SIR's 100k Urban Populaire 2009 - Another Wet One

On Sunday I headed out for the first of SIR's season - the 100km "Populaire". A short ride to get the blood pumping, kinks worked out, and new svictimss riders giving this whole rando thing a try. But since I'd done a hard ride the day before, I had no plans of setting new records - I just wanted to have a good social ride.

I really enjoy urban riding, even with all of the stop lights and traffic. I guess I've just gotten used to it, since I ride a mix of urban and rural routes. Some riders might say that it's just too dirty, crowded, and slow, but hey - that's the city! Sometimes there's more to see in the city, you just have to know where to look.

Before The Ride

When I woke up, I was happy that I didn't hear wet roads outside. Although upon looking out the window, this explained why! Snow:

But hey, it's not really cold enough (it was 40F or so) to stick, so I figured I'd head down to the ride anyway (this was at about 8:30 AM, the ride started at 9). For some reason, I expected to roll up to the start and see a ghost town, e.g. the ride was cancelled. But I should've guessed that with this tough bunch it would take more than a little snow to stop the ride.

Rolling through slush was fun, but slower than usual. So I got to the ride start maybe right at 9, but luckily the pre-ride talk was still happening. Eric Vigoren, the ride organizer was giving the talk:

The Ride

We headed up towards the Burke Gilman trail, and the snow had since turned to plain old rain. We can handle that, for sure! My Ibex wool gloves were soaked, but luckily Chris had some of my other gloves and I got to use them. There are few better feelings than sliding on dry gloves on a cold day!

Some of the hills up north (was it 92nd?) were pretty tough, with one section topping out at 23% grade, according to my Garmin unit.

Here is our pack (Andy, Chris, John, Robert) cruising into that harsh headwind:

And here's John W. on Alki, enjoying the brief tailwind we had:

Now at the Lincoln Park control. That little gravel trail was interesting.. reminds me I still need to clean off the bike! It's a mess.

I got a flat shortly after this stop, and Robert got a flat near the end, in the Central District (I think). It was one of those days, when you get the tube in, fill it up, and then boom, off comes the valve with the pump. But Robert got it fixed and we were rolling again (not before a few randos stopped to look/help/rest):

Full photo set on flickr.

Ride Data

Since it was to be a "long steady distance" day, I tried to take it easy for the most part. You can see here that I stayed below my threshold (yellow horizontal line) except for some of the climbs (the orange-ish line is elevation, and the red line is heart rate)

Also the last 20 minutes of the ride was the section after Seward Park, where I let loose and tried to empty every last bit of energy I had. It's nice to know that after 6 or so hours of toodling, I still had it in me to push it.

I think this was the crazy hill section on 92nd.. that part with the slush and 23% grade! I definitely had to go over threshold here a good deal to push myself up it in a 39x25 gear. 291 watts for the six or so minutes of climbing here:

OK so that was pushing it. At the top, I was certainly out of breath after that! But I'm sure I was worse off there last year, things are indeed improving.

Entire workout (124 watts):
Duration: 4:53:07 (8:21:33)
Work: 2429 kJ
TSS: 220 (intensity factor 0.673)
Norm Power: 192
VI: 1.38
Pw:HR: -17.38%
Pa:HR: -10.76%
Distance: 104.652 km
Elevation Gain: 2263 m
Elevation Loss: 2361 m
Grade: -0.1 % (-98 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 893 139 watts
Heart Rate: 53 183 130 bpm
Cadence: 15 123 65 rpm
Speed: 0 80.1 21.1 kph
Pace 0:18 0:00 2:51 min/km
Altitude: -36 149 35 m
Crank Torque: 0 198.9 20.5 N-m

Huge thanks to the ride organizers and the volunteers. It's great to see SIR back in action, with familiar faces and some new ones too. Here's to another rando season!