John’s Ramblings

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.

Tardy again, I know, I know.  Life’s getting in the way of my blogness, and sorry to say that life is winning the competition for my time.

I will give you a recap of another stellar Memorial Day Weekend ride in Pendleton, Oregon, at the Century Ride of the Centuries:

• With only a couple of exceptions, roads that were well maintained, and virtually empty of cars,
• Stupendously wonderful weather in the high 70’s and low 80’s
• Fantastic support, comraderie, and themed rest stops.

After three days of this stuff, I’m completely spoiled and haven’t gotten back on the saddle since.  It is hard to imagine getting back on the local multi-use trails, or ducking truck mirrors while riding around Western Washington.  I will undoubtedly do it, but not quite yet.

I’m not going to give a complete blow-by-blow, otherwise this post won’t happen in my current state-of-mind.  Here’s your Cliff-notes version:

Day 1: 90 miles, and about 4,000 feet of climbing… mostly on “rollers” (they have a funny idea of roller vs. hill in Pendleton).  With the exception of a 10 mile stretch from Highway 82 to Echo, it was gorgeous:

Day 2: Deadman’s Pass / “Cabbage Hill”.  The weather was just about perfect, and I felt much stronger than in prior years making this 15 mile climb.  The only downer for the day was the pair of strange fellows that felt compelled to make the entire ascent singing Wierd Al Yankovic songs in perfect harmony.  I pulled over to let them pass.  No pictures, because Johnny left the memory chip from his camera in the hotel room.

Day 3: Thorn Hollow / Adams.  A beautiful 70 mile ride, and a great way to end a perfect weekend of cycling the rolling fields around Pendleton.

If possible, I’ll make the trip to Pendleton for this ride in future years.  Exceptional event ride, without peer.

Last Sunday I took part in my second go-round on the May Day Metric, a small fundraising kinda ride that starts in Federal Way, Washington and travels east and south through Milton, Sumner, Orting, South Prairie, and Wilkeson.  There was a longer version that goes out to Carbonado and beyond, but the collective brain trust opted for the “70 mile” version of the ride.  More on those quotation marks later…

I was joined by Big Roddy and Russ, both of the Green River Riders group.  The morning was cool (lower 40’s), and although there were large areas of blue skies, there was also the occasional big dark cloud.  Rod engaged the group on what clothing would be appropriate, reviewing our kits and asking for opinions on how many layers we/he should be sporting.  Russ, being the wiser cyclist, wandered back to his car to adjust his non-existent shoelaces, while I gave Big Roddy the benefit of my opinions on clothing.  This, of course, opened me up to regular criticism because of my unwise counsel.  “Sure is cold”.  “I bet my feet would have been a lot warmer if I had kept those shoe covers on”.  “Unlike you, I think I’m not going to regret having the sleeves to put on this jacket”… etc. etc. etc.  While he never crossed the “crabby” barrier on the ride, it got kind of close with that whole shoe-cover issue.

But I digress.  We managed to click in and start riding at around 7:15.  We wound our way out of the Twin Lakes area, past Enchanted Village, and headed to our first “character building climb” of the day in Milton.  I suppose if I were to do this climb twice in an afternoon, and one of those times I carried 30 pounds of bricks, I would be able to tell you just how much easier it was to climb this hill than last year.  But I’m no idiot, and I’m not about to climb no hill with 30 pounds of bricks.  So I am not going to quantify just how much easier other than to say that it was 30 pounds easier.  That’s a lot.  There’s no quicker way to improve your bicycle climbing ability than to de-lard your ass, my friends.

Russ was sporting his brand-new titanium Habanero, here (barely) seen in rear view during a brief stop in Sumner:

Roddy lost a screw holding a fender, and Russ being the consummate boy scout had a zip tie (several, actually, in multiple sizes and colors) in his saddle bag just for such an emergency.

