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).
It was time for the yearly outing around Camano Island today. It was a bit foggy at the start but that quickly burnt off for blue skies for the bulk of the ride. The faster riders took off early on and my only further sighting of them was as I turned into the rest stop about a third of the way into the ride as they were leaving. It shows the difference riding through the year can make as my pace definitely drops off with my winter break. Still hopefully by the time the official brevet series starts and my fitness has improved a bit I’ll be seeing more of them 🙂
Great ride today and a nice chat with Rene who I rode with for the later half of the ride. My thighs were burning for the last 5 miles or so but other than that felt pretty good at the pace I was going at.
The kickoff to the SIR training rides for 2010 saw a break in the rain and a nice loop out from Sammamish Valley Cycle. Just a couple of climbs.
Christian and I rode STP this year after a hiatus of a couple years. Rather than the usual shots of people on bikes here’s one of us enjoying one of our many food breaks.
The ride itself was a lot of fun. It was a contrast in weather, Saturday was sunny for the whole day, hitting the high 80’s as we rode to the midway stop at Centralia. Sunday started with thunder,lightning and hail then eased off to typical Irish drizzle and pleasant cool riding conditions before torrential rain just after we finished in Portland.
But I get ahead of myself. Christian and I started off at 7am on Saturday after meeting at the start line. Waves of people went off every 10 mins (to space out the 10,000 participants) and we were never out of sight of riders for the whole event. It never really felt crowded on the road but the official food stops got a bit overwhelmed at some points on Day 1. It was very reminiscent of PBP, sans rain, with large lines of people at the food stops and bikes every where. Not quite as much sleep deprivation in evidence though and nary a curled up body in a bivy sack under any bushes.
We had a good ride down to Centralia (the picture above is about 15 miles from the half way point). We arrived at the camp site to meet Susan and the kids and Jennifer and set up tents. Then it was time to hang out in tent city and relax. My initial concerns that the kids might not get to sleep because of all the possibly rowdy bikers in tents all around soon turned to how to keep the kids from waking up all the same, now comatose, riders who had crashed without a sound.
We woke to the sound of torrential rain and thunder and lightning. Christian reckoned he’d be OK on his carbon bike as long as he stayed away from my all steel ride. Hummm. The rain eased off and after abandoning the long line for breakfast and enjoying some of Susan’s muffins instead we headed off to Portland.
Initial groans of discomfort soon eased and we rode from one food opportunity to the next, enjoying egg/bacon sandwiches, banana bread, hot dogs, and the occasional can of caffeinated beverage along the way. We made good time and got into a nice rhythm of alternating pulls, occasionally latching on to other groups if they were going at a compatible pace.
We arrived at Portland to our cheering families and then huddled under a tree while the rain came down. We finished with a lot more people this time as we were a couple of hours earlier than in 2006. There was more of a buzz at the finish despite the rain.
All in all a fun two days and great to be out riding with Christian again.
I’m getting back into cycling shape in preparation for the summer SIR Brevet series which will kick off next month with a 200k on July 25th. I took a couple months off around Ethan’s birth but am feeling the lack of exercise (and the body is showing it as the weight creeps up).
So far my rides have mainly consisted of my daily commute to work but I’m trying to get slightly longer rides in on the weekend.
Today was a return to the Burke Gilman trail for a ride out to Marymoor Park and back. I haven’t done this in a couple years (as the BG is not the smoothest of rides with all the tree roots pushing up the pavement). I remember bonking big time on this ride back in 2006 when I did it with Christian.
This time around I was able to hold a 17.3 mph average pace riding my fixed gear for the 56 mile ride (an improvement of a couple mph since my last time).
I’m planning on riding STP again this year with Christian (and hopefully his brother Clint as well). Today’s ride went well enough for me to stick with my plan to ride it on my fixed gear.