John’s Ramblings

It’s true!  I’m ashamed to say that, even though this is a blog started to chronicle my cycling exploits and there’s a bike pictured in the header, I have not ridden in a while.  A great while.  When I got home from Rapsody on August 29, I hung my bicycle in the garage and that’s where it’s been since.

Terri was heading to Lynnwood on Saturday for “spa day”, and there was a “brewery ride” taking place in my back yard.  So in the interest of community service I donned my bike togs, loaded my winter bike onto the car, and headed down to Kent Station to help out on the ride.

Not having ridden in a while, it was inevitable that I would forget something.  On this day, it was the saddle bag which was affixed to my summer bike (pictured above).  Not wanting to be late I ventured ahead, comforted by the knowledge that I had not had a single flat tire in 2009.

There was much mulling and debate (the weather being vaguely shitty) but a core group of riders headed south toward Auburn.  After a “comfort stop” at the Auburn Golf Course, we made it another couple of miles before the call to “STOP!” was heard from the pack.  One rider had a wheel that was binding, and had stopped back at the bottom of Lea Hill.  Not wanting the whole group to backtrack to find this fellow, I of course volunteered to go rescue the cyclist.  I borrowed a multi-tool from one of the group, and struck out on my mission.  I made it about 100 yards before I hit a small divot around a water valve and got a pinch-flat on the rear tire.

Remember how I said I didn’t have my saddle bag?  What does one carry in a saddle bag besides a multi-tool?  A spare tube and a patch kit.  A 100 yard walk and an unanswered phone call later, your “ride to the rescue hero” was standing at the corner of “M” and Main St. in Auburn sans tube, patch kit, or rescue-ee.

Fortunately for our would-be hero, the gas station/mini mart at Main & M is a stopping point for cyclists heading out to Green Valley / Black Diamond / points east.  A group of 4 randonneurs were chomping powerbars and quaffing gatorade as I approached, a damp $5 bill in hand.  I was able to procure a FREE tube (“just give one to the next guy that needs one”), and commenced the tire repair process.  I had a tube (oversized, but servicable), and a multi-tool.  I pulled the multi-tool out of the pocket I had jammed it into a mere 10 minutes prior, and was startled by the complexity of this device.  There was everything on this tool from scissors to a magnifying glass.  A cyclist for the Swiss Army never had it so good.  I could see that there was a form of tire lever contained in the depths of this thing, but it took another few minutes to a.) find the safety release loop and release button that allowed the two halves of the tool to separate, revealing the utilitarian goodness inside, and b.) find the other secret button sequence that allowed you to move the scissors, magnifying glass, screwdriver, can opener, paint can opener, and tongue depressor out of the way so you could use the tire lever.

Once I had accomplished all that, I had to actually extricate the old tube from the tire.  You may recall from my last entry that the grip on my left hand is shot.  I was basically trying to change a tube without the use of an opposable thumb on my left hand.  After much cursing and 3rd stage Lamaze breathing, I was able to pull out the old tube, check for pointy-bits inside the tire, and reassemble everything, pump up the tire, and resume the RESCUE MISSION (all the while, wishing I could have been rescued from my rescue mission).

I backtracked the route, and our wayward rider was (of course) long gone.  It turns out he hopped a bus to the transit center, and took another bus to get him back to Everett.  A couple of phone calls revealed that the group had stopped for (what seemed like) 5 hours of coffee at Starbucks, and they were heading back to Kent Station.  I opted to NOT ride south to meet them, but instead to head to the destination in order to warm up a barstool and check the quality of the ales being poured.

Mission accomplished.

I’m not going for another ride this weekend, by the way.

Hurricanes!  First round of these since 8/31.  15 x 40 yard uphill sprints, each rep followed by one of the following bodyweight exercises:

• Bodyweight Squats x 15 reps
• Push Ups x 15 reps
• Reverse Lunges x 10 reps/each
• Knees To Elbows (in push up position) x 12 reps/each
• Burpees x 10 reps

Time 18.54.  Last time I did this, my time was 19:56.

After a fair amount of goading and prodding, I signed up to participate in the 2009 version of RAPSody, the Ride Around Puget Sound.  This ride is, for mere mortals, a two day 170 mile affair.  A few folks ride it in a single day, I hear.  No thank you.