Through Sumner, and onward to the short, steep climb known as “Victor Falls”.  I think Victor may have been the first guy to try to ride his bike over this thing, and he lost all momentum and fell over.  Then it was the flat run in to Orting, and food stop #1.  No, let’s call this crushing disappointment #1, because while the food stops retained their cute Hostess Bakery names (Twinkie, Ding-Dong, and Ho-Ho), there were NO HOSTESS BAKED GOODS at any of the stops.  “Have a bagel”.  “There’s Rice Krispie Treats, I really like those.”  No, thank you.  It’s safe to say that I haven’t had a Hostess ANYTHING since I did this ride last year, and I haven’t had anything remotely that evil since mid-January when I started this weight loss thing, and IREALLYWANTEDATWINKIEDAMMIT. Alas, twas no twinkie for me.  I settled for a half a whole-wheat bagel with peanut butter and jelly.

Onward to South Prairie, Dog Hollow, and up character-building climb #3 past that waterfall thing.  I didn’t take a picture this year, but here’s last year’s shot, including that tandem couple we saw again this year.  Imagine more water in the waterfall, and you’ve got it.

At the Wilkeson rest stop, we decided that we would indeed head for home, opting for the metric-century 70 miles.  Only the 70 miles is actually 76.  And a half.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but why would you call it a 70, if it’s not a 70?  Call it a 75, and I’d say “close enough”.  But 70? No way.

The rest of the ride was uneventful, unless you consider a persistent headwind eventful.  At mile 65 we enjoyed the climb up “Little Italy”, a favorite of the Green River Riders.  Unlike last year, I did not have to resort to the granny-gear on my bike, which is a nice affirmation of all the work I’ve put in losing ballast.

The ride does still end with pie.  Mine was apple.  Good, but it’s no Ding-Dong.

Still, a good ride and a nice little tune-up before we head to Pendleton for Memorial Day Weekend.

Last Saturday my lovely wife was scheduled to do a “spa day” with her friend Nina.  This “no-men-allowed” ritual means that John has the day free from about 9 a.m. until 3:30 or so in the afternoon for a nice long ride.  We made a plan that I would end said ride in Seattle, so that we could enjoy a little celebratory dinner at one of our favorite spots, Brouwer’s.  I therefore concocted a route that would:

• get me about 70 miles,
• start from home, and
• end in the Wedgewood district of Seattle.

Here’s the result:

From Auburn, I headed due north toward Renton, taking a slight detour to the local bike store because I realized that I had neglected to pump up the tires in my morning preparations (thank you, Cycle Therapy!). It was a clear morning, but a little on the “brisk” side as the temps were well into the 40’s.

Since I was passing through Renton anyway, I stopped by the Gym to see if anyone was doing the Saturday morning grunt-and-groan, but all was quiet at Hocevar Performance Gym. If my workouts there had remained a Saturday morning affair, it would be an ideal warm-up to ride here. With my sessions now on Wednesday nights, however, I wouldn’t get home until way past my bedtime, so this is as close to that as I’m going to come.

From Renton I headed East, toward Maple Valley on the Cedar River Trail.  There was much foot traffic, so I decided to take the Jones Road detour that winds along the north side of the Cedar River, past a large and beautiful horse ranch.  The river was quite full, but I saw evidence that it had been even more so.  The standing water was minimal, and forced a slight deflection in my path, rather than a detour.

The Jones Road detour is easy to get to, by leaving the trail as it crosses under 152nd Avenue SE, crossing the river, then taking the first right turn. Getting back to the trail is not so simple, as there is no trail access where Jones rejoins the Maple Valley Hwy. You have to backtrack about a quarter mile by turning right. The scenic nature of the horse farm and the chance to get away from the busy highway for a little while outweigh the inconvenience, though.

It wasn’t too long before I left the trail again, heading toward Issaquah on Cedar Grove Road. Once through Issaquah, I opted for a westerly route past Lake Sammamish, on the chance that I’d hook up with a couple of cycling friends. As it turns out, one ended up spending the day getting vehicles repaired, and the other went on a shopping spree at the local mega-mart. So the journey continued solo, through east Bellevue to Redmond and the Sammamish River Trail.

I was starting to get hungry, and my sports-drink du jour (EFS) wasn’t sitting as well as I remembered it did. I rationalized that since I only had 22 flat miles to go until my planned payoff meal with Terri, that I could subsist on the sports drink for the remainder of the ride. The problems with that theory were many:

• I hadn’t really done a ride of this length since last summer,
• I hadn’t really been eating much (any) in the way of carbohydrate for months, although I did have some oatmeal before starting the ride,
• I hadn’t been sipping my sports drink at the recommended rate, because I just wasn’t all that thirsty.

