Category: Cycling

Pre-ride of the 600k for SIR this past weekend with 4 other intrepid souls started at the usual ungodly hour of 5am at the Redmond Inn. The purpose of the ride is for the volunteers assisting the actual ride in a couple weeks to vet the course and make sure any needed changes are made to keep the route safe and enjoyable. It also allows volunteers to get credit for the ride. This was an opportunity to ride with people I would generally not be riding with as our paces are quite different. Pre-rides are much more similar to a fleche as you generally stick together for the entire ride and the overall pace is dictated by the slowest person in the group. This resulted in a much longer ride than I was expecting but also meant that I had a lot less strain on my body as most of the ride was Zone 1 for me rather than Zone 2/3 endurance pace. I did climb at my own pace for most of the climbing but would then regroup at the top after having a chance to stretch my legs out a bit.

We headed up north for a loop around most of Camano Island and then hitting Bellingham (after a nice pizza lunch in Edison) before a return back to Redmond via the Centennial Trail for a bit of sleep before the second day.

I rode my Serotta on Day 1 as my current main bike’s DI2 shifting had died during the week. The Serotta was my primary bike for a good few years, through PBP 2011, but hasn’t seen much riding in recent years. It still held up well for the day and kept me pretty dry with the heavy rain we had for about 4 hours mid day. As we hit night riding it got progrssively colder and I ended up buying additional gloves and a hat to stay warm. Loads of real food during this ride and I kept my energy levels up pretty well. Main takeaways ahead of LEL are to work out some way to protect my shorts in the rain to avoid chaffing, a lightweight Goretex short seems a likely option. Also I should carry along some small chamois cream packets and a different backup light as the rando 5000 one I had failed (though wasn’t needed). My Garmin battery would have run out as well at this pace so I borrowed a battery pack from Andy and the inride charging worked well.

We started discussing start times for Day 2 as we got closer to the overnight and settled on 8am rollout. This was earlier than I would have liked and just allowed for 5 hours sleep but later than the others might have gone with so compromises were made all around. Was in bed by 2am.

The weather forecast was better for the second day so I shifted bikes to Christian’s old Trek Madone for the excursion out to Middle Fork.

There were some hefty climbs to wake us up out of Redmond. I had to go back to retrieve my keys which I’d left in the car but it meant that riding at my own pace I could catch up to the others by the time they crested the final initial climbs. It was a nice sunny ride on trails out to North Bend and then on to Middle Fork aided by a nice tailwind.

Beautiful views and I thought of Christian as I rode out along this stretch as he used to fish here a lot.The return was into that same wind but downhill so it balanced out.

Then it was just a case of getting it done on familiar roads in a 60 mile loop out to Renton and back via my old office in Factoria.

We finished at 7:30 in the evening, comfortably under the 40 hour time limit at 38:30 with around 28 hours of that actually on the bike.

Another early morning 5 am start from Redmond meant an even earlier alarm to get over to the start in time. Got there with time to spare and chatted with the usual suspects before the off. We rolled out on time and settled into a brisk pace up the initial climbs to get over to the Snoqualmie valley roads. I’m just not light enough to keep up with Yonnel once the road pitches up so I had some work to do to stay attached. I was just off the back of the front group cresting Old Woodinville – Duvall road but chased back on down the hill in time to take adavantage of the draft for another hour until Wood Creek road coming out of Monroe when I said goodbye to Yonell as he launched up the road with a handful of others.

Yonnel, Travis and one other ended up finishing together and I was essentially in the second group for the rest of the day with some other riders playing leapfrog with us in the last 100k once I faded big time.

Anyway, back to our story on Wood Creek road. I rode by myself for a while until Matt and Brian caught up and then chatted with them till Darrington. We had merged with a couple other riders, Matthew, Kolt and a single speeder when everyone scattered to refeult at different places, gas station and local park. I kept riding with Tom and we traded pulls for the next 60 miles or so to Baker Lake. Burpee Hill was as steep as ever but a steady pace got it done.

Baker Lake was the manned control on this ride at we spent a pleasant 30 minutes eating, restocking and waiting for others to join us before heading on for the remaining 150k.

I’d been off my bike with a head cold all week and that in conjunction with a pneumonia vaccine 2 days earlier meant I wasn’t feeling top notch. I fell way behind on my nutrition and hydration as it was hard to eat and drink on the move with a blocked up nose. I only had 1 bottle to drink in the first 7 hours which caught up with me as the ride continued and I tried to play catchup. Ended up stopping a lot more on the way back to try to get more food into me.

