Category: Cycling

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.

A 43 mile hilly loop around Dash Point this morning. My legs felt pretty good throughout (though a bit of a twinge in my left knee on some hills). I better start doing my PT exercises again on it to strengthen up the associated muscles.

My times and speed for this route are essentially the same as the last 2 years.

Since the middle of 2006 I have spent roughly 840 hours on my bike riding 10,000 miles. (What’s scary is that I have spent nearly exactly the same number of hours, 838, barely moving in front of  a computer playing WOW)

Saturday’s ride was the annual loop around Camano Island. It was a really foggy day and visibility was pretty low for most of the ride. Riders up ahead of me would disappear pretty quickly into the fog and cars would appear out of nowhere. Thankfully the roads are pretty low traffic and the ride went well.

It wasn’t quite as cold at the start as in previous year’s (though I had remembered mittens this year so that made quite a difference for my hands, compared to fingerless gloves).

My legs felt a bit better for this ride so I think commuting a couple of days last week had helped them a bit. My pace seemed much the same as previous years so hopefully on track to build on that this year to get faster by the summer. 

As a side note, I nearly brought along my single speed for the ride but was glad enough to have the lower gears on my regular rando bike as the ride was hillier than I remembered. Got over 40 mph on one of the downhills without speed wobble setting in (focussing on keeping my arms relaxed).

Saturday morning saw the first in the winter training series rides that SIR run each year. A group of about 50 people showed up to the start at Sammamish Valley Cycle and we went for a 40 mile loop. The route itself had been re-planned at the last moment due to extensive flooding in WA last week. Unfortunately (for me) this meant we had to get above the flooded roads and thus a fair bit more climbing was involved to get to the proverbial “high road”. My pace was pretty slow but I plodded along and finished eventually.

It helped reinforce the decision to start commuting by bike again and so I picked up some waterproof panniers to carry my laptop safely and fixed up my bike for Monday’s commute. Hopefully a couple of weeks of daily riding will get my legs back to flying up these early season hills.

I headed out on Sunday for a ride with SIR, a 52 mile “steady state” pace. Unfortunately a steady pace averaging 16.5 mph after a couple months off the bike did not translate into an easy ride for me 🙂 I ended up being dropped on the way back from our out and back to Flaming Geyser Park. The pace lifted a bit and I wasn’t able to hold onto the draft (then the wind hit me and pow off the back of the pack I went).

So it was a couple of miles on my own before thankfully Peter and Amy came back to find me before my memory of the turns to take failed me. I rejoined the waiting pack after a couple more miles (queries as to whether I’d had a flat or mechanical problem were answered by “engine issues” i.e. me). I managed then to hang on until the finish.

Anyway it was great to be out (ahead of our evening snowfall) and a good motivator to get back in shape so that these rides are indeed easy training rides.