I probably should have stopped at a Subway and eaten part of a sandwich, but my dieting-self was averse to eating bread when french fries were going to be in my very near future.  So I didn’t stop for any solid food, and the longer I waited to eat something, the closer I was to the end where I would eat something, so I just marshalled forward.  Needless to say, I was pretty well “bonked” by the time I reached Woodinville. I stopped at a park there to watch a group of weekend warriors do pushups and situps while I sipped and rested for a bit. I didn’t feel compelled to join in.

The rest of the ride was uneventful, and typical of the Burke-Gilman trail: crowded with joggers and cyclists.  Much to the relief of my tushy, many of the big tree-root bumps have been repaired in the Seattle sections of the trail.  I left the trail shortly before the U district, and did the long, gradual climb up to Wedgewood.  Our friends were kind enough to allow me use of their newly remodeled shower, and after a change of clothes we were off to my payoff lunch of pomme frites and a beer.  They tasted like 70 miles worth of  goodness!

I will just have to figure this fueling thing out before my next ride…  I hate to buy an entire loaf of bread in order to be able to carry a half a peanut butter sandwich in my kit, but that was probably exactly what I needed.  Maybe I can work out a co-op arrangement with a neighbor so I can buy a single slice of bread when needed.

Saturday September 6, 2008 was the Emerald City Lights Bicycle Ride. An interesting moniker, considering:

• Locally, Seattle is commonly referred to as “The Emerald City”. This ride never got closer than 30 miles to the city limits of Seattle.
• The ride occurs entirely during daylight hours, so there were no lights to be seen anywhere.

The ride begins and ends in Auburn, and benefits a local charity that helps families in need. I arrived at the start at 7:30 a.m., picked up my registration packet and handy-dandy reusable grocery bag (emerald green, of course), and was ready to ride at 8:00 (the official start time).  As my Green River Rider compatriots had opted for a later start time, I headed out solo.  As it turns out, I would rarely see any other riders along the route, and I saw none for the last 20 miles.

The route quickly leaves Auburn and headed out through Green Valley, with the first rest stop at mile 12, Flaming Geyser Park.  It was quickly apparent that I had made pretty good time, since they had not even gotten around to stirring up the peanut butter to put on the bagels.  From Green Valley, the 65 mile loop headed up the 218th Ave hill (a 1 mile long “character-builder”), then through Black Diamond (didn’t make a bakery stop), and out toward Ravensdale. That’s where this little fellow caught my eye.

...let me hose that off for you...

The silica sand plant at Ravensdale features a “truck wash” station, where dump trucks drive through a large conrete tub and have the sand sprayed off their tires, etc.  This replica of the Mannequin Pis (the original is a fountain in Brussels, Belgium) has had a hard-hat added, as well as a certain other “enhancement”.  I assume that when the other water jets are turned on, he helps the hosing process.

another dry bagel, sir?

After a “comfort stop” at Ravensdale Park, the route headed out Kent-Kangley Road to Kangley-Kanaskat Road, then across the foothills all the way to Enumclaw.  Having taken in this exact scenery on the prior two weekends with the Green River Riders, I was pretty much in head-down mileage mode, at least until I got past Nolte State Park and to some new scenery.  Food stop 2 was at the Enumclaw Fairgrounds, where the peanut butter had been stirred (barely), but all the signs weren’t quite up yet.  This reaffirmed my conclusion that I was at the pointy-end of the day’s riders, at least so far.  Given my growing fatigue, I assumed I would get passed with a fair degree of regularity during the last 20 miles.

I left the fairgrounds before any of the other riders, and never saw another rider the rest of the way back.  The route headed out to Mud Mountain Road, back through Enumclaw, and across the plateau through gently rolling farmland.  There was a brief stint of a mile or so that we had to ride on Hwy 169.  I didn’t find it all that busy, but it would have been helpful if someone could have run a street sweeper along the shoulder sometime last week.  The ride ends by winding through some neighborhoods that I never knew existed, and drops you down the hill directly to the start line park.  I finished at 12:30.

