Author: James

A light drizzle saw our group of 36 riders take off at 7am on Saturday morning from the start just outside Starbucks. The “fast” riders promptly took off into the distance, finishing eventually in 11:37 hours (exactly 4 hours ahead of me). I rode with the second group for the first couple of hours but eventually had to drop off the back as we hit our first climbs at Chuckanut Drive. The pace was a little faster than my body was feeling up to so I decided to continue at my own tempo along the 8 mile rolling climb.

Got a bit of everything on this ride with rain, hail, wind and, if not sun, at least glimpses of blue sky. I was even tempted to take off some of my rain gear at some points.

The middle stretch was a bit of a slog into the wind and I wasn’t feeling particularly fast. Hopefully the spring camp in Wenatchee and a series of back to back days will get my legs faster for the longer rides ahead.

An unfortunate incident in the final stretch back along Highway 20. It was dark at this stage and three of us were riding in a pace line in the wide shoulder alongside the road. The lead rider didn’t spot a curb jutting out into the shoulder until the last moment and swerved very late. The rider behind him went down and I had no where to go and went down as well. There’s a sinking feeling when you know there’s nothing you can do to avoid a crash and just hope for the best. I hit the ground on my left side but all my rain gear protected me from any real road rash. I quickly got up to get the bike, and myself off the road, and then checked for damage. I’d scraped up my elbow a bit and bruised my hip. The front wheel wasn’t turning but I was able to straighten it out in the lights of  a concerned car full of people who had stopped to see if any assistance was needed. Fortunately the other rider was OK as well.

Then it was back on the bike for the final 25 miles before I could seize up. It would have sucked to DNF that close to the finish after over 160 miles.

Ultimately finished in 15:37 near the back of the field.

A break from the SIR rides this weekend as I’m going to do next weekend’s Bellingham 300k rather than the one being held this weekend.

I decided to join the Cascade Training series ride that was going from Magnuson Park around Mercer Island for a quick training ride to focus on raising my cruising speed. I rode with the Purple group who average 18-20 mph on the flats, apparently the Orange group, while stated as 21mph+, can range up to 25 so I left that group for another day.

I like the loop around Mercer Island and it was a good chance to do it at a decent pace. A front group of about 10 people broke away once we picked up the pace a bit on Mercer Island and I rode with them comfortably enough (until a slow puncture near the end of the loop made my bike start responding pretty strangely and I slowed down to nurse it in to the regroup before we headed back over the I90 bridge). I swapped out the tube and was good to go by the time everyone had caught back up.

I saw a couple people I knew from previous rides which was fun. The Cascade rides have a bit of a different feel to them than the SIR ones but it was a nice reminder of my first season training for STP in 2005.

Here’s the elevation for the ride:

I got up at 5am for the drive up to Bellingham for the start of my first brevet of the season. The fine weather forecast and build up to the ride on the mailing list resulted in about 80 people showing up. Not bad considering there had been a 200k the previous weekend that most people had ridden in as well.

I got on to a fast group of 25-30 people for the 30 mile run to the first control. We were moving at a great fast pace. The advantage of a large group means it’s much easier to move at a faster pace without needing to work as hard. The first control was a quick stop to get cards signed and then straight back on the road. Unfortunately there was a traffic light immediately which split the group and I saw the bulk of the group vanish up the road. I got a chase group going with the 6 of us who had been caught at the light but to no avail. Eventually had to ease back on the pace as it became apparent that we weren’t going to be able to reel in the pack.

We still were making good time and I eventually rode in a group of 3 with Ray and Dennis to the next control (with one bonus hill of about 2 miles thanks to a missed turn).

The next stretch from 60-90 miles was along Chuckanut drive out of Bellingham, a lovely stretch of scenic rollers. At this stage I was riding with Ray and Shan (who I rode most of the rest of the ride with).

We passed an enormous field of daffodils in full bloom approaching LaConner and after the left hand bend onto Fir Island road one of the fields had tens of thousands of snow geese covering the field and periodically taking flight to fly in mass around the area.

There were heavy winds for the last 30 miles of the ride which made it a bit more challenging and dropped the pace a bit. Unfortunately they were cross winds and there was too much traffic to form a proper echelon to take advantage of drafting so it was pretty much everyone for themselves slogging it out.