I was hesitant to attempt this ride, mostly because of the limited time I’ve had to train for it.  Generally you build up saddle time and mileage so that you peak out close to the mileage that you’ll have to do on a given day on the ride.  The training should mimic the terrain that you’ll be riding on.  Finally, if you are doing a multi-day ride you should probably be doing training rides on consecutive days.  I was able to do none of these.  I look back at my training logs for July and August, and my total mileage for those months is right around the mileage I’d have to complete in the two days of this ride.  The vast majority of the miles ridden were flat, with the notable exception of the 14 miles up Mt. Rainier.  The longest ride was 42 miles, and that was a mostly flat affair on July 19th.  Compiling these numbers today, I am surprised.  I couldn’t really remember doing all that much riding over the last couple of months… perhaps a function of my failing memory, or more likely a function of most of these rides not being very memorable (with the sole exception of Mt. Rainier).  Where the hell did I ride for 42 miles on 7/19? Beats me!  Someone please clue me in…

Friend and fellow Green River Rider Rod Spencer picked me up around 6:00 a.m. in order to carpool to the start at Tacoma Community College.  We checked in, got our numbers, and Rod dropped his luggage off at the bag-truck.  We were rolling about 7:20, not exactly on schedule, but close enough.  After a short warmup through the streets of Tacoma, we headed down the former Bantz Boulevard (now a park and bike trail) and onto the new Narrows Bridge.  The bike trail on the bridge is quite nice… spacious and separated from traffic by a substantial concrete barrier.  At right, your obligatory picture of the rear-end of my cycling companion of the day, heading toward said bridge.

The first part of this ride is quite scenic… after crossing the bridge, you ride through scenic downtown Gig Harbor, scenic Olalla, scenic Southworth, and to the first food stop (a scenic park).  Highlights of the food stop for me were: yogurt with granola and blueberries, peanut butter and jelly on a not-petrified bagel, meeting Leo Stone and Ross Carey, and being recognized as “John Calnan, that guy that swings the kettlebells!”.  My own little slice of fame, this blog.

After the first stop, Leo rode with us and gave us the benefit of his vast knowledge of Kitsap County.  Strangest factoid was the area along the sound where Poison Oak was intentionally planted to thwart any potential Japanese invasion during World War II.

Leo gave me a few dire warnings about the hilliness of the sections to come before leaving us.  I’m not sure whether these warnings are a good thing or not.  Given my trepidation about conditioning, it may have been better to have been ignorant about the general peril that I would soon be in.  As it turns out, the climbs were not as bad as I made them out to be in my little brain.  None of the big climbs were more than a mile or so, and all but one little one on day two were no steeper than Sunrise/Mt. Rainier.

We pulled in to the lunch stop at Allyn sometime close to the noon hour, and they had hot Calzones in addition to the usual cookies, bagels, salty snacks, and fruit.  Everyone lounges in the sun, eating this tasty chow and joking about the petrified peanut butter sandwiches they hand you on STP.  I sat with Leo, and when Ross Carey came in Leo told him “I was so tired when I got here, I couldn’t even talk”.  My quick retort was “He’s apparently recovered!”.  Leo can tell a story, or three if you let him!

The rest of the day’s ride was uneventful, and less than scenic.  We were routed onto Hwy 3 for too long, due to a washout on Grapeview Loop Road.  I was getting pretty fatigued at this point, and my lower back was starting to complain about the mileage.  We made it to Shelton just fine, and I had time to purchase and consume a root beer float before Terri arrived with the dogs to take me to our hotel.  Nicely timed!

Through some rather lazy internet searching on my part (only about a week ago), I found a dog-friendly hotel with a king bed and vacancies in Tumwater, about 25 minutes away.  Terri packed all the makings for nachos, and had cold beer at the ready once we checked in and moved into the room.  We had a nice evening, lovely dinner, and the dogs made full use of the expanded sleeping space.  I guess I did too, as I was pretty well unconscious by 9.