Size Matters

I would definitely do this ride again, if the weather cooperated like it did yesterday.  It was overcast for about half the day, sunny and warm for the rest.  On the plus side, the route was nice, and while it covers some of the same territory as the Headwaters Century (which actually takes place the following day), it was less crowded than it’s more well publicized competitor.

On the minus side, I’d love to see a little more variety in the food offered at the rest stops.  The Dan Henry’s marking the route were relatively small… you had to pay attention as you could miss a turn or two.

On Saturday, February 9th, I rode in the 10th Annual Tour de Palm Springs (map, cue sheet, profile). This is a charity fundraising event, which benefits a long list of charities in the greater Coachella Valley of California. Terri and I like to vacation in Palm Springs as a way to dry up some of the mold we may have accumulated in our Western Washington winters (this is our 4th time down here). We’ve never come this early in the year before, and never have we combined this trip with cycling. I’ve been eyeballing the weather forecasts for weeks, and I’ve seen reports of freezing temperatures, rains with flash floods, and wind storms throughout January. Fortunately for us, the weather turned the day we arrived, and it has been in the 80’s for most of our stay.

Our hotel is situated about 5 miles north of the start line for the ride, so in order to pick up my ride map and make the 7 a.m. start, I left the hotel at 6:15 a.m. Dawn was just breaking, but it was a chilly 49 degrees. Knowing that it would be getting pretty warm in the next hour or so, I opted to freeze my ass off until 9 by eschewing any layers. I rode to the start primarily in no-hands mode, arms crossed and fingers in the armpits.
	The start line was crowded. I’d estimate that 1/3 of the total 10,000 projected cyclists were present for the ceremonies and roll-out. From the jerseys worn, most riders were from Southern California and Nevada. After some speeches and the National Anthem, we shuffled past the Palm Springs High School Band and Drill Team to the sounds of “Build Me Up, Buttercup”.
Once through Palm Springs, we entered the windmill farms that are clustered in the San Gorgonio Pass, Winds are funneled through this mountain pass, and the 4,000 + windmills here provide power to the air conditioners and pool heaters in the Palm Springs area.
	After 7 miles or so of relatively flat warm-up, we started our ascent (such as it was). The big climbs of the day were all before mile 42. The hills were rather benign, never getting over 6 percent grade, and never for very long. Once we left the upscale infrastructure of Palm Springs, the roads tended to get a little rough. There were often large cracks in the asphalt that will jar you if you are unprepared. Later in the day I’d work a spoke loose with this treatment, and I took advantage of the mechanical support to tighten things up at mile 72.
The first rest stop was at mile 16, and the featured band was a group of retirees from the valley. I stayed long enough to refill 1 water bottle, then made my way through the crowd and back to the road. The rest stops were at least as busy as those on the Seattle-To-Portland ride, but they seemed to be well organized with plenty of different water options, and enough porta-potties to avoid long lines of dancing bikers.
	A few miles of gentle descent later, we turned left and joined the route of the 55 mile riders. We would ride with the 55 milers until about mile 30, so we descended en masse on the rest stop at mile 28. Surprisingly, there were no huge lines for water or toilets. They had volunteer kids (presumably from some of the charities for whom we were contributing), running cold bottles of water out to the riders as they stopped by the road. This served to eliminate the usual crowd by the water. Another bottle refill, and I was on my way.
Soon after the 55 milers split off to head back toward town, we began another relatively tame section of climbing which lasted until mile 42. Not quite as thrilling as the ride profile had promised, the next 10 miles were indeed a descent into the valley. I took advantage of the moment for the obligatory hands-free shot that my wife abhors. Because the grade was less than spectacular I ended up working the pedals (rather than coasting) on the downhill as well in order to gain a little of the time lost on the uphill and headwind sections earlier in the day.
	The lunch stop was at mile 52, and it was getting rather warm. Another high school band was playing, and a squad of cheerleaders was here cheering on the cyclists as they entered and left the rest stop. Turkey or ham sandwiches were available, made fresh and bagged just before they were handed out. A pleasant surprise for those of you who may have tried to eat one of those dried-out shingles that were made 3 days before STP.
We passed under Hwy 10, and crossed the railroad tracks. In what appeared to be a fairly frequent occurance, we were caught by surprise by the need to turn left right after the RR tracks. It seems that the further away from the start line we got, the worse the course markings became. Once the train cleared the tracks, we were forced to shuffle between cars at the red light in order to get to the left turn lane, and in the course of doing so one rider went down in the intersection. Better signage would have helped, a volunteer stationed before the corner would have been optimal. The Dan-Henry’s were abysmal. They were few and far between, often pointing in an ambiguous direction, and were frequently indistiguishable from utility locator markings next to the curb.
	We headed a few more miles to our southernmost point, the garden spot known as Thermal. True to it’s name, it was fracking hot (my Polar HRM registered a temperature range for the day of 49-99). The route then turned back north along the western side of the Coachella Valley. There wasn’t much shade down here, but after a few miles I found myself rolling through a Palm Tree farm. Soon we were zig-zagging through the outskirts of La Quinta, a community (like many others in the valley) that only exists for the good graces of retired golfing enthusiasts.
The next rest stop was at mile 72, where I had my wheel trued and applied a healthy slathering of SPF 50 sunscreen. In a flashback to all those middle-school music recitals I sat through as a parent, the local junior orchestra was doing it’s best to wake George Gershwin from the dead with “Rhapsody in Blue”. After refilling and rehydrating, I followed a dozen or so riders out of the stop the wrong way. We did 2 bonus miles with a hillclimb, thanks to the inadequate signage on the route out of the stop. The resultant downhill portion was refreshing.
	Other than a few more squirrelly left turns, the rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. The valley is by and large flat, although it is a gradual uphill from south to north. I can report that the bike lanes in the city of Palm Desert are shared… with Golf Carts. Along with the accustomed symbol of a bike rider painted in the lane, there is a similar symbol of a golf cart. Given that golfers are more heavily armed (with clubs), I assume they get the right-of-way.
There was one final rest stop at mile 90, uneventful except for the welcome cold of the water bottles they had put on ice for us. 7 hours and change later, I rolled across the finish line to the cheers of the the Palm Springs cheerleaders. I gathered up my t-shirt and medal, a cold bottle of water, and headed the 5 additional miles to my hotel. Total mileage for the day was 113. I was very fatigued, and my butt was definitely feeling the 7 hours in the saddle. I quaffed a cold Fat Tire, showered, ate a couple of pieces of leftover pizza, had a quick soak in the jaccuzi, and passed out about 8. Sunday morning I had an hour-long massage to work the kinks out of my back and thighs, which was excellent.

