Last Ride Of 2008, And Yearly Totals

Nothing special, but I went out for one last spin for the year, just for good measure. No 200k under my belt for December, but oh well, there's plenty of more time to pack in distance.

I set off south, on a familar route I've done way too many times, heading down Lake Washington Blvd. For some reason, I thought I could bust out a "fast" ride as a way to end 2008. But instead of warming up for the first 3-5 miles (as I should have), I went fast out of the gate, holding 18-24 mph into a headwind, averaging about 18.5 mph to Renton. But I felt almost wasted by that point already.. so I toned it down, and took it easy for a few miles.

Here's Lake Wa Blvd (I think) on the south-eastern side of Lake Wa, near Newcastle. One of my favorite sections:

I met up with the I-90 trail and headed east on it, towards Cougar Mountain. Gotta hit it up one last time for the year.. there was a "little" debris left over from the big snow of the last few weeks:

And as I got further up the hill, at about 800 feet, I saw what I really came for, a snow-lined road:

I guess you could say that the few cars that were driving this road were less than happy to see a slow cyclist chugging up the hill at 5 mph.. but what else is new. Being squeezed a bit into the lane by the snow/ice was interesting, but not too scary.

In January I'd like to do "The Alps" 200k permanent, a route that sounds like I'd love it. And one that would be a good measure of my overall fitness. So maybe I'll start doing that permanent monthly, and can hopefully track my (forward) progress throughout the year. We'll see.

Yearly Totals

I've been tracking my yearly totals this year, you can find the spreadsheet here.

Total Distance: 12,497 km (7,764 mi)
Flats: 11 (half of those were on that one 600k!)