Terri dropped me back at the start at 7, and Rod was ready shortly thereafter to resume.  I was really feeling the prior day, and lacked the energy for picture taking.  I was heads-down pedaling, trying to keep the fire in the legs to a low simmer, and standing enough that my ass didn’t catch fire instead.  Day 2 is indeed flatter, but the hills are not any more kind that we encountered on day 1. I did manage to get a shot of the Capitol in Olympia as we flew down a little hill into the downtown area.

The last stop was 30 miles from the finish, and lunch was Costco’s finest: those roll-up tortilla sandwich things, and some croissant sandwiches with either turkey or roast beef.  I ran into Claire Petersky 3 times on Sunday: First was on the hill out of Shelton, when she stopped to pick up a broken beer bottle in the bike lane.  I saw her again at the first stop, and lastly here as she pulled in to lunch as I was just leaving:

By this point, I was hanging on to Rod’s wheel as much as possible.  The energy level in the legs was pretty low, and sustained solo efforts of any magnitude were, well, non sustainable.  He very kindly pulled my ass from Olympia to Tacoma, and waited for me at the top of the hills.  Without his help, my finish time would have been far later than our 2 p.m. ending.

It is a tribute to my other strength and conditioning training that I was able to ride as well as I did.  If not for the work I had put in over the last six months, I would have had no business even attempting this ride due to the challenging terrain.  If you are in shape and don’t mind hills, I’d highly recommend this ride.  The views, especially on day 1, are very nice.  The food was fresh and tasty, although the rest stops all seemed to be about 5 miles farther apart than they needed to be.  Limiting this ride to 400 riders means that you are never riding in a crowd, which is another bonus.  If I’m around, I’d do this ride again.

One of my favorite rides, despite my non-climber’s physique!

My nephew Kevin arrived at my house Saturday at 7 a.m., and we were underway shortly thereafter.  We were clipped in and beginning the climb at 8:20 a.m.  A couple of my friends profess that “climbs don’t get easier, you just get faster”.  I’d beg to differ after yesterday.  Don’t get me wrong, it was still work.  But I never once had to stop to rest or stretch, and I never had to resort to the granny-gear-and-spin mode that got my ass up this 2,800′ climb in years past.  I had a great ride, and while much younger and more of a climber, I think Kevin enjoyed the ride and the spectacular views.  As I look back at the three times I’ve done this ride, the big improvement this year is directly attributable to the weight loss and strength training.

Comparison of climbing time:

• 2007: 2 hrs 10 minutes / 6 stops
• 2008: 2 hrs / 5 stops
• 2009: 1 hr 46 minutes / 0 stops

The downhill portion?  34 minutes of free-falling bliss!

A few of the views from the ride:

My legs are a little tight this morning after last night’s squat and lunge exertions, so today is a deload day.  Work as usual, then maybe seek out a little carbohydrate goodness to start the weekend.

My nephew Kevin is joining me tomorrow for my third assault on Mt. Rainier.  Not mountain climbing in the traditional sense, but riding our bicycles 14 miles up Sunrise Road.  He’s only in town for the weekend, so we squeezed his schedule a bit so that he could see what a real climb is like.  Weather is looking to be ab-fab for the day, so I am totally excited to ride.  The views are always spectacular, and to ride it with Kevin will be a real treat.  It will also be interesting to gauge the difficulty of the climb now that I’m 30+ pounds lighter than last year.

We’re leaving here around 7 a.m.  I can’t remember the actual travel time to the Sunrise Gate of the park, but I assume that drive and prep time will put us in the saddle at around 9.  Come join the grunt-fest if you like.  Beer likely follows the ride.

Terri wanted to go down to Pt. Defiance Park in Tacoma this morning to take advantage of the weekly closure of 5 mile drive to automobiles.  She is working on her aerobic capacity & pedal power by doing hill repeats on a long climbing section of the road.

I did 4 laps of the park in 1:15, including one lap down to Owen Beach.  I had recalled that the road up from the beach was a bit steeper than the other climbs in the park.  My memory was correct, but time had softened the edges of just what pedaling up this sucker felt like.  Once I was there, of course, I recalled doing this route a couple of years earlier and having to do “switchback” maneuvers to get up the hill.  No switching-back for me today, but I used my small chainring for the first time in months.  Humbling.