It was a lovely sunny day and I ended up with a personal best time for this distance of 8:50, 5 minutes better than my previous best set in 2007. I ended up leaving Ray and Shan for the last 2 miles and time trailing it in to make sure I beat it. My legs felt the 2 mile sprint once I finished but it was a nice way to end the ride.

I’m still waiting to see what the fastest times were but I know that most of the people in the group I started with for the first 30 miles finished in around 7:20 which is pretty impressive! (I ended up 32nd of the 84 riders which is around my usual place somewhere between the middle of the pack and the top third)

Highlights for the ride included:

1) fast group for first 30 miles

2) large flocks of white snow geese sweeping through the sky

3) large field of yellow daffodils

4) time trialing the last 2 miles at 20 mph+ to get best time

5) lovely sunny day and good company

Elevation profile (deceptive as while the last stretch was pretty flat it was all into strong head and cross winds)

The route map and our loop around NW Washington

3 generations en route home from the Expo

Girls hard at work racing against the “Metal Guy” at the Bike Expo

The weather was great today so I decided when I got up to see if I could find a ride to join. The Native Planet group were heading out at 9:30 from the east side so I decided to see if I could make it over to that one. However, by the time I’d kept my promises to the girls on the various things they wanted to do this morning I was running pretty late and got to the start about 40 minutes after everyone else had left.

I decided to see if I could catch them up and headed out to follow the cue sheet by myself. It was a great route with some nice climbs but the only sighting I had of my fellow riders was in the car park at the finish. Oh well, at least it got me out on a nice route today.

(As a follow up ride this afternoon, Ashley and I took the tandem over to the beach. She did great and helped power up the long hill from the beach car park without any complaint or rest. When we last used the tag along for the same ride we stopped 3 times going up that hill. It was funny riding over when Ashley decided she wanted to tuck her leggings into her socks to protect them. I could see via her shadow that she was just resting with her feet up on the down tube as she pottered away tucking first one leg and then the other in as I pedalled away).

This was the official kick off for the SIR Brevet season, a hilly loop out from Renton hitting Tiger mountain and May Valley. There were 90 odd riders at the start and we got sent off on our merry way by a bagpiper in full regalia.

My legs felt pretty good but there seemed a lot of riders ahead of me. I got to the finish and the area behind the pub was full of bikes (and the pub full of bikers eating and drinking). Once the official results came out I saw that there were actually a fair few riders still out on the course after me (I came in around 36th) so I was in my standard mid pack position after all.

Now the challenge for the rest of the season is to get faster!

The sun finally arrived! Clear blue skies and a great day on the bike heading up over the hills from Redmond and out to North Bend and Lake Dorothy.

No punctures today and I rode at a better pace, averaging 16.5 mph for the day with no breaks.

I need to bring a more varied selection of food for these rides as gel blocks and Zone bars were getting a bit old by the end of the ride. A sandwich or banana would have gone down well.

Next up – the spring populaire next Sunday and the official kick off of the 2010 SIR brevet season.

Pretty wet roads at the start of this ride. I promptly got a flat after about 4 miles and saw the peleton vanish up the road. 25 minutes later (not my fastest tire change) I was back cycling and wondering if I’d get to see anyone else for the rest of the ride.

Fortunately I eventually caught up with Larry (who had also got a puncture) at mile 22 or so and had some company for the rest of the ride. We decided to shave 9 miles off the ride at an opportune moment to catch up with more people and thus had even more company for the last 15 miles.

Pleasant company and a nice opportunity to test out my new aero bars for portions of the ride.

I registered for the Cascade 1000k last night, lining up the final step for optimal positioning for pre-registration for PBP next year. The larger the rides you do in 2010 the earlier you can pre-register for PBP in 2011.

It was a toss up between doing the official Cascade 1200 or doing the Cascade 1000 + RUSA permanent #413 (260k). You ride the same course but get slightly different credit for it depending on which combination you decide on. I still kind of want PBP to be my first official 1200 and the 1000 will also count towards the Randonneur 5000 award which would be another nice accomplishment to get lined up in conjunction with PBP: http://www.rusa.org/award_r5000.html.

Here’s the course:

and the various mountain passes

(Images from Robert’s blog)

This Saturday’s ride was from South Center in a loop around Dash Point. It was back to the rain with non-stop light rain for the whole ride. Plenty of climbing and a good workout for the legs. My pace was about 1mph slower than last year (probably due to the rain).