It was familiar roads and trails for the return and I rode with Brian and Matt for the rest of the day. They were good sports and willing to accomodate my extra stops for hotdogs and other food cravings.

We ended up finishing in about 16:45, moving time was 15:16 at 16.3mph (identical to the last time I rode this course 3 years ago with Mick so I’m pretty consistent).

For my next long ride I’m going to try to make sure that I follow my nutrition and hydration plan and not dig such a hole for myself.

Still all in all a good day out and a good test of my bike set up itself. The only thing I was missing were knee warmers for once the temperature dropped in the last hour riding back to Redmond. It was fine for an hour but I wouldn’t want to expose my knees like that on the moors in Scotland in August. My legs actually feel worked after this ride in contrast with the 300k.

This years Pacific Raceways race series started up last night. These races are held on a race track down south and are typically flat and fast affairs. I normally double up with two races (roughly an hour each with a 15 minute break between them).

There were big fields down for the first race of the season in both races, 45+ Masters and 35+ Masters. I sat in for the whole race on each one and felt really comfortable. This is a nice contrast to last year when I would often have a tough time sticking with the field for both races. This time my Garmin was actually telling me at the end that the primary benefit of the race was as a recovery ride so I should be able to go a good bit harder and do more in future races. All this while averaging over 26mph for the races

I actually set a personal best for the last 1K and 400m in my second race and seemed to be going at the same speed as the winners but had started towards the back so made no in roads on them in the sprint. It does give me some confidence to try moving up to the front coming up to the finish and see what I can do in future races.

We had a great showing from the team and good squads in all the races.

The latest addition to my pain cave wall arrived today, the 2025 Sweatfest champion rubber chicken! It’s taken 84 races over the last 5 years to finally have a winter indoor race season come together and win a rubber chicken. I’m surprisingly pleased with how satisfying it feels. Apex Tucson camp made all the difference to boost my fitness enough to consistently podium all the races following it.

There was a nice variety of races over the season with the best 8 results counting for the season. A consistent group of regulars showed up each Tuesday afternoon and it was a lot of fun to battle it out each week with both WSBA locals and racers scattered around the world.

Second race of the season and I decided to use Christian’s old bike for a bit more snap in acceleration than my Domane. It’s nearly 20 years old at this point but still handles great and brought back great memories of our rides together. Christian got me into longer bike rides back in the early 2000’s after I started getting back in shape following Ashley’s birth. At the time I’d ridden all my life but never further than 10 miles and always in street clothes. Over the course of a couple years of progressively longer rides on the Burke Gilman, some epic bonks and riding STP together I was converted into the world of full Lycra, clip in shoes and gel blocks.

This was a high end bike once upon a time but times have changed and now it was the only rim brake, manual shifting bike in the race.

Our field was combined with the 60+ field for this race and we had about 25 people total in the field. Apex had 4 people in the 50+ field and we had established our plan ahead of time. Frank and Brian were to launch an attack on the second bump on the course, form a break and ride off to victory while Harrison and I shut down any bridge attempts and controlled the peloton. It’s rare that a plan actually survives contact with the “enemy” but this time the break went exactly as planned.

Frank and Brian attacked and formed a strong breakaway with 3 other riders at the spot on the first lap that we had planned and vanished up the road. They kept putting time into the group as we continued our remaining 3 1/2 laps and by the end had over 6 minutes on the field. Harrison and I had fun covering any move from the peloton and it was good motivation to stay near the front, one of us was always in the front 4 wheels or so and often right on the wheel of anyone launching an attack.

The breakaway (with special appearance from bell ringer extraordinaire, Susan)

The peloton with myself and Harrison marking wheels

I felt pretty good throughout the race and the only tough attack to shutdown came on the third lap when the field fragmented a bit after the downhill coming back into the woods. I was in good position, 4th wheel for most of the last 6 miles but then after the downhill coming into 1k to go my shifter acted up and I couldn’t get into the right gear quickly enough to keep my position and played catch up for the rest of the finish. Ended up 5th in the field sprint (9th overall) as Harrison and I rolled over for a pack finish.

Frank and Brian came 3rd and 4th respectively and were a bit disappointed that they hadn’t handled the end of the break better, particularly with numbers that would allow them to try alternating attacks. Still a good result for the team nonetheless and good learning experiences all around.

Field sprint

Then it was back to the cars for some beer and a chance to hang out in the sun (not a guarantee at Mason Lake in March). There’ll be another chance on the same course next week so we’ll be back.