So in conclusion I’d have to say I’m very glad I did it, but I’m not sure I’d do it again. It was really nice to ride in summer-like conditions in early February. The rest stops were well organized, and the route wasn’t a complete killer. It was pretty crowded however, and some of the roads left a lot to be desired. Time always changes my perspective, so I won’t say never. Perhaps if I can find another victim willing to escape the mid-40’s rain of Seattle to ride in the desert, I’ll do it again.

Saturday was the Manastash Metric (map link) ride in Ellensburg, Washington. Sunday was to be the Kitsap Color Classic. Early last week I checked the respective weather forecasts for Ellensburg vs. Poulsbo, and Ellensburg won with partly-cloudy skies and high temps in the 50’s, while Poulsbo would be wet.

Terri and I headed out mid-day on Friday, but we had to double-back to home because we had forgotten the tire chains for Terri’s car. Although there was no forecast for snow on Snoqualmie Pass for this weekend, we opted to be prepared for it just the same. Our loop back to the house took us right into a repaving project in Auburn, bringing what little progress we were making to a complete halt. It would take us another 45 minutes to get back to the point where we had exited the freeway to fetch the chains. Feeling like we were The Slowskys on vacation, we abandoned all hope of making “good time” to Ellensburg and detoured instead to Issaquah for lunch at the Issaquah Brewhouse.

Once we finally reached Ellensburg, we checked into our hotel. Sort of, anyway. The hotel’s computer system was down. Registration consisted of handwritten notes on a sheet of notepad paper. The notes would eventually be transcribed into the hotel’s computer, but at the wrong nightly rate. The desk staff were quick to remedy that situation at checkout, however.

