and a juice/smoothie bar as well for a mid-ride stop. After a ride, the pizza place or the Ram would be a great destination to warm up or cool down or rehydrate or whatever.

After a break of 20 minutes or so, we exited the south end of Kent Station, did an immediate right onto Smith, and did a few blocks worth of traffic to get back to the Interurban Trail. The City of Kent could use a few more bike lanes running east-west. Smith worked well to my purpose, as I didn’t have to take my fledglings through any left turns through traffic.

The rest of the ride home was fairly uneventful. A couple of folks got a little tired toward the end fighting a bit of a headwind, but everyone was all smiles back at the parking lot. Final mileage was about 23.5.

I’m enjoying the ride leader gig.  While it’s a bit tedious to do the admin work, create route maps and cue sheets, and not necessarily be able to ride at your accustomed pace, it is actually quite rewarding when everything comes together in a positive manner as it did on Sunday.

One final footnote.  On Saturday we switched Terri over from SPD pedals and mountain bike shoes to Speedplay Frog pedals and some very lightweight Diadora Aero road shoes.  She’s always been nervous about clipping in to her SPD pedals, and has had a couple of accidents where she couldn’t disengage in time.  She absolutely loves her new shoe-pedal combination, and reports that she’s never felt so “connected” to her machine.

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