Ride to Alki Beach
A call (of sorts) went out to the Green River Riders to come out on a Sunday morning in order to ride up to Alki Beach in West Seattle. Depending on the route chosen, this ends up being roughly 50 miles round-trip. Because you are riding along the Green and (eventually) Duwamish rivers, the ride is about as flat as you can get without heading to Bonneville Salt Flats.
Now the Green River Riders, being the eclectic and free-spirited little group that they are, don’t necessarily jump out of their chairs when someone says “ride!”. Out of the maybe 15 or 20 folks that are loosely associated with the GRR’s, 4 showed. Granted, one guy just had shoulder surgery and two are on an airplane returning from the right-coast of the U.S., so they get a pass. The rest of You’s? What do you need, an engraved invitation?? 50 miles, brisk pace, lovely warm weather, and the opportunity to bask in the presence of Dale, Russ, Marshall, and yours truly.
The appointed hour and locale was 9:41 a.m., at Cycle Therapy in Kent. Yes, 9:41. I told you ECLECTIC, and I meant it. Then the person who posted the ride was 10 minutes late. Go figure. We got rolling shortly before 10. North along the Green River Trail:
We made a comfort stop at Christensen Park (a.k.a. Bicentennial Park) in Tukwila. Dale had brought his single speed Specialized Langster (Seattle Edition). After a whopping 7 or so miles of 17 mph, he felt confident enough in his (and most especially, our) ability to set and hold a pace that he flipped his rear wheel from “freewheel” to “fixed gear”, meaning non-stop pedaling for him.
Warm and humid, it was, so we were far better off moving at the proscribed pace than stopping and steeping. The rest of the venture north was rather uneventful (except for the dude in the Hummer that couldn’t see the Sharrows symbols over the hood of his fricken vehicle. Thanks for waking me from my cycling reverie with a near miss with your right hand mirror. I needed that +20 mph sprint for a mile or two into a headwind to try to catch your sorry ass. I assume it was my kettlebell-chiseled physique that made you speed away, turdball).
We stopped for refreshment at Alki Bakery. I went with the bran muffin and lemonade option. Russ was feeling a little carbo-challenged, so he went for the glazed cinnamon roll the size of his head. His head isn’t huge, so I think it wasn’t a problem.
The ride home was even less eventful that the nearly uneventful ride to Alki. We were all a little overheated, and we all went our own way to seek a malted-barley recovery beverage. Mine came in the form of a large mug of hefeweizen at the Ram, along with a shrimp-and-crab corndog appetizer. YUM!
Tags: Cycling, green_river_riders, ride_report
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July 6th, 2009 at 5:28 am
Fitness footnote: I felt pretty good on the ride overall. Zero back fatigue, a testament to all the full body/core work I’ve been doing with the kettlebells etc. The backSIDE was ready to get off the bike at hour 2.5. Of the approx. 3 hours in the saddle, about 20 minutes of that were at 80% or better of maximum heart rate.
Given how I felt when doing my little sprint routine at Alki, and pulling on the way home, I need to do some sustained effort intervals to improve my overall efforts when riding.