John’s Ramblings

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.

Mid-day, Terri arrived home to swap cars.  Her’s was making a griding-brake noise in the rear, and driving it was getting a little nerve-wracking.  She took my car, and I called a shop up near Southcenter for a 3 p.m. diagnosis.  Not knowing how severe the time and monetary damages would be, I threw bike and gear into the back of her car to provide me an alternative means of getting home, if necessary.

Luck had it that the damage to the rear brake rotors was minimal, so the car would be ready in about 2 hours.  So instead of providing me an alternative method to get home, the bike would be my entertainment system for the next hour or so.  From Southcenter I headed north over Macadam Drive, then down the Green River / Interurban Trails to South 196th St. in Kent.  I cut across to Frager Road, and “entertained” myself with a few hill-repeats up to St. Thomas Cemetary.  I headed back to Southcenter via the Green River Trail and arrived back at the shop just in time to hand them my wallet.  How convenient.

So, while I had really planned on doing my kettlebell workout on Thursday, this was actually a pretty nice way to kill and hour or so, plus get in some much-needed hillwork.  There’s a plan taking shape to do Sunrise Mt. Rainier (V3) on July 25th.  I should probably climb a hill or two in the next week, given I’m going to climb 14 miles in 2 weeks.

From De Telegraff, Netherlands. Click for zoom:

Gesink despondent, in the team car

Robert Gesick broke his wrist, and was pulled from the Tour de France.

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!

Clickable link to visit the original blog post, and see more shots:

riding fixies in a hydroelectric project

I took Terri down to Pt. Defiance Park in Tacoma this morning to do some bicycle hill work.  The park closes 5 mile drive on Saturday mornings, making for a safe(r) environment.  There’s plenty of up – and – down in this little scenic loop through the woods, and it’s always interesting to ride it in successive years as a gauge of increased fitness.

Terri found one long uphill stretch, and because of the difficulty she had riding up it once, she proceeded to backtrack and ride up it again 3 more times.  Nicely done.  You progress by working on your weaknesses, and she hit the nail on the head today.

I did three loops of the park, my last loop beating the time on my first by 1:30.  Sections that I used to have to granny-gear I can now stand up in the big ring and power up.  Very cool.  Bonus was that the sun was out in Tacoma, while it was solid overcast at home.