Friday night we headed to our favorite Central Washington restaurant, the Valley Café. Being somewhat of a lasagne purist, I stepped out of my rut and had the lasagne of the day, which was pepperoni with smoked mozarella, mushrooms, red bell pepper, and a fresh marinara sauce. It was absolutely spectacular. Terri had pasta primavera. It was good, but not quite as over-the-top delicious as my meal. We paired dinner with a really nice bottle of Sangiovese (Walla Walla Vintners, ‘05).

Hey, wasn’t this blog entry supposed to be about a bike ride?

Saturday morning was cool… like 40 degrees cool. Terri made the executive decision that she would rather languish under the covers than join me for a bike ride, so I suited up in several layers and pedaled the roughly 2 miles to the start line. I had printed off a registration form from the website, so my registration process was quick and painless. I saw no food or water at the start line but that may have just been me being unobservant. It seemed that they had underestimated demand as they were out of maps for the longer rides (60 and 100 miles). They did have a cue sheet for the 60 mile “metric century”. I grabbed one of those, and headed out.

The nice thing about small-town rides is that you are out into the country after pedaling just a few miles. I was soon heading west through farm country, although all the crops had already been harvested from the fields. I did have the disadvantage of a fairly stiff headwind for the first 30 miles. The wind was straight in my face at 15-20 mph all morning. You know the wind is stiff when the flags are flying straight out, and you can’t manage to get over 13 mph on a downhill. I could not average much more than 10 mph for the entire 30 miles to Cle Elum.

Quirky side-note: I ended up riding with this fellow a few times during the day as our paces were pretty evenly matched. He is from Yakima, and as it turns out he and I had a mutual acquaintance from when I lived in Yakima 27 years ago. I worked for 2 years at KNDO-TV. One of the engineers at the station was Ron Krause, who used to sing in a barbershop quartet with the guy in this photo. “He was a helluva bass”. Small world, indeed.

The first official stop was at the old Thorp Mill, the 12 mile point. The food that was provided was Costco muffins, bagels, a jar of peanut butter (Jif, smooth), some cookies, one box of Gatorade bottles, and one box of bottled water. As I would find out at the second stop in Cle Elum, once the supplies ran out, that was it. When I got to Cle Elum there was no Gatorade left and the bottles of water were quickly disappearing. “Get them while you can”. I felt bad for the folks yet to come, as they would have to go searching for water.

Other than the headwinds the first half of the ride was fairly uneventful. The “breathtaking climb” they promised on the website was 400′ spread over two miles, so it wasn’t as dramatic as they made it sound. There was plenty of climbing other than this one hill. My HRM registered about 2,000′ total ascent for the day.

After my bagel-break at mile 30 in Cle Elum I had officially turned my back on the headwinds for the day. The route took me through some lovely winding canyons with views of the Yakima River. Eventually I would descend to the valley floor again, riding through cattle ranches and farms. There was one more food stop at mile 46. They placed this stop at the bottom of a long descent. Being way more interested in maintaining my momentum than another bagel, I passed the stop at about 30 mph. If I was asked my opinion, I’d tell the organizers that a far better spot for the rest stop was a turnout about 3 miles up the road, at the end of the long flat stretch after the downhill.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful, and I ended up entering town from the North. There was nobody at the finish line, save for one fellow rider that was loading his bike in the car. I rode the 2 miles back to my hotel, and a hot shower.

We sought out a malted barley recovery beverage, and I found one at the Oak Rail Bar and Grill downtown. We inquired as to what we might do for entertainment in Ellensburg on a Saturday night. The owner kindly informed us that “there’s nothing really to do in this town but drink. You ought to come back about 11 pm, the place will really be hoppin’.” The staff at the bar were busy making up that night’s batch of Suck and Blow Jello Shots. Intriguing as all this frivolity sounded, we opted for another sedate meal at the Valley Café (I had ravioli, Terri had the lasagne), and one more quiet night at the hotel.

So overall I’d say it was a nice ride, and a good route. The organization could have been a bit better (shortage of maps, shortage of refreshments), and the mileages on the cue sheet were a bit off. I only saw one vehicle operating as SAG wagon all day, and I only saw her about 3 times. Still, I had a nice day in the saddle, and I didn’t get wet!

4,351 miles